The 8th Annual LinkedIn Influencer Summit brought together over 1,000 attendees for a power-packed virtual event dedicated to helping entrepreneurs, coaches, sales professionals, and B2B business owners maximize LinkedIn in 2026.
Hosted by Joe Apfelbaum (CEO, evyAI.com) and Estie Starr (Founder, Strand Consulting), the summit featured seven world-class LinkedIn experts, each presenting a distinct, proven system for growing visibility, building relationships, and converting connections into clients.
The event ran for approximately four hours and concluded with a dynamic 90-minute Q&A session.
The overarching theme of 2026: in an era of AI-generated noise, the professionals who win on LinkedIn will be those who show up most authentically human — and who structure their content and profiles so that both humans AND AI engines recognize them as authorities.
The Hosts
Joe Apfelbaum — CEO of Ajax Union & evyAI
Known as “The LinkedIn Whale,” Joe is a serial entrepreneur, AI expert, and author of the “High Energy” book series including High Energy Networking and High Energy Prompting. He built Ajax Union to #178 on the Inc 500 list and now runs evyAI, a LinkedIn AI assistant platform serving 23,000+ users in 40+ countries. Joe goes LinkedIn Live 200+ times a year and manages a 1,600-member Skool community focused on AI and LinkedIn growth. www.skool.com/evyai
Estie Starr — Founder, Strand Consulting
Estie is the creator of the LinkedIn 15 system, a marketing strategist, host of the Business Breakthrough Podcast, and a self-described LinkedIn-first entrepreneur. LinkedIn took her from struggling post-maternity to closing five-figure DM deals in six months, earning features on NASDAQ and an invitation to speak at LinkedIn Global. Estie and Joe co-created this summit eight years ago after meeting at a speaking event and discovering their shared LinkedIn philosophies.
Detailed Speaker Recaps
1. Joshua Lee — “The Dopamine Dealer” | AEO & AI Visibility
Joshua B. Lee, founder of StandOut Authority, opened the summit with a paradigm-shifting talk about how LinkedIn success in 2026 is no longer just about algorithms — it is about Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). With nearly 50 million organic LinkedIn views in 2025 (up from 2.5M in 2023), Josh walked attendees through exactly how AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity decide who gets surfaced as “the answer.”
Core Concept: From SEO to AEO
SEO ranked pages. AEO ranks people. The goal is no longer to get clicked — it is to become the answer.
AI does not browse content. It assembles signals. If your signal is not structured, it will not be surfaced.
The key AI signals are: Entity Clarity, Authority, Recency, and Accessibility.
Josh updates his LinkedIn About section monthly to stay indexed on AI answer engines.
Three Action Moves (Implementable Today)
Create Answer Blocks: Identify three questions your audience constantly asks. Answer each in 2–3 plain-language sentences. Place these in your About section and articles.
Publish LinkedIn Newsletters with question-based titles: The first line of your newsletter should directly answer the title question. Google and AI index these within the hour on LinkedIn’s 100/100 Domain Authority.
Use the LinkedIn News Panel for Recency Alignment: Post a 3-2-1 content piece (3 lines of context, 2 lines of perspective, 1 clear takeaway) tied to trending LinkedIn news stories. This positions you inside trending conversations and trains AI to associate your name with those topics.
Key Quote: “AI doesn’t reward noise — it rewards clarity. Humans don’t follow tactics — they follow trust. Be felt first, then found.”
2. Nat Berman — The Million-Dollar T-Shirt Guy | Monetizing LinkedIn Attention
Nat Berman, CEO of Uncoached Corp and Co-Founder of Brand Built, is known for generating extraordinary engagement on LinkedIn (90,000+ followers, hundreds of comments per post). His session focused on one core principle: the difference between getting attention and building a business. His presentation was deliberately practical — he shared his screen, walked through live examples, and dropped message templates for attendees to use immediately.
The 5 Sources of LinkedIn Leads
First Connections who have posted on LinkedIn recently (filterable in Sales Navigator)
People who commented on your posts
People who liked/reacted to your posts
Profile viewers
Followers (often overlooked — most people never look at who follows them)
Universal Message Template (Non-Salesy DM Outreach)
First line options based on source:
Comment: “I noticed you engaged with a post of mine recently.”
Follower: “I noticed you recently followed my profile.”
First connection: “It’s been a while since we first connected.”
