Your content is working. That's the problem.
Why your engagement is growing and your client list isn't.
You start posting. You’re consistent. You get engagement. Your follower count goes up.
Then you realize almost everyone responding is basically doing the same work you are. Another designer. Another marketer. Another PM. Someone who gets it, but can’t hire you.
Not a single client in sight.
The content feels like it’s working. The numbers look fine. But nothing is actually moving.
Some folks don’t catch this until 18 months in. By then the audience feels real. But if none of them can hire you, the numbers don’t mean much.
Why it happens
People doing this kind of work write about it from their side of it.
They post about how they work, how they think, how they structure things, why they went out on their own. That connects with other folks doing the same kinda stuff.
But the person who might actually hire you doesn’t care about any of that.
They’re thinking about growth slowing down, missed targets, hiring too soon or too late, or some part of the business that isn’t working the way it should.
So when they land on your profile and see posts about your process, they don’t see themselves in it. They keep scrolling.
Here’s a simple check: Would someone who wants to hire me, not become me, get something out of this?
If the answer is mostly no, that’s the problem.
I tested this
I didn’t start by writing for other designers. From the beginning, I wanted to write for founders. That’s who I wanted to hire me.
But figuring out what that actually meant took some time. What would they want? What could I add that wasn’t already out there? What does authenticity look like when you’re trying to attract clients, not just peers?
I struggled with it…
But eventually I stopped trying to reverse-engineer things and just started writing things I actually wanted to see in the world. Posts I thought should exist. Contrarian takes I wasn’t seeing.
What happened surprised me a bit. A friend would like something I wrote. Their boss would see it. Someone they went to school with would reach out. The path from post to client wasn’t always direct, but it was working.
Writing for founders didn’t mean performing expertise. It meant having something to say that a founder would actually care about. Once I figured that out, the rest got easier.
What to write instead
Clients don’t care what you call yourself.
They care about what’s not working and who can fix it.
Every post should start from a problem they’re already feeling:
“We’re spending more on ads, but it’s getting harder to acquire customers.”
→ That’s where a Fractional CMO comes in“We’re growing, but I don’t actually trust our numbers.”
→ That’s a Fractional CFO problem“We keep shipping features, but nothing’s moving our retention.”
→ That’s a Fractional CPO issue“Engineering is slow, messy, and expensive… but I’m not ready for a full-time CTO.”
→ That’s where fractional makes sense“The product looks fine, but we keep losing deals after the demo.”
→ That’s a design problem, not a sales one
The post isn’t about your title.
It’s about the moment someone realizes something’s off, and starts looking for help.
Don’t lead with what you are. Lead with what’s going wrong.
A quick content audit
Look at your last 10 posts. Here’s the rough split:
Usually attracts peers:
Journey or process posts — “Here’s how I structure my week across 3 clients”
Tool or workflow posts — “My favorite async communication stack”
Going-fractional advice — “What I wish I knew before leaving full-time”
More likely to attract founders and operators:
Business outcome posts — “What it actually costs to delay hiring for this function”
Problem or cost posts — “The early warning signs your [function] is becoming a liability”
Outcome-led case studies — “We cut [metric] by X% by doing Y, here’s the story”
You can still write about the work. Just make sure most of it makes sense to the person who might actually pay you.
If you don’t have case studies yet
It can feel awkward. Maybe you don’t have many client stories. Maybe the work is under NDA. Maybe you feel like you haven’t earned the right to talk this way yet.
But you’re not pretending to have done work you haven’t done. You’re showing how you think. That’s a big part of what people are buying anyway.
You can write about:
Patterns you’ve seen across companies you’ve worked in or watched closely
What a problem is probably costing a company if they leave it alone
Public examples where something clearly wasn’t working and what likely needed to change
Before and after breakdowns that help someone see where they are versus where they need to get
It works because it meets someone inside a problem they already have.
Run the audit
Go look at your last 10 posts right now. What’s your split?
Reply and tell me. I’ll tell you what I’d change.
One more thing
Most of my content is aimed at founders. This isn’t.
I’m writing this Substack for fractionals, operators, and agency owners, because that’s who I’m building Juggle for. Everything here comes from real workflow problems I’ve been dealing with myself, and patterns I’ve seen across 200+ people doing this kind of work.
If you’re in that world, I’m opening up a small beta:
Sign up to be a beta tester here.
Thanks for reading,
Gev
Thank you for this! Has definitely made me think twice about the type of content I'm creating..... and that I need to write more for my target clients!