Nick leads with the person, sells the expertise
Most business advice on LinkedIn is bloodless. Nick opens with a divorce, a birthday, a move to Spain, then teaches, and the story is what earns the read.
Nick Broekema spent his early career in brand design, ran an agency, and once paid himself as little as zero a month. In 2022 he started productizing what he knew and sharing it on LinkedIn. Today he has grown past 90K followers and runs a 100% inbound solo business helping experts package, position, and sell their expertise as coaching, consulting, products, and communities. We read 100 of his most recent posts to map how personal storytelling became a client engine.
His approach is deceptively simple. Expert-led content leads with a real, specific moment from your own life, then teaches the lesson underneath it, so the story earns attention and the expertise earns trust. Nick does not open with a framework. He opens with a scene you recognize, and the framework arrives once you already care.
Recycles the same 'Comment X to get my PDF' lead magnet, sounds like everyone else, and blends into the feed.
Opens with a real life moment, designs it cleanly, and lets the personality that defines him do the selling.
A conversation account, not a reach account
Nick's reach is solid, not viral. His comments are the number that matters, and they say his audience is engaged enough to buy.
Across the 100 posts we analyzed, Nick averages 258 reactions but 119 comments, a comment-to-reaction ratio of 46%. The typical LinkedIn post sits near 6%. His is roughly eight times that. He is not chasing viral reach, only 3 posts cleared 1,000 reactions, he is building the kind of relationship where people reply, DM, and eventually hire.
For a smaller or newer account, this is the number to steal. Reach is a vanity metric, but a comment is a hand raised. If your posts spark replies from the right people, you have an audience that converts, no matter what the follower count says. Want to see your own comment ratio? Run your profile through our free linkedin analyzer.
| # | Post | Reactions | Comments | Reposts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | I didn't want kids (a Father's Day story) | 1,455 | 136 | 2 |
| 2 | The perks of running a solo business | 1,430 | 390 | 10 |
| 3 | The Netflix price-increase email rewrite | 1,111 | 238 | 3 |
| 4 | I'm turning 38 today | 686 | 418 | 0 |
| 5 | Do people on Facebook say 'This isn't LinkedIn'? | 660 | 345 | 5 |
| 6 | My posts went viral when I added infographics | 565 | 210 | 27 |
Six pillars, from confession to conversion
Nick's feed rotates through six repeating pillars, each doing a different job for the same reader: the expert who wants to sell without sounding salesy.
Divorce, fatherhood, a move to Spain, the human behind the business.
How to productize and sell what a decade of expertise taught you.
Stop sounding like everyone else. Lead with what defines you.
Named, usable systems like SCART and case-study stacking.
Pushback on hustle culture, AI slop, and copycat advice.
The unglamorous truth of solo life, told with humor.
1. Vulnerable life stories
Why it works: Why it works: it is a real, specific memory with names and dates. He closes it on the business he built with her, so the story still earns its place on a business feed.
2. Expert monetization
Why it works: Why it works: a clean before-and-after that sells the outcome (get paid for expertise, not hours), which is exactly what his clients want.
3. Personality-first positioning
Why it works: Why it works: he opens by parodying the generic lead-magnet posts everyone writes, then makes the case for personality. The contrast sells the point.
4. Content frameworks
Why it works: Why it works: a concrete, countable promise (15+ posts from 1 client) that a busy solopreneur can act on immediately. Utility gets saved and shared.
5. Contrarian LinkedIn takes
Why it works: Why it works: he borrows a famous, divisive quote, then pushes back with his own life. Taking a side on a live debate is comment fuel.
6. Anti-hustle relatability
Why it works: Why it works: it names the exact pressure his audience feels, then punctures it with humor. Relatable beats aspirational, every time.
Hooks that make you stop scrolling
Nick's openers do not tease. They drop you into a scene or a claim in the first line, and the whitespace does the rest.
Statement: the claim or the hook Context: the situation behind it Action: what you actually did Results: what happened Trigger: the line that prompts a reply or a click Pick one option per layer, fill it in top to bottom from your own experience. Write it yourself, or use it as a brief for AI.
The framework structures the body, but the first line is what earns it. His hooks repeat a few shapes:
- The vulnerable confession: 'I didn't want kids.'
- The listicle promise: 'The perks of running a solo business.'
- The relatable rant: 'Dude i'm a 37-year-old dad.'
- The borrowed-quote take: 'People who obsess about work life balance are typically mediocre at both.'
