The Buyer Psychologist | Sell more using science (not guru B.S.) | 63,000+ marketing geeks read my free newsletter

You’re dangerously smart.

Yet people with half your experience are making 10X more. Why?

It’s not talent or connections.

And it’s definitely not by “hacking the algorithm” (sorry, LinkedIn gurus).

The wealthiest consultants, agency owners, and coaches all have one thing in common:

→ They own an idea in their buyers’ minds.

And that idea? It does the selling for them.

It positions them as an authority, spreads while they sleep, and sticks in your brain like superglue.

I call these “ownable ideas.”

Think “boring businesses” or “Start with Why”.

Those ideas made their creators famous. But more importantly, those ideas sell—attracting clients and building leverage money can’t buy.

Just one idea, built on a strategic foundation and spread relentlessly, changes everything.

I know because I’ve lived it...

In 2020, I was an unknown growth consultant.

Well-respected, sure. I’d built a $250K/year business on referrals and hustle. But I was also burnt the F out.

Revenue was lumpy and I was exhausted from trying to do ALL THE THINGS: client work, sales, creating content.

Then I found my first ownable idea. Everything changed.

→ $1M/year in revenue as a solopreneur (and new mom
→ 140K+ followers on Twitter
→ 92K+ followers on LinkedIn
→ 63K+ newsletter readers
→ Recognized as a global authority on “buyer psychology” (the first ownable idea I named and claimed)

Since then, I’ve helped 1,900+ big-brained experts become unignorable. (I bet one of your favorite thinkers on LinkedIn is a past client or student.)

Now I’m building UNIGNORABLE, the Ownable Ideas agency.

We help expert entrepreneurs find, shape, and share their first ownable idea.

Your big breakthrough isn’t hiding in some growth hack or viral hook formula.

It’s already in your head.

Don’t just share ideas. Own one.

→ Follow me to see how it’s done.

–
P.S. I accept a handful of new clients each month.

Join my newsletter to learn how to apply: beunignorable.com

Katelyn Bourgoin 🧠

Them: “Say one thing 1,000 ways.”
You: “Ok. But how da f*k do I do that?”
Me: *tada*

Everyone says repeat your core message, right? I’ve said it too because it’s true.

But nobody really explains how do it. “Just stay on topic” is shitty advice. Especially if you want to create content the gets clients—not just claps from peers.

What you need is a repeatable system. One that’s specifically designed to convert attention into clients and compounds authority systematically. 

That’s where my Authority Flywheel comes in.

Here’s how it works:

Your ownable idea sits at the center, and four content types form the engine:

Problem. Name their struggle
POV. Share your unique take or approach
Promise. Show what’s possible
Proof. Demonstrate you delivered

Repetition is the multiplier. 

Each post reinforces the same mental territory from a different angle, and each rotation produces raw material for the next. 

Problem-led content attracts prospects. POV reframes how they think. Promise speaks to their aspirations. Proof converts.

When you get results for a client, you surface new Problem angles, new POVs, and more client wins that become Proof. The flywheel spins and your authority grows.

This system works... with one important caveat.

You need to nail your ownable idea at the center.

Codie Sanchez can post about pricing, hiring, and loan negotiations in the same week without anything feeling scattered—because every topic traces back to one idea: you can buck the system and build wealth by owning “boring businesses.”

The ‘topics’ or formats of her posts can change drastically. She can post listicles or graphics or story-driven shorts. But Codie’s core idea stays the same.

But most people don’t do it this way.

They hammer the same topics over and over thinking *that’s* consistency—but talking consistently about a topic that sounds like everyone else in your space will still keep you painfully invisible.

Buyers aren’t starved for information. They’re drowning in it. What they want is a fresh take on a familiar problem—from someone whose perspective changes how they think.

People need to buy into your thinking before they buy from you.

So let me ask: do you have a consistency problem? Or a content problem? Or is the deeper problem that you don’t know what to say in a way that makes people care?

If it’s the latter, posting more won’t help.

Find your center, nail it, and then share it relentlessly in 1,000 different ways using the Authority Flywheel

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Have a brainy day!