Profile viewer: “I noticed you recently viewed my profile.”
Then continue (same for all): Share who you write for, what you do, and invite open dialogue. State clearly this is 100% you — no VA, no AI. The goal is warmth, not selling. Volume: Nat reaches out to 50+ people per day manually in ~15–20 minutes.
Key Insight: “The larger the ticket, the more actual conversation is required before selling. A $1/month community might close from a template. A $10,000/month retainer requires genuine dialogue.”
3. Estie Starr — LinkedIn 15 Framework & E.I.E.I.O. Content System
Co-host Estie Starr took the stage with her signature LinkedIn 15 system — a framework built for busy professionals who want to build real business with just 15 minutes a day. Her session delivered a memorable, scalable framework for content strategy and daily LinkedIn activity.
The LinkedIn Party Analogy
LinkedIn is a networking event. Facebook is a reunion. Instagram is a coffee shop. TikTok is a slumber party. Show up dressed and behaving accordingly.
Choose LinkedIn as your primary party. Spray-and-pray across all platforms guarantees mediocrity on all of them.
Profile Quick-Win: Get Dressed (The Top 4 Elements)
Wallpaper banner: Name + company + brand color. Keep it simple.
Profile photo: Recent, friendly, professional. Your smartphone camera is good enough.
Name: Use your real name. Customize the pronouns field creatively.
Headline: “I help [X] with [Y].” Simple, specific, and targeted to your ICP.
The E.I.E.I.O. Content Framework
All LinkedIn content must fall into one of five buckets (in descending frequency):
E — Educational: Teach something valuable.
I — Inspirational: Move people emotionally.
E — Entertaining: Be a human worth following.
I — Informational: Share relevant industry news or insights.
O — Offer: Present a call to action. Keep offers to 10–20% of total content.
The 20-Cent Commenting Strategy
Inspired by Gary Vee’s $1.80 strategy but adapted for real life: Give 2 cents to 10 people per day, 5 cents to 4 people, and 10 cents to 2 people. A single high-value comment on the right post landed one of Estie’s clients a $40,000 deal. Quality over volume — every comment must be E.I.E.I.O. worthy.
The LinkedIn 15 Daily System
First 5 minutes: Check all inbound messages. Prioritize active leads. Clear spam connections.
Next 5 minutes: Post or comment in the feed. Use AI (she calls ChatGPT “Chai”) to draft posts with your authentic voice and EIEO structure.
Final 5 minutes: DM outreach — new connections, voice notes, follow-ups, hand-raisers.
Key Quote: “Clients have messaged me angry that the LinkedIn 15 is working so well they’re spending an hour a day because they’re closing so much business. I’m so sorry for them.”
4. Jon Keel — “The Old Dog with New Tricks” | 7-Step Social Selling System
Jon Keel, founder of Improved Together LLC and a veteran of three distinct business careers, presented his field-tested system for generating 5+ warm inbound organic qualified call requests every day — without cold calling or paid advertising.
The 7-Step Social Selling Framework
Step 1: Send 40 daily invitations to connect with ICP-matched prospects (using Sales Navigator filters).
Step 2: Daily review of profile viewers and post engagers — connect if not already.
Step 3: Send a warm Welcome DM to new connections. Never pitch. Build context first.
Step 4: Send 25 daily “Hand Raiser” DMs to first-degree connections in-market. A hand raiser is soft: it mentions what you do and invites them to raise their hand if relevant — no pressure.
Step 5: Use LinkedIn birthday, job change, and work anniversary notifications as natural, warm touchpoint moments.
Step 6: Post consistently — minimum 1 quality post per week, ideally 3. Never outsource this. Authenticity matters.
Step 7: Comment with substance — minimum 15 words, 2–3 sentences. “Commenting is the new posting.” Jon does 5 targeted comments per day.
Two Hidden LinkedIn Hacks
Profile Phone Hack: Add your phone number and email to the Education section of your profile — it surfaces directly under your banner, making you immediately reachable. “Nothing happens until a phone call happens.”
LinkedIn Support Hack: Message @LinkedInHelp on X (Twitter) for 100% response rate within 24 hours. This is the most reliable way to reach support.
Key Insight: “Inconsistency kills. Steps 1–5 are mechanical and can be systematized. Steps 6–7 (posting and commenting) are personal and must always come from you.”