- The countable how-to: 'How to create 15+ case study posts from 1 client.'
Every one is specific and human. To draft openers in this style, try our free hook generator, and our guide on how to write LinkedIn hooks breaks the patterns down further.
The story-to-offer loop
Every pillar feeds one loop that turns Nick's life and expertise into an audience, and that audience into a solo business with zero ads.
- 1Lead with a real momentA divorce, turning 38, a move to Spain. The story earns the read.
- 2Teach the expertise underneathThen the positioning, the framework, the offer doc.
- 3Design it to be savedHis old brand-design craft turns each post into a clean infographic.
- 4Convert in comments and DMsA soft-sell PS points readers to a resource, a community, a call.
Underneath it all is a craft Nick has quietly systematized: turning one piece of expertise into weeks of content, one client win into 15 posts. That is exactly the job CaptureFlow is built for. CaptureFlow is an AI content agent that turns your expertise into weeks of on-brand content for every platform, trained on your voice and your past posts, so one story becomes a LinkedIn post, an X thread, a carousel, and a short video without losing the personality that makes it yours.
The honest operator: his voice rules
Nick writes like a friend who happens to be good at business. The tone is plain, funny, and refuses to fake the highlight reel.
- Opens with a real, specific life moment
- Writes short, plain lines, one idea each
- Designs the post as a clean infographic
- Shows the unglamorous truth (paid himself zero, fired a client)
- Ends with a question or a soft-sell PS
- Recycles the 'comment X to get my PDF' lead magnet
- Sounds like everyone else (ditch the templates)
- Pretends the solo life is all wins
- Chases the algorithm over personality
- Fakes a millionaire-in-Bali highlight reel
It is a voice built for the solo founder who has real expertise but hates sounding like a guru. It is also the exact craft Nick teaches other creators: he helped Magali De Reu own her category, and her account runs on the same personality-first bet.
Steal Nick's story-to-offer playbook in 30 days
You do not need a design degree or a decade of stories. You need one true moment, one useful lesson, and the nerve to put your personality on the page.
- List 10 real life moments: wins, failures, turning points
- Pick the one you'd hesitate to post. That is the one.
- Write it plainly, one idea per line
- Take one client win and break it into micro-topics
- Turn a process you use into a simple, named framework
- End with a soft PS, not a hard pitch
- Turn one post into a clean infographic or carousel
- Use a hook, clear steps, and navigation arrows
- Simple words, short lines, plenty of white space
- Package your best advice into one real resource
- Point engaged commenters to it with a plain link
- Track comments and DMs, not just reactions
Nick reshapes one story across LinkedIn and his products by hand. If you want the same one-idea-everywhere reach without the manual work, that is what CaptureFlow automates. See pricing to start turning your own stories into weeks of content.
The takeaways
- 01Nick Broekema, a former brand designer, grew past 90K LinkedIn followers by helping experts package and sell what they already know.
- 02His defining metric is a 46% comment-to-reaction ratio, roughly eight times the typical LinkedIn norm of around 6%.
- 03He leads with vulnerable, specific life stories (a divorce, turning 38, a move to Spain), then teaches the expertise underneath.
- 04He designs most posts as clean infographics, a craft from his agency years, so the ideas are easy to skim and save.
- 05His positioning rule: stop sounding like everyone else, ditch the templates, and lead with the personality that defines you.
- 06The loop is story to offer: a story earns the read, the expertise earns trust, and a soft-sell resource earns the client.
Frequently asked questions
- Who is Nick Broekema?
- Nick Broekema is a former brand designer turned solopreneur who helps experts package, position, and sell their expertise as coaching, consulting, products, and communities. He has grown past 90K LinkedIn followers, mostly through personal storytelling and content design.
- Why is Nick Broekema's LinkedIn so effective?
- He optimizes for conversation, not reach. Across 100 recent posts he runs a 46% comment-to-reaction ratio, about eight times the norm, because his vulnerable personal stories and practical expertise both pull replies.
- What is Nick Broekema's content strategy?
- Lead with a real life moment, teach the expertise underneath, and design it as a clean infographic. The story earns the read, the expertise earns trust, and a soft-sell PS points readers to his offer.
- What is the SCART framework?
- SCART is Nick's any-post framework: Statement, Context, Action, Results, Trigger. You pick one option per layer, fill it in from your own experience, and use it to write yourself or to brief AI.