Idea owners get rich

Katelyn Bourgoin

Top paid experts have one thing in common:
They sell ideas (not just time).

And idea owners get rich.

Simon Sinek charges $100K+ for a keynote today.

But before his famous “Start With Why” TED Talk? He was a relatively unknown marketing consultant.

Yup. One idea can change everything.

Not a product.
Not a service.
An *idea*.

A well-sculpted idea—supported by a strategic story and shared religiously—can build your authority, spread while you sleep, and generate demand (without chasing).

I call these “ownable ideas”.

And there are 6 types:

// 1. Distinctive Philosophy

Offers a belief about how things should be done that others can live by.

↳ “Start With Why” (Simon Sinek)
↳ “Everything is Figureoutable” (Marie Forleo)

// 2. New Category

Defines a new type of solution or market space you can lead.

↳ “Zero-Click Content” (Amanda Natividad)
↳ “Dark social” (Chris Walker)

// 3. Coined Problem

Names a struggle people recognize but didn’t have words for.

↳ “Law of Shitty Clickthroughs (Andrew Chen)
↳ “The Dip” (Seth Godin)

// 4. Method/Framework

Provides a repeatable methodology, framework, or system others can follow to solve a specific problem.

↳ “Storybrand canvas” (Don Miller)
↳ “5-second Rule” (Mel Robbins)

// 5. Identity Label

Creates an aspirational identity that someone can step into.

↳ “Solopreneur” (Justin Welsh)
↳ “Growth Hacker” (Sean Ellis)

// 6. X vs. Y

Frames a this-or-that distinction that changes how people see their choices.

↳ “Shallow vs. Deep Work” (Cal Newport)
↳ “One-Way vs. Two-Way Doors” (Jeff Bezos)

—
Some types of ownable ideas are harder to pull off than others. But all 6 types of ownable ideas do the same thing when executed well: they work even while *you* don’t.

Your idea becomes your best salesperson. It attracts clients, commands premium prices, and builds leverage you can’t buy.

The lesson?

Don’t just share ideas.
Own one.

—
P.S. wanna learn more? My new Unignorable newsletter will go deeeeeeeep on this topic.

What you see is my ownable idea map. What you DON’T see is the graveyard of legitimately good ideas that didn’t make the cut.

This one-pager captures my ownable idea, my positioning, and the repeatable messages I’ll use at different stages of the buyer’s journey that tie it all together.

This is one of several deliverables clients will get when they work with us.

It looks clean. Simple even.

But getting here meant exploring dozens of possible angles and killing ideas I genuinely loved.

*That’s* the real work.

And it all hinged on one decision: the central argument.

Your central argument is the foundation your entire brand narrative builds from.

And finding the right one is tricky. 

We dig into your brain to find the sparks, then I do buyer and market research to shape it into an idea you can own—supported by full positioning and messaging strategy.

It's hard work. And necessary work. 

Before I clarified my argument, every idea felt equally good. Equally worth pursuing.

I could’ve gone in 100 different directions and made a case for each one.

And I sorta did. And it confused my audience (and hurt my soul).

Sound familiar?

That’s the trap most experts fall into.

You’re not short on ideas. 
You’re drowning in them.

And without committing to a central argument that anchors everything, you just keep drifting from idea to idea—lost.

Creating the messaging map is the easy part.

Killing good ideas so you can commit to ONE epic one?

That’s what’s hard.

—
P.S. Have you figured out your ownable idea? Or are you trying to share 10 ideas while never becoming known for one?

It’s International Women’s Day. But I don’t feel like celebrating. I feel angry. 

Today, like too many days before it, we’re reading horrifying allegations of grown men abusing little girls.

Not women. Girls.

Women shouldn’t have to fight for equal recognition.

Women shouldn’t have to fight for equal pay.

And women and girls—children—shouldn’t have to fight for basic human rights. 

But here we are.

Still fighting. 
Still mad as hell. 
Still not giving up.

ChatGPT says I'm the #1 buyer psychology expert on LinkedIn. But I cheated...

