My first LinkedIn ghostwriting client didn’t have time for a Zoom call. This is how we turned that into a one-conversation-to-12-posts selling-point.
My first LinkedIn ghostwriting client didn’t have time for a Zoom call.
He rang me while he was working, breathless, and basically said:
“Look, I’m rammed. I know I need to post. I hate writing. Can we do this in one call?”
Challenge accepted.
We spoke once. He talked, I listened, scribbled notes like a slightly over‑excited court stenographer.
A week later, I sent him 12 posts in his voice. His friends thought he’d written them.
He’s still a client today and we still meet 4 times a year.
This is roughly what happens between that first conversation and the moment a post goes live under your name.
Step 1: Stealing your brain (nicely)
The first call isn’t a “strategy session”, but more like catching you on a train and asking annoying questions until you forget you’re being interviewed.
I’m listening out for three things:
- Phrases you repeat without noticing
- Stories you tell like you’ve told them 50 times before
- Opinions that make you sound unmistakably you
We don’t talk about “content pillars”.
We talk about that client you still think about at 3am, the time a supplier messed you around, or the moment you nearly quit your industry altogether.
I record it. Then I go away and work.
Step 2: Turning a mess of thoughts into a map
After the call, my notes look like a conspiracy theorist’s wall.
Half sentences. Arrows. Random quotes.
Somewhere between the chaos, there’s a pattern. I group everything into buckets:
Experience stories: times you did something hard or interesting.
- Proof – specific client results, numbers, outcomes
- Philosophy – how you think about your work and your customers
- Personal quirks – the ADHD, the late‑night emails, the mistakes you’ll actually admit to
From that, I sketch a simple outline.
Roughly: 3–4 posts that show you at work, 3–4 that show outcomes, 3–4 that show how you think. That’s our first batch.
Step 3: Writing in a way that feels like you
AI is great at impressive‑sounding sentences. But real people don’t talk in impressive sentences. They talk in half‑thoughts, tangents, and tiny jokes that only make sense if you’ve met them.
So when I write your posts, I keep a few rules:
- Use words you actually used on the call
- Keep your level of formality
- Leave in some rough edges
If you said “I was absolutely knackered”, I don’t rewrite it to “I was thoroughly fatigued”. If you’re naturally understated, I don’t turn you into a motivational speaker. If you sound like a tired founder who cares more about the client than the “brand storytelling”, that’s what the writing should sound like.
Step 4: Making sure it still does a job
Nice writing is great. But nice writing that feeds your business is better.
Each post needs to earn its keep. That might look like:
- Making it easier for people to trust you with bigger projects
- Helping prospects feel less awkward about reaching out
- Answering a question you’re tired of repeating on calls
- Subtly making your competitors look a bit…safe
So even when I write a story that looks “just personal”, there’s usually a thread running through it that says something about how you are at work.
Your Sunday emergency job. The time you stayed up all night for a customer. The project you nearly walked away from, but didn’t.
Step 5: Getting your sign‑off without wasting your time
You don’t need or want another inbox.
So I send your posts in a format that’s easy to skim in one go - usually a doc or email with 10–12 posts stacked, plus a short note at the top about how they’re organised.
Your job is not to turn into an editor.
Your job is to:
- Change anything that feels unlike you
- Flag any story you don’t want public
- Add bits you wish you’d said on the call
We fix those and save the rest. You now have a month or more of content ready to go.
The fun bit is watching what happens next.
I don’t obsess over likes. I care about:
- DMs that start with “I saw your post about…”
- Discovery calls where people already know your tone
- The first time you get a lead from a post you found boring
When we see what lands, we adjust. Maybe your audience loves behind‑the‑scenes stories. Maybe they ignore anything that smells like a lecture.
We use those signals to tweak future batches, and the longer we work together, the easier it gets.
By the third or fourth quarter, we don’t need hour‑long calls. You ping me a few voice notes, I already know your brain well enough to fill in the gaps.