The Executive Brand Podcast How to Stand the F*ck Out with Louis Grenier
Louis Grenier is the founder of Stand The F*ck Out, and one of my recent favorite new follows on LinkedIn.
In this episode, we talk about what a real POV actually is (and why 99% of LinkedIn creators don’t have one), why low likes on a post don’t mean what you think they mean, the one marketing truth most companies are completely ignoring in 2026, and much much more.
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We discuss:
* The 4-step Stand the F*ck Out framework
* Differentiation vs. distinctiveness
* What a good POV actually is
* How he closed six-figure contracts from Linkedin posts that got almost zero engagement
* The “100% intensity” thesis to standing out
* Marketing truths too many B2B / SaaS companies are forgetting (again)
* Spending over $10k on a YouTube miniseries - for B2B??
* Why he stopped his podcast after 2 million downloads, and what he’d do differently if he starting a new one today
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Connect with Louis:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisgrenier/
Stand The F*ck Out: https://www.stfo.io/
Stand The F*ck Out Book: https://www.amazon.com/Stand-Out-No-Nonsense-Positioning-Business/dp/B0DVH5C8SP
The Roost Community: https://www.stfo.io/roost
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Connect with Finn:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finnthormeier/
Project 33 - LinkedIn Agency for CEOs: https://www.project33.io/
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My personal takeaways:
* A point of view is not a hot take machine. Louis draws a sharp line between having random opinions and having a point of view, and most people on Linkedin are doing the first and calling it the second. A real POV is a consistent thread baked into everything you put out. His: “What you’ve been taught about marketing is mostly wrong. And it’s not your fault because you’re surrounded by b******t.” He never names names, but he calls out the culture of the category.
* Louis has closed six-figure deals from posts with almost no likes. His whole LinkedIn philosophy is that posts are just a signal flare. The real value is the one DM it triggers from the right person, and that DM turns into a real conversation, which turns into a deal. He genuinely doesn’t care about like counts, because he’s watched low-engagement posts lead directly to five- and six-figure contracts.
* Differentiation vs. distinctiveness are two completely different games. Differentiation is positioning: we solve a problem others don’t.
Distinctiveness is branding: we get noticed through assets that could be completely arbitrary (orange profile pic, a swear word in the name). Louis’s point is that past a certain company size, true differentiation is rare, but distinctiveness is always available. Most large companies are working on a differentiation problem that doesn’t exist for them anymore, when distinctiveness is the actually problem.
* Nobody buys because they're in pain. They buy when a trigger event causes them to move. Louis's example: back pain for 10 years doesn't get someone to the physio. Grandkids visiting and wanting to walk to the park does. The marketing version: stop obsessing over the pain your customer has and start obsessing over the specific moments in time that make them go from not moving to moving. He believes that a half-page of trigger events beats a 50-page strategy deck every time.
* Louis’s writing advice: start by posting a lot, because the feedback loops on Linkedin are fast and you learn quickly what lands. Then move to quality, but don’t over-optimize to audience response, because chasing engagement too hard turns you into someone who only says what people already want to hear. “If you optimize the website too much, it turns into a porn site.” Once you’ve built taste, then you can think about systems and volume.
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