No, I don't know some voodoo magic for ranking in ChatGPT. My "hack" is years in the making.

Honestly? It's probably the best thing I did in my business. It made everything else easier.

Here's the backstory...

When I started my Why We Buy newsletter in 2020, I had a decision to make:

How would I cateogorize it?

Technically it was about "behavioural economics"—using cognitive biases and heuristics in marketing.

Sounds science-y, right? Yeah, that was the problem.

My ideal readers weren't academics. They were marketers and founders building online businesses.

Now I could have used a sexier term: “consumer psychology”. 

But my target readers mostly ran B2B businesses. They didn't sell "consumer" products. They sold services and software.

So I took a strategic leap. I created the world's first "buyer psychology" newsletter. No other person owned that specific category, so I:

→ named it 
→ framed it
→ claimed it

This brings me to my "hack"...

If you want to be known for something specific, you can literally choose to name that thing (eg. think “boring businesses” or Storybrand). 

But making it spread isn't just about choosing the right words.

You must attach meaning to those words (aka. frame it).

The easiest way to do that is by starting with a problem your audience already feels.

In my case, that problem was chronic overwhelm. Marketers are exhausted by constant change—always chasing, never catching up. But human behavior doesn't change. It's a steady anchor in the raging sea.

So I crafted a simple mantra: Marketing changes fast. People don't. Learn buyer psychology.

I framed the problem (ie. speed of change) and offered a distinctive solution (ie. buyer psychology.)

Then to claim it? I just spread that idea everywhere. It became the dominant narrative underpinning all my content.

Not once. Not twice. But consistently across 100s of posts... for... years.

Finding my first ownable idea changed my business. It can change yours too.

So if you want to be seen as an authority in your space (and get paid like one), I've got a new mantra for you:

Don't just share ideas.
Own one.

That's the best "hack" there is.

--

P.S. Claiming a new category isn't the only type of ownable idea. It's actually one of six (and probably the hardest to pull off).

I'm breaking down all six in my new UNIGNORABLE newsletter. Next issue drops this Thursday.

Drop a 🧠 if you want in.

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

Your buyer already knows what they want. They’re waiting for someone to show them why everything they’ve tried falls short.

That’s why an ownable idea is so powerful. When you find the right one, you stop chasing clients and start attracting them.

But not with a catchy tagline or a polarizing take. What you need is an argument that meets your buyer’s existing goals and exposes the gap in how the market currently serves them.

An example?

Justin Welsh built a $10M business on his ownable idea. He didn’t invent solopreneurship. The word already existed—but before Justin, nobody wanted to claim it. 

Calling yourself a “solopreneur” felt like admitting your business was small. Like your ambitions weren’t serious enough to build a 'real' company.

Justin reframed its meaning entirely. He argued that choosing to work solo was an act of rebellion. It was the smart path to ditch "the rat race" (Justin's words) and live on your own terms. 

Being a solopreneur became a statement. You valued freedom over fancy titles or unicorn exits.

Justin didn’t change what people wanted. He told a story that changed what it meant to want it and gave them a new identity to proudly step into.

You can see how powerful that is, right? 

Here's where people go wrong: 

You won't find your ownable idea by guessing at a clever phrase. 

You have to understand your buyer’s world first—what they want, and why everything they’ve tried has failed to deliver it. That gap is where your argument lives.

The graphic above breaks down the method we use with clients to find, shape and share their first ownable idea. 

In Excavate, we surface your thinking and map it against your buyer’s world (their goals, desires, and where existing solutions are falling short). 

In Distill, we find the argument that’s genuinely ownable and fits where your buyer already is.

Stage 3 is Claim. The idea gets locked. Not invented. Chosen.

In Shape and Activate, we build the full language system and strategic narrative around your idea and help you put it into the world. 

This is how you stake your claim on an idea that sells…. like Justin did. 

Justin’s idea didn’t spread because he just chose the right words. It spread because he named something people already wanted to claim as their own. 

That’s what the right ownable idea does: it doesn’t just attract clients. It creates believers.

—
P.S. Are you becoming a believer in the power of ownable ideas?