5. Sam Rathling — Sales Navigator FUEL Framework
Sam Rathling, a top global authority on Sales Navigator (author of Linked Inbound and Linked Outbound), shared how her clients have generated $230M+ in new closed sales using her methodology. A cancer survivor and mom of three neurodivergent teens, Sam delivered one of the summit’s most emotionally resonant presentations alongside its most technical content.
The FUEL Framework for Sales Navigator
F — Find: Use Sales Navigator’s 32 lead filters and 15 account filters to laser-target your ICP. Look for decision-makers at companies with recent funding events and growing sales teams. Cross-pollinate account searches with lead searches using the Workflow feature.
U — Understand: Use Buyer Intent signals, account IQ, competitive landscapes, org charts, and relationship mapping to understand your prospects deeply before reaching out.
E — Engage: Use Sales Navigator’s filtered home feed to see only posts from your saved prospect lists. Engage intentionally with prospects’ content. No algorithm noise — you’re in full control of what you see.
L — Leads: Remember every lead is a real human. Invite up to 200 ICP-matched connections per week. Prospect manually — never automate the connection process. Save 10,000 leads and 10,000 accounts. Always use Connect (not InMail) for cold outreach.
The Social Selling Index (SSI Score)
Every LinkedIn user has an SSI score at linkedin.com/sales/ssi. It updates daily and measures four metrics: profile/content performance, prospecting, engagement, and trust-building.
Target: Top 1% in your industry and network. Free LinkedIn users should aim for 70+. Sales Navigator users can push 80–90.
Key Quote: “Behind every LinkedIn profile is a real human being. See leads as people, not numbers. Your entire approach should demonstrate that you genuinely understand who they are.”
6. Joe Apfelbaum — evyAI, 99 LinkedIn Hacks & Live Demos
As the summit’s host and a practicing LinkedIn expert, Joe’s presentation was a live demonstration masterclass — showing real tools in real time. He went LinkedIn Live during his own presentation to demonstrate the process, shared screen walkthroughs of evyAI, and unveiled his legendary 99 LinkedIn Hacks system.
evyAI Live Demo Highlights
AI Voice Training: Use evyAI to analyze your existing posts, emails, and comment history to train an AI model that writes exactly like you. Identify patterns in sentence length, signature phrases, and hooks.
LinkedIn Newsletter Automation: Generate AI-branded newsletter cover images featuring your face and logo in seconds. Publish newsletters directly from evyAI and push to email inboxes with one click.
Cross-Platform Research: Use evyAI’s 7 AI agents to research anyone — pulling their LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, website, podcast appearances, and articles into one profile. Instantly push to Go High Level CRM.
AEO Sub-Stack Strategy: Joe publishes on Sub-Stack and cross-posts to X to force Google indexing within minutes — instantly getting AEO signals to AI engines.
Key Hacks Shared (From the 99 LinkedIn Hacks System)
Hack #44 — Calendar Booking: Search “site:linkedin.com calendly.com [name or title]” in Google to find anyone’s public calendar link. Book yourself on their calendar with a compelling, genuine reason. see the video at 99hacks.club
Birthday Hack: Use evyAI’s LinkedIn birthday quick-links to send personalized blessing messages to connections on their birthdays in under 30 seconds each.
Greeting, Feeding, Meeting: Joe’s signature three-step DM framework for moving connections to meetings — greet with genuine care, feed with value, then invite to meet.
Live LinkedIn Strategy: Use Restream.io to simultaneously go live on LinkedIn and other platforms. Access comments via your Recent Activity (not the live itself) to engage properly.
Key Quote: “The right strategy will save you a decade. My mother ran her business for 10 years on the Lower East Side and never made it to a million dollars. In 18 months, I did. Strategy matters more than hustle.”
7. Rhonda Sher — Profile-to-Profit & The Face Reading System
Rhonda Sher, a 15-year LinkedIn veteran, Coach, and Speaker known as the creator of The Sher Method, delivered a two-part presentation: a tactical system for converting profile views into booked appointments, and a jaw-dropping advanced strategy using face reading to create instant rapport on sales calls.
Profile Views to Booked Appointments System
Profile views are hidden gold. They are your warmest leads — people who showed interest. Check twice daily (requires premium LinkedIn).
For a 1st-degree connection who viewed you: send a personal message referencing the view and invite them to a call. Use “no sales zone” language to lower resistance.
