Every Channel Has Exactly One Job
The Network Series · Part 6 of 10
Most channel debates are the wrong debate. The question isn’t whether LinkedIn or email or the phone is “good.” It’s what job each one does for your network.
The first five posts were the diagnosis, ending with why automating cold outreach only made it worse. Here’s where it turns constructive. If the network is the asset — and everything so far says it is — then every channel has to be re-graded against a single question: what job does this do for the network? Not “is it good or bad.” Not “what’s the open rate.” What job.
Four jobs, not a ranking
Ask it that way and the channels sort themselves into jobs instead of a leaderboard:
- Some channels build the network — how you meet the right people and earn a first signal of trust.
- Some nurture it — they keep relationships that already exist warm.
- Some close inside it — they carry deals already in motion to a decision.
- Some keep you visible — so the network remembers you at the moment that actually matters.
A channel can be excellent at one of these and useless at another, which is why “good channel / bad channel” arguments go nowhere. Email is a poor way to meet a stranger and a great way to close someone who already knows you. That’s not a contradiction — it’s two different jobs.
It isn’t a ranking. It’s a division of labor. None of the channels is the hero, and none of them is the enemy.
The division of labor, in one pass
Here’s the whole map at a glance; the next two posts go deeper.
- LinkedIn builds the network — the opener and peer-signal builder.
- Email nurtures and closes — warm relationships and deals in motion.
- Phone and cold email fire on triggers — a real event that justifies the reach.
- SMS handles logistics — after someone has said yes.
- Facebook, Instagram, and X are presence — where your buyer’s world happens to live.
- YouTube is proof — the evidence a buyer finds when they go looking.
Why this reframe does the real work
Grade channels this way and the budget question answers itself. You stop pouring money into a channel because it’s “supposed” to work and start asking whether it’s doing a job your network actually needs. Most of the waste from the first post — the programs that produced activity but no pipeline — was really a channel being asked to do a job it was never good at. Give each one the single job it’s built for, and the mix gets simpler, cheaper, and far more effective.
Next: the two workhorses — LinkedIn to build the network, email to close inside it — and how to use each for the job it’s actually good at.
Go deeper
The full argument — every channel regraded on one question, plus the playbook for a small team — is in the white paper.
Read: Digital Marketing Is Dead →
If any of this lands and you want to talk about what it means for your team — 15 minutes at cal.com/shawn-ennis. No prep needed.