Let’s normalize disagreeing with someone without disliking them 

If you’re saying anything even remotely interesting people will disagree 

Thems the breaks 

But that doesn’t mean it needs to be mean-spirited—accept it as feedback and keep rocking

You just wrote something good...

Then deleted it because it felt "too obvious".

That's the Expert's Paradox in real time.

What feels like common sense to you is genuinely rare insight to someone two steps behind.

The idea you almost didn't post? 

Could be your best one.
Post it.

Being invisible just got more expensive.

Before?

You could do good work and hide behind your results. Client referrals were enough. 

Now? 

The experts winning aren’t always the best or the most experienced. They’re often the most visible.

They think in public, daily. 

And because they show up and say something different—something people didn’t know they needed to hear—these expert entrepreneurs attract believers (not just followers)   
 
Here’s what kills me about this: most of the experts I work with are *brilliant.*  

Genuinely.  

But ask them to explain what makes their thinking different… and they freeze.  

You get the same vague answer as everyone else.
  
That’s the Expert’s Paradox at work. Your best insights feel like common sense so you never share them. 

Your audience has no idea how you actually think.
 
That gap—between the quality of your thinking and the visibility of it—
is the real threat. Not AI.
 
Get it right and AI becomes your advantage.  

Keep ignoring it and you’re competing on price with a robot. 

And spoiler alert: that’s not a game you can win. 

So don’t just share ideas. Own one.

I (foolishly) shut down my profitable agency because I was sick of the feast-famine cycle.

I started a tech company instead. Surely that would be easier, right?

Wrong. I went bankrupt.

But let me back up...

--
In 2010. I founded my branding agency, RedRiot. 

My vision was crystal clear: we'd be the only agency in Eastern Canada that specialized in guerrilla marketing. 

Guerrilla marketing was new, it was gutsy, and I was obsessed with it.

The wee problem? I was new to business and had zero contacts. Finding clients was haaaaard.

So I got clever...

I used some black hat SEO to rank us for keywords like "marketing agencies Halifax." (No one was searching for "guerrilla marketing" back then)

And it worked. Leads started rolling in from Google.

Except these weren't people who cared about guerrilla marketing.

They were typically small business owners with tiny budgets. They didn't understand what made our approach different. They didn't want what I actually wanted to offer.

They just knew they needed "a marketing agency." 

And I had bills to pay, so I said "yes" to every project anyway...

Want us to build a website? Sure. 
Need social media content? We got you.

Every project was different. Our clients were cheap. And I was burnt the F out.

So I did the only thing that felt logical at the time: I decided to blow up my agency and start a tech company.

How hard could that be, right? 

Turns out... VERY hard. 

As I soon learned, SaaS was way harder than selling services.

--
Looking back, I know what I should have done differently...

I should have built my personal brand. 

I could've created content that showed my ideal clients why guerrilla marketing was the future. I could've pre-educated and pre-qualified potential clients through content.

My personal brand would've done the heavy lifting before we ever talked.

Instead, I convinced myself that building an audience was just an ego play. But that was my own insecurity talking. It wasn't true.

--
If you're running a service business today, don't make the same mistake I did. 

Don't blow up your current business searching for an "easy" business. (There aren't any.) 

Start creating content and sharing your rebel POV on your industry. Figure out what you want to be known for and double-down.

Build an audience who buys into your ideas *first* and shows up ready to hire you.

Your personal brand isn't vanity. It's strategy.

It's the difference between chasing clients and making them chase you.

So what's stopping you?

--
P.S. This pic is from one of the cool guerrilla branding projects we did back then. We helped our vodka client create the world's first double-label and create an insider brand for true vodka lovers. Cool, huh?

This might surprise you given the fact that I’m pushing 100K followers here, but… 

I don’t jump out of bed every day excited to create content.

Nope. 

The thing I really love is *PRODUCT*.

↳ Product design
↳ Product strategy
↳ Product marketing

But because I wake up every day and create content… I get to sell more products.

Funny how that happens, huh?

