In 2025, I was a LinkedIn ghostwriter.
Prospects would come to me already knowing exactly what they wanted. “We need a LinkedIn ghostwriter.” And I would say, “Okay.”
It felt simple. They knew what they wanted, I gave it to them, and charged money for it. But something was off, and it took me a while to name it.
You are already late
If they come to you with a solution in mind, it’s already a little too late. You are no longer a strategist who can guide them toward the right solution — you are an implementer, expected to build whatever you are told. This is the classic commodity trap.
had become a commodity, lost in a sea of LinkedIn ghostwriters, with no concrete way to differentiate myself.
Thought leaders play a different game
Here’s what I started noticing about the people I admired.
None of them built their Big Idea because a client asked for it.
Simon Sinek didn’t arrive at “Start With Why” because someone briefed him on it. Kim Scott didn’t build “Radical Candor” on audience demand. Jonathan Stark didn’t land on “hourly billing is nuts” because consultants showed up asking him to get them off the billable hour.
They did the opposite. They studied the problems their people actually had and then showed up with an assertion.
You have this problem. Here’s what’s really causing it. And here’s the right solution.
Watch how that changes a conversation.
The client pushes from one side:I need to make more money. Help me raise my rates.
The thought leader (in this case, Jonathan Stark) pushes back from the other: The reason you can’t make more money is that you bill by the hour. Raising your rates won’t fix that. Changing how you price will.
Jonathan didn’t accept the request. He reframed it. He met the stated want with an assertion of his own. That push is what separates the authorities from the commodities.
Authority brands don’t do what they are told
They don’t treat the symptom. They make an assertion about what’s actually causing the problem.
The cause sits underneath. And the cause is messy. Less obvious. Harder to see from the inside. It is the part the client cannot diagnose for themselves.
Which is exactly why they need you.
Why most of us don’t do this
Because operating on the cause is not free.
The moment you stop saying “Okay” and start saying “actually, here is what I think is really going on,” you put your own point of view between yourself and the client.
And a point of view comes with a tax. You have to educate. You have to make an assertion before you have proof. Some people will disagree. Some will walk away.
“Okay” is safe. An assertion is not.
So most of us, quietly, retreat to “Okay.” We take the brief, do the work, and then wonder why we keep getting compared on price.
Is it time to change the conversation?
When I transitioned to working with clients on their “Big Idea”, it felt risky. Soloists would describe their problem as “Nobody is responding to my content,” and I would say, “Could it be that your expertise is complex and no one gets it? Could it be that you need a single idea that carries your brand?”
Not everyone resonated with it, but some of them did.
So here’s the question: what if your next conversation didn’t end in “Okay”?