For a 2nd-degree viewer: send a personalized connection request mentioning mutual connections and why you noticed them.
Once connected: send a short video via Dub — which shows you when they open it. Track and follow up accordingly.
Pre-call prep: Read their About section, posts, and — critically — the recommendations they have GIVEN others. These reveal their own values through the words they consistently use.
Send a $10 Starbucks gift card to confirmed appointments. Results: near-zero no-shows, extraordinary reciprocity. One client generated a $35,000 referral from this method.
The Face Reading App (Advanced Strategy)
Rhonda introduced her proprietary face reading app — upload a LinkedIn headshot and receive a detailed personality profile: communication preferences, decision-making style, risk tolerance, and behavioral patterns. She offered the first 25 attendees a free face reading from a submitted headshot and LinkedIn URL. This strategy allows professionals to customize their communication approach before the first conversation even begins.
Rhonda’s 5-Part Daily LinkedIn Playbook
Check who viewed your profile (twice daily).
Comment with personality — make people smile and stand out from AI-generated comments.
Post content aligned with your brand AND designed to get eyeballs (use Dub video).
Reach out to a minimum of 5 people per day with a calendar invitation.
Use Dub video DMs — acceptance rates jump to 70–80% vs. text alone.
Key Quote: “Your next potential client is looking at your profile and you don’t know it. Profile views are like putting your card in an ATM and walking away without your money.”
8. Troy Hipolito — The Not-So-Boring LinkedIn Guy | Multi-Channel Relationship Systems
Troy Hipolito, Army veteran, gamification pioneer, Amazon best-selling author of The Art of Connection, and creator of Skoop (a video DM SaaS tool), wrapped up the speaker presentations with a systems-level view of how LinkedIn fits into a multi-channel business development engine.
Slow Dating for Business
Troy built his entire LinkedIn strategy on “slow dating” — the same principles of patience, listening, and genuine value delivery that work in relationships work in B2B sales.
When you help someone — whether paid or not — one of three things happens: they don’t speak badly of you, they hire you, or they become a referral advocate. Referrals are 10x more powerful than self-promotion.
Skoop: The Video DM Tool
Skoop improved Troy’s DM conversion from 3% to 21% — a 600x improvement — by replacing text-only outreach with raw, unpolished 30-second video messages.
The system: Wait 5 days after connecting. Send a personalized 2–3 line text message followed by a Skoop video. Title the video with their name. This “sandwich” approach takes 2–2.5 minutes and converts at remarkable rates.
3-Tier Value Structure
Tier 1 — Free Value: Events, content, introductory consultations. Give without expectation.
Tier 2 — Low-Ticket Offers: Consulting packages, SaaS tools (like Skoop). Get people inside your ecosystem.
Tier 3 — High-Ticket Offer: Done-for-you systems, team training, SOP building.
Event Monetization Case Study
Troy ran a 350-person virtual event. Only 47 attended. Only 2 booked calls after. Post-event: 5 follow-up emails, 37 people clicked the booking link, 5 booked. Combined with the 2 from the event = 7 booked meetings. Result: 3 deals closed for $30,000 that week. The system (LinkedIn outreach + email sequences + follow-up) did the work, not a single great session.
Closing Notes
The 8th Annual LinkedIn Influencer Summit closed with a packed Q&A room and attendees rating it 5/5 and beyond — with several writing numbers like 6, 10, and 14 in the chat when asked to score it from 1 to 5. Joe and Estie have committed to continuing this event as a free public service to the LinkedIn community, now heading into year nine in 2027.
Recordings of all sessions are available for purchase at influencersummit2026.com. Purchasers receive bonus access to recordings from the previous two years of the summit.
You can also get all the recordings as part of the Bundle plus offer from evyAI at www.thebundleplus.com where we will also be doing several recaps of the event and intergration training for our clients.
Joe Apfelbaum’s mission for 2026: Help 1,000 entrepreneurs generate $100,000 each in profit — adding $100 million in economic activity to his clients’ businesses. BOOM!
Join the movement today! Text demo to 973-841-8868
Thank you for allowing me to speak at the event. It was really fun and insightful.
My LinkedIn Multichannel Starter Guide PDF for free: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nK5ZPfPM4I2Ldjls4H21q5yKa8S0fw8n/view?usp=sharing