I also get to clarify my thinking about the problems our products solve and how they should evolve. That is a MASSIVE second-order benefit to content creation.

So if you don’t love creating content, that’s fine. That’s normal. Most people don’t.

But it’s still worth doing.

Get it right? And it can change your life. It changed mine.

The smartest experts I work with can solve anyone's problem... but their own.

Chris Piper is brilliant. He’s helped multiple businesses scale past 8-figures. He even helped Codie Sanchez grow her business from $2M to $10M in 12 months.

But when he started consulting last year, he agonized over his own messaging. Spent months spinning his wheels.

Chris’s story isn’t uncommon. I've watched this pattern play out hundreds of times...

Smart people. Impossibly stuck when it comes to how to talk about their own business.

I call it "The Expert's Paradox".

It's a double-whammy.

The deeper your knowledge runs, the more "obvious" your best thinking feels. 

You dismiss insights that took years to develop because they don't feel special anymore.

Worse yet? Your brain literally reasons more clearly about *other* people's problems than your own. (This is proven by multiple behavioral science studies. Not my opinion.)

So yeah. Figuring out your own positioning and messaging feels damn near impossible.
But it's not just a *brain* problem... 

It’s also a *time* problem.

You're running a service-based business that eats every available hour.

↳ Proposals 
↳ Client work 
↳ Discovery calls

Unlike full-time creators, you can't burn 3 hours a day leisurely fleshing out ideas. You've got client deadlines to hit.

And the better you are at doing the work for clients, the BUSIER you become… leaving even less time to figure out your own business. Fakkkk. 

This is the Expert's Paradox:

👉 The smarter you are, the harder it is to articulate what makes you different.

Your brain can't see yourself clearly. 

Your calendar won't give you the space to try.

But here's the good news: 

This isn't a flaw—it's a side effect of being really damn good at what you do.

The answer isn't to just think harder or magically carve out more time. It's to get someone on the outside to help you see what's been there all along.

That's what Chris did. He stopped trying to white-knuckle it alone. We worked together to extract what he couldn't see himself.

Chris has already just begun using his new messaging in client pitches and newsletter. We haven’t even rolled his full strategy out publicly yet, but he’s already on track to do over $1M in his first year of consulting.

Chris always had the raw ingredients locked in his head. He just couldn't bottle his own brilliance.

None of us can.

—
P.S. Have you overcome the Expert’s Paradox? If so, what helped you finally break through?

I used to own a branding agency. So it's a wee bit embarrassing that UNIGNORABLE's first logo was made in Canva in 3 minutes 😬

It didn't necessarily hold us back too much—we still manageed to generate $1.2M from the original UNIGNORABLE Challenge (while running it as a side gig).

But the old UNIGNORABLE branding just kinda felt... ignorable.

Ironic, right? 

We never sat down and got intentional about the visual side of the brand. We basically just mashed together a few elements from the Why We Buy brand with a few elements from Demand Curve, and called it a day.

So when I finally decided to commit full throttle to building UNIGNORABLE 2.0, the Ownable Ideas agency, I knew it was time for a glow-up.

The first person I called? 

Sarah Hart ✤ (duh).

And she understood the assignment. 

We wanted UNIGNORABLE be a distinctive brand while still giving a nod to the sister brand, Why We Buy.

She kept my signature "burn-your-eyes-out yellow" and used our blueish purple as a highlight color. 

But while Why We Buy's visual brand is playful and punchy—I wanted to make behavioral science feel accessible and fun—the new UNIGNORABLE brand is built around one idea: the spotlight.

We help big-brained experts to step into the spotlight and finally become known for an idea they own.

Why? Because idea owners get rich.

UNIGNORABLE's brand is dripping with gravitas and vibey AF. 

I'm obsessed with it.

So let's give is up for Sarah, right? She killed it!

Fun fact: Sarah did this branding work while 39 weeks pregnant. Her due date is today so there's a very real chance that Sarah is having a baby as I type this post. 

Calling her insanely talented doesn't even cut it.

