Three Common Pitfalls Costing Founders Clients on LinkedIn, According to Jessie Van Breugel

In a recent LinkedIn post, jessie van breugel, who has worked with over 200 founders on the platform, highlights three recurring issues that hinder client acquisition. Van Breugel argues that many founders are inadvertently pushing potential clients away due to a lack of coherence between their online presence and their sales strategy.

The first major obstacle identified by Van Breugel is the disconnect between a founder’s profile and their content. She observes that a profile might declare a specialization, such as “Executive Coach,” but the accompanying posts focus on generic topics like morning routines or leadership clichés. This inconsistency, Van Breugel explains, makes it difficult for prospects to understand the value proposition.

“Prospects look at the profile, look at the content, but can’t connect them. They click away from the profile.”

To rectify this, Van Breugel advises founders to pinpoint the single, most impactful outcome they deliver to clients and prominently feature it in their headline. Subsequently, every piece of content should reinforce this core message, thereby building a cohesive brand identity that resonates with the target audience.

The Perils of the 80/20 Content Imbalance

Van Breugel also addresses what she terms the “80/20 trap,” where founders dedicate 80% of their content to personal branding and only 20% to direct selling or problem-solving for their buyers. While this approach might attract followers, Van Breugel contends that these followers are unlikely to convert into paying clients because the content hasn’t established the necessary authority or relevance.

Conversely, she points out that the minimal selling content often feels “needy” because it lacks the foundational support built by consistent, value-driven posts. The issue, as Van Breugel sees it, is not the lack of selling, but the lack of earning the right to sell.

The proposed solution is to invert this ratio. Van Breugel advocates for an 80% focus on demonstrating expertise related to the buyer’s actual problems, with the remaining 20% reserved for personal content that directly supports and enhances the perceived expertise.

The “Teach, Teach, Teach, Never Ask” Syndrome

A third critical issue Van Breugel identifies is the tendency for founders to engage in prolonged periods of educational content without ever prompting potential clients to take the next step. She notes that this “teach, teach, teach, never ask” approach can lead to prospects eventually purchasing from competitors who are more direct in their calls to action.

“Founders teach for 6+ months. Then their prospects go buy from whoever actually invited them to.”

According to Van Breugel, this strategy fails because it doesn’t guide prospects through the sales funnel. She suggests a more effective approach: incorporating a call to action in approximately every fourth post. This could be an invitation to a call, a request for a reply, or the offer of a valuable resource.

The Bottleneck of Coherence

Ultimately, Van Breugel concludes that the primary bottleneck for many founders is a lack of coherence across their profile, content strategy, and calls to action. She observes that many are attempting to fix their results by adjusting the wrong variables.

“The bottleneck is coherence between profile, content, and ask. Most founders are changing the wrong variable.”

Van Breugel encourages founders to critically assess their own LinkedIn presence and identify which of these three areas requires the most attention to improve their client acquisition efforts.