“That’s just what everyone does.”
Michelle Bergsma said that to me about the exact thing she does better than almost anyone I’ve worked with.
She was talking about her ability to walk into a client’s world and connect with it. Not just with the people, but with the mission. What they’re actually trying to build. Who they’re trying to reach, and what would move that audience to act. She feels her way to the center of it, and then she makes the marketing work.
For the nonprofits and NGOs she serves, that skill does something very concrete: it raises money.
And she called it “what everyone does.”
Reader, it is not what everyone does. It is not even what most people do. Or even a notable number of people.
If it was, no nonprofit would be struggling to find donors.
Here’s the part that matters for her profile, and for yours. The thing Michelle does for her clients is make them resonate with the exact people they’re trying to reach. It was the one thing her own profile wasn’t doing for her.
A generic LinkedIn profile gives your ideal client nothing to connect to
Michelle’s profile, before we worked together, wasn’t a disaster. It was just… generic. Which is arguably worse, because a bad profile is at least memorable.
There was no Red Thread. No through-line telling you where she’d been, what she’s brilliant at, and where she’s going. Some of that was structural. She’d listed her clients as employers, so at a glance it read like she’d hopped through a dozen organizations instead of being the person those organizations hired to fix things.
But most of it was deeper. The profile described what she did without ever showing what made her exceptional at it.
Every line was accurate. None of it was her.
A stranger who lands on a profile like that gets a list. A competent, forgettable list.
What they don’t get is the one thing that would make them stop and think “HER. I need HER.”
What is a Red Thread on your LinkedIn profile?
Your Red Thread is the through-line that connects your history to your value. It’s the reason all your seemingly separate roles actually belong to the same person doing the same brilliant thing.
Michelle’s was hiding in plain sight. Not because it was hard to find, but because to her, it wasn’t remarkable. It was just how her brain works.
That’s the trap. The thing you’re best at is usually the thing you can’t see, because it costs you nothing. It’s intuitive. So you assume it’s ordinary, and you leave it off the page.
It is not ordinary. And your ideal client is out there right now, looking for exactly that. They’re scrolling past you because your profile doesn’t say it.
Your zone of genius is what your ideal client connects to
Once we named Michelle’s genius — her ability to connect a client’s mission to their audience in a way that actually moves people to give — everything else had something to organize around.
🔹 We stopped listing tasks and started showing effect. 🔹 We fixed the structure so her clients read as clients. 🔹 We built the narrative around the one thing only she does, instead of the ten things anyone could claim.
And she stepped into it. (Watching someone finally own their brilliance is my favorite part of this work. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.)
What changed after we narrowed her Red Thread
Her profile has grown by about 25%. Not viral. Not exponential. I’m not going to sell you a fairy tale.
But the inquiries started. The right ones.
That’s the whole point. A post with four likes once landed me a mid-four-figure client. My profile resulted in over a dozen unsolicited podcast and speaking opportunities in 2025 alone. Michelle is now getting leads she never expected.
The number on the screen was never the goal. The goal is the person who reads your profile, recognizes exactly what you’re brilliant at, and reaches out because of it.
Michelle’s profile does that now. It couldn’t before, because it didn’t know what she was.
So if you’re reading your own profile right now and thinking most of what you do is “just what everyone does”?
Stop.
That sentence is almost always sitting right on top of the exact thing your ideal client is trying to find.
A generic profile gives them nothing to connect to, so they don’t. Name the one thing only you do, and the right person finally has a reason to reach out.
That’s not standing out for the sake of it. That’s resonance. And it’s the whole game.