Go have that baby, Sarah. You've earned it. 👏

UNIGNORABLE Branding

Two brains read your content.
Most people only write for one.
(That’s a problem)

This ideas comes from behavioural science. Jonathan Haidt called it the 'Elephant and the Rider'.

The Rider is your logical brain. Slow and analytical. It evaluates arguments and reads the fine print to the letter.

The Elephant is your emotional brain. Fast and instinctive. It decides in milliseconds whether something is worth its attention.

On social media, the Elephant is almost always driving.

Which means if your message requires effort to decode—it's jargon-heavy, no signal of "What's in it for me?", long-winded—the Elephant's already gone. Onto the next shiny thing.

Many smart people intuitively write for the Rider. The ideas are brilliant and worth sharing... but the Elephant ignores them because their point is buried under heaping piles of cognitive load.

It's a tricky balance to get right. 

Want an example of writing for the Elephant?

Last week, I changed my LinkedIn headline. Several people sent connection requests, saying it's the reason they followed me.

The new headline: "Idea Owners Get Rich."

Four words. 
Low cognitive load.
Provocatively teases value
The Elephant gets it immediately.

Now don't worry. Your social content doesn't need to be dumbed down. You can still share big ideas and deep takes. It just needs to be packaged in a way that makes it more digestible for hungry Elephants. 

Know when and where to write for the Elephant. That's how you get a shot at talking to the Rider, too. And the Rider gets the last say on purchasing decisions.

--
P.S. What's your current LinkedIn headline? Drop it below and let's audit it ↓↓↓

P.P.S. I don't share my title or what I do in my headline because all my clients come inbound. But I think if you're doing any outreach or social selling, it's important to clarify what you do.

Someone DMd me this question at 7am. 

It’s an important question:

“Do experts struggle because they lack a distinct idea… or because they haven’t committed to repeating one long enough for it to stick?”

My answer: both. 

But one is way more dangerous than people realize.

Almost everyone I talk to knows they have the first problem. Their ownable idea exists—they can feel it—but it’s tangled and foggy in their brain. They know they need help untangling it, shaping it, figuring out what to say and what to leave out.

What they don’t see coming is problem two.

You find your idea. You post about it a few times. You start to feel like a broken record. So you pivot to something new, something fresher.

And just like that, your idea dies quietly.  

The idea was good—it had real promise. Life changing promise. But you abandoned it before it had a chance to become *yours*.

I know this one firsthand. Years ago I spent ages developing my Trigger Technique framework. 

(A methodology for turning buyer journey stories into laser targeted marketing campaigns).

I labored over it. Circulated it to most brilliant people I knew for feedback. I easily spent 80 hours just writing the blog post revealing it. 

Then I posted about it a handful of times. Got some claps. Got bored. Moved on. 

Shockingly (heavy sarcasm), the Trigger Technique never became the thing I was known for.

Luckily I learned from my mistake. When I started talking about buyer psychology a year later, I didn’t stop. 

I repeated the same core message—again and again and, yes, again!

The ugly truth?

You have to say the same thing 1,000 ways before people actually associate it with you. 

That’s not repetition—that’s how ownership works.

Sorry. I don’t make the rules.

Play for the game for the long-term (or miss out on the best prizes).

—
P.S. So which problem are you stuck in—the foggy idea, or the follow-through?

1,878 entrepreneurs did the Unignorable Challenge since 2023. The final exercise was always the toughest…

Everything in the challenge laddered up to one thing: identifying your big idea (what I now call your “ownable idea”).

After watching thousands of entrepreneurs work through this, I’m now convinced it’s THE most important thing to figure out if you want to build authority that sells.

Everything else is a nice-to-have by comparison.

Here’s why:

👉 You hear James Clear, you think of ‘atomic habits’
👉 You hear Mel Robbins, you think ‘5-second rule’
👉 You hear Justin Welsh, you think ‘solopreneurship’

That’s not just good content. That’s not just clear positioning. That’s an ownable idea doing its job.

A few years ago, you didn’t necessarily *need* one.

You could create solid content, be clear in your positioning, and still attract clients. That was enough.

Plenty of UNIGNORABLE alum built very profitable audiences without nailing one central ownable idea.

