Hey,
My brain has been stuck on this mental image all week.
I was watching a Dr. K video (he's a psychiatrist who talks about mental health, motivation, all the fun woo-woo deep stuff. HIGHLY RECOMMEND. Might be better use of your Sunday than this issue) and he told this story about his daughter trying to close a board game box. The lid was slightly tilted. She was pushing down with everything she had. It wouldn't budge.
He walked over, shifted the lid maybe two millimeters, and it slid shut like nothing.
She wasn't weak. She wasn't doing it wrong. The angle was off.
And I sat there like... that's literally every frustrated founder who's ever come to me about content.
(yes, I had a "what my dog taught me about B2B SaaS" moment... what have I become)
A few weeks ago I hopped on a call with an SEO consultant. 68,000 followers. 6 million impressions in one year. He had genuinely built something impressive.
But since late 2024, everything had dried up. Leads gone. Growth stalled. Reach in freefall.
So he did what most people do. Tested new formats. Tried videos. Tried thought leadership. More output, different packaging, same direction.
Nothing worked. The only posts that kept performing were the: lists, carousels, how-to's. The same content that built his audience of freebie hunters in the first place.
That's when I named the actual problem. His content was attracting SEO learners. His revenue came from CMOs and business owners who needed SEO done. Two completely different people, and his whole content machine was built around the wrong one.
The lid wasn't going to close no matter how hard he pushed. The angle was off from the start.
What he actually needed was a funnel built around his business model: growth content to keep the impressions up, authority content to show credibility when decision-makers land on his profile, and every single post sending people to his newsletter so he owns those emails no matter what LinkedIn does next. Less noise, one clear direction.
I know that feeling because I lived it.
When I first started building Distinctiva, reach felt like proof it was working. I had individual posts hit close to a million impressions. I was going viral, growing fast, and the numbers looked great.
But the money didn't match. A post I put out recently with 5k impressions made me more than anything that ever went viral. Same platform, completely different audience, completely different result.
I was pushing the lid down as hard as I could. Just from the wrong angle.
Dr. K explained why in a way I hadn't heard before. He works with people dealing with depression, ADHD, addiction, burnout... and he said the pattern is always the same. People are told to try harder. Push through. More effort, more discipline, more willpower. But the problem was never effort.
He compared it to a doctor prescribing the wrong medication. If the diagnosis is wrong, increasing the dose doesn't help. You could try five medications at higher and higher doses and nothing changes. Because the diagnosis itself is off.
That's what a broken content strategy looks like. And "post more" is just increasing the dose.
Dr. K also said something that hit me on a personal level. He talked about how people who push and push and get nowhere eventually swing to the other extreme. They want to check out completely. Do nothing. Just... exist.
I've seen the LinkedIn version of this so many times. Founders and consultants who posted religiously, got no results, and now genuinely believe content doesn't work for their business. They're done. They've moved on. And the thing is... content does work. Their direction just didn't.
So if that's you right now (pushing hard, getting nothing, starting to wonder if this whole LinkedIn thing is a waste of time), try this before you quit:
• Who specifically am I writing this for? Not "my network." Name the role. The company size. The pain point they Googled at 11pm last Tuesday.
• What job is this post doing? Is it bringing new eyes? Building trust with warm leads? Driving a specific action? If you can't answer that, don't publish it.
• Would my ideal client read this and think "this was written for me"? Not your peers. Not other marketers. The person who signs the check.
You don't need to push harder. You need to shift the lid two millimeters.
Talk soon,
D.
P.S. If your content feels like it should be working and isn't... that's a direction problem, not an effort problem. That's exactly what we diagnose on consulting calls. Book one here → https://calendly.com/distinctiva/1-1-power-consulting-hour
P.S.S. I'm launching a community called The LinkedIn Engine. It's the DIY version of everything we do at Distinctiva… the content flywheel, the profile strategy, the writing system, all of it. Includes a 4-week bootcamp + live Q&A calls with me. Launching soon. Join the waitlist here → https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdJ-KeYYY2cEDQ4iSU5iitmGHHff9GWlYsqJZf_TVLTslnAXg/viewform