They won because their content was f*cking great.

But that’s not enough. Not anymore.

Everyone’s creating content now. AI made it easy.

So what separates the people who break through *today* from the people who blend in?

An idea people can buy into.

Because people need to buy into your idea before they’ll buy from you.

I’ve always known it was important...

But it’s really in the last year—after going deep with clients 1:1 on this—that I realized the ownable idea isn’t just part of the process.

It IS the process.
Everything else flows from it.

Get it right, the rest just sort of clicks together.

→ Creating content gets easier
→ Right-fit clients pay attention
→ People show up pre-sold on working with you
→ You get leverage to earn more (without working more)

Without it? Stuff just feels... harder.

So let’s start with the tough question: What do you want to be known for?

The (lazy) narrative: "agencies are dead"
The reality: good marketers will get VERY rich

—
Building a product used to require a ton of capital, years of engineering or R&D, and a team you probably couldn't afford.

(Trust me. I built a VC-backed tech startup without a technical co-founder way back in 2014. It was haaaaaaard.)

But now that everyone can vibe code, the bottleneck shifted. Overnight.

What's hard now?

↳ Distribution
↳ Making people care
↳ Crafting a story that spreads

These aren't product problems. They're marketing problems.

That means budgets shift—less spent to build. WAY MORE spent on building demand.

Which gives us a distinct advantage.

Marketers are already the founders behind some of your favorite brands.

Canva.
Olipop.
Webflow.
Hubspot.
Shopify.
Glossier.
Liquid Death.

The entrepreneurs who founded these iconic companies all ran agencies or consultancies first.

Sometimes they built solutions to scratch an itch for themselves and their clients.

Sometimes they saw an opportunity no one else did.

"Soda" that's good for your gut-health?

Canned water with a name like "LiquidDeath"?

Only a marketer could dream those up.

—
And the best agencies and marketers are about to get dramatically more leveraged.

I see two winning paths:

Path 1: Productize your expertise—building high-margin service businesses that run like software.

Think niche, highly scalable agencies that build internal tools that blend their team's proprietary approach and craftsmanship with AI-efficiency.

I call these "brainware" agencies. And that's what I'm building.

Path 2; Build that crazy product the world wants, but doesn't know it yet. Because unlike the non-marketers, you actually know *how* to build demand.

The speed of change will be insane. But us marketers have always navigated rapid change while focusing on what doesn't change fast: people.

—
The people betting against agencies are dead wrong.

Sure, some won't make it. But others—the smart ones—will win bigger than they ever imagined.

And us marketers already think big, right?

—
P.S. did I miss another marketer-led giant on this slide? Drop the name below

Old game:
Good work attracts clients

New game: 
Good thinking about the work attracts clients

“I don’t know if this is going to work.” ~ my ‘pitch’ to each Unignorable beta client

Now I’m no sales pro (marketer over here 👋) but that’s probably not the beeest way to land a client.

But it was true. Not because I doubted my ability to deliver for the client.

(I’ve been doing positioning and messaging work for 16 years—I’m damn good at it.)

The question was whether I could make it repeatable and predictable. 

I didn’t start Unignorable so I could be a consultant again. I’m building a scalable business that can deliver consistent results without me in every room.

Honestly? For the first 4 beta projects, I thought I was screwed.

I’d made a massive promise…

We weren’t just building a content strategy or crafting new messaging. Nope. I’d promised to help my clients find, shape and share their first big ownable idea. Not just for their company—for themselves, personally. That’s haaaaard to do.

And initially, the whole thing ran on gut feel, with no transferable pattern I could actually teach someone else. It was all art and no science.

Then the 5th project cracked it open.

I had an aha moment that changed everything. Within a few days I had codified my intuition into a step-by-step process that was teachable.

A lot of creative people resist this part. Like systematizing your instincts somehow makes the work less inspired.

(For what it’s worth: Darwin, Andy Warhol, and Jony Ive all had documented creative processes. The magic looked effortless. The methodology was very much not.)

I didn’t have a clear process when I made that promise to my first beta clients. But I trusted in my ability to build the method through the work.

And I did, finally.

There’s a lesson there: The answer rarely comes before you start. It comes because you started.

Agreed?

Dennis Geelen

Business Coach | Keynote Speaker | Author of The Happy Accidents newsletter and The Accidental Solopreneur book

I’ve spent most of my career helping people navigate change.

Sometimes that meant working with leadership teams and organizations.
Sometimes it meant coaching solopreneurs who were building something new after an unexpected turn.
And more recently, it’s meant telling true stories that remind us how unpredictable, strange, and meaningful real life can be.

At the core of everything I do is one idea:
people don’t change because of frameworks alone, they change because of perspective.

What I Do

I’m a speaker, author, and consultant who helps individuals and organizations make sense of uncertainty, transition, and unexpected opportunity.

My work focuses on:
 • Leadership and change
 • Human-centered decision making
 • Serendipity, timing, and “happy accidents”
 • Stories that challenge neat narratives about success and control

I’m currently building The Uncanny, a storytelling project exploring true stories that sound impossible but actually happened.

Who I Work With
 • Event organizers looking for keynote talks that are thoughtful, grounded, and story-driven
 • Organizations and nonprofits navigating change, leadership transitions, or cultural shifts
 • Individuals who want practical clarity through focused, one-hour coaching conversations

(I’m no longer actively promoting large programs or long-term coaching, but I still take on select conversations and workshops when there’s a strong fit.)

What I’ve Created
 • Author of The Zero In Formula and The Accidental Solopreneur
 • Host and creator of story-driven newsletters, podcasts, and short-form video content
 • Speaker on topics including change, leadership, serendipity, and starting before you feel ready

Want to Connect?

If you’re reaching out about:
 • Speaking engagements
 • A focused workshop or session
 • A thoughtful one-on-one coaching conversation

Feel free to DM me.

And if you’re someone who loves true stories that make you pause and say, “That can’t be real”…
you’ll probably enjoy what I’m building next.

Founder

Coaching and mentoring to help you start and scale your one-person business.

Most leadership training gets this backwards.

We teach people how to manage others…
before they know how to manage themselves.

And then we wonder why teams struggle.

There’re some uncomfortable truths we don’t like to acknowledge when it comes to leadership: 

- If you can’t manage your own reactions,
you can’t manage conflict.

- If you don’t understand your own personality, you’ll misread everyone else’s.

- If you don’t take responsibility for your results, you’ll blame your team.

- If you can’t prioritize your own time,
you’ll create chaos for everyone around you.

Contrary to what we like to think, leadership doesn’t start with strategy. 

It starts with self-awareness.

In my 12-week leadership coaching program through Zero In, the first four weeks are entirely about leading yourself.

It’s the foundation for everything that comes afterwards (where we then focus on leading individuals and then leading teams).

In those first four weeks, we dig into personality, stress triggers,
how others actually experience you,
how you respond under pressure,
and how you prioritize what matters.

Because once you can lead yourself…
leading others becomes exponentially easier.

If you’re serious about becoming the kind of leader people actually want to follow,
start there.

Speaker | Author | Consultant - Guiding organizations through leadership transitions and complexity

No alternative text description for this image

Some of the most damaging leaders I’ve seen weren’t incompetent.

They were unregulated.

Don’t get me wrong, they were smart,  strategic, and experienced.

But they couldn’t manage themselves.

They couldn’t control their reactions in tense moments.

They took feedback personally.

They blamed circumstances when results slipped.

They said “yes” to everything and then created chaos trying to deliver.

And their teams paid the price.

Leadership isn’t just about vision or communication.

It’s about emotional control.
Self-awareness.
Responsibility.
Discipline with your time and energy.

If you can’t lead your own habits, emotions, and priorities, you end up outsourcing the consequences to everyone around you.

And that’s when trust erodes.

Have you ever worked for a leader who struggled to lead themselves?

What did that look like and how did it affect the team?

Is it your goals?
Is it your habits?
Is it your purpose?

Or is it actually none of those things?

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The Battle

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