TL;DR: Years of experience make what you know feel ordinary, so it stays in your head instead of becoming content. Whether you're a solo expert or one of the experts on a B2B team, getting it out is simpler than it sounds: talk before you write, lead with your client's problem and let it be a little messy.
Ask an expert what they know, and you'll usually get one of two answers.
The first is a deep, technical explanation that goes on for a while. The second is a shrug: "I don't really have anything to say. Why would anyone want to hear from me?"
Both come from the same place. Years of experience have made what they know feel ordinary to them. So it stays right where it is, inside their head, doing great work for clients one conversation at a time and never reaching anyone else.
I see this every single week. In solo consultants launching their first business. In leadership teams full of brilliant people. In nonprofits with a story in every department.
I talk about this idea a lot: most expertise is still trapped inside the heads of the humans in a business… because they just don't know that what they have in there is content.
A story that was hiding in plain sight
Let me tell you about a conversation I had recently that I can't stop thinking about.
I was meeting with a leader at one of the organizations I work with, talking about storytelling and how he could help. Somewhere in the middle of it, almost as an aside, he mentioned a moment from his work where he was the one person in the room who could help someone through something really hard. He told it like it was just another day at the office.
I said, "That's a story."
And he told me he'd recently been asked to speak to the board, and his first thought was, what am I going to say that they haven't already heard?
THAT. That's exactly what I'm talking about. When I put it that way, he said, "I get it." You get so close to your work that you forget how powerful it is to someone on the outside.
Why it stays trapped
You're too close to it. When you've done something for 15 or 20 years, the stories stop sounding like stories. The client you turned around, the question everyone asks you, the thing you'd do differently than everyone else in your industry. To you, that's just Tuesday.
You start with how the plane is built. Experts are operators. Some are engineers, some are scientists, some are clinicians. When someone asks what they do, they jump straight into the technical details and skip the part where they connect with the person across the table. I worked with a healthcare consultant who, when people asked what she did, would go straight into billing pathways. All true! All important! But nobody across the table was ready for it yet. What are you struggling with? What brought you here? That's what people need to hear first.
You think it has to be polished. High achievers want everything perfect before anyone sees it. So the ideas wait for the perfect article, the perfect video, the perfect time. Which usually means they wait forever.
You think you have nothing to say. This is the one I hear most. And I'll be honest: if you're happy being an employee and you never plan to build anything of your own, maybe that's fine. But if you're launching a consultancy, or you're the go-to expert on your team, you have plenty to say. I promise.
"There's so much expertise, there's so many perspectives, there's so many stories to be told. And my job is really to listen for those."
How to get it out of your head
The good news: getting expertise out of someone's head is easier than people think. It just takes the right questions.
1. Talk before you write. Most experts freeze in front of a blank page and come alive in conversation. So I start every engagement with a recorded content interview. It's just me across the screen from you, asking questions. A lot of the time you'll say something and keep right on going, and I'll stop you: wait, wait, go back to that. That's usually where the good stuff is.
People get nervous about these. I understand! But honestly, it feels just like sitting down and having a call with someone. And the most common thing people say afterward?
"Well, that wasn't that bad."
2. Lead with the problem, not the process. When you do talk about your work, start from the other side of the table. What is your client worried about? What have they already tried? If you can stop talking for a minute and get curious about what they're challenged with, you can start just… answering their questions. When you're starting out, you want to prove you know your stuff. Most of the time, people just want to feel heard.
3. Turn on your content radar. Once you know what you're listening for, you start to notice content everywhere. A question a client asked. A meeting that went sideways. A moment you thought, I wish more people understood this. My best clients send me what I call car rambles: messy voice notes or emails on the drive home from a meeting, about something cool that just happened. Those are gold.
4. Let it be a little messy. You can stumble over your words. You don't have to be a natural writer. People are tired of polished, generic content, and they're far more forgiving than you think. Your stories in your own words are what they're looking for.
It works for teams, too
Some of the most trapped expertise I've seen lives inside B2B companies.
One client of mine is a leadership development firm where the people really are the business. Their COO, director of client services, data scientist, director of coaching and founder each know things no one else in the company knows. Instead of having one company page do all the talking, we gave each of them their own lane of expertise, all rolling up to one brand.
Here's what that's looked like. Their company page has about 13,000 followers. Their COO has about 2,000. So far this year, the COO's posts have earned around 36,000 impressions, compared with about 4,900 for the company page. That's more than seven times the reach from a much smaller following. The company page still has the higher engagement rate, but when it comes to reaching people, the humans win.
And the company finally sounds like the smart, human people who work there.
If you lead a team, or you're one of the experts on one, you're probably sitting on the same opportunity. Your best marketing material is already on your payroll. It's just stuck in a few heads.
Start with five questions
Here's a small way to try this today. Grab a notebook and write down the five questions clients ask you most often. Skip the polished FAQ version. Write the real questions, in their words.
Then look at the list. Every one of those is a post. Every one is something you could answer in your sleep… and someone out there is searching for it right now.
That list is the beginning of becoming known for what you know.
Frequently asked questions
Why is it so hard for experts to create content?
Mostly because they're too close to what they know. After years in a field, hard-won lessons feel obvious. Experts also tend to lead with technical detail, wait for things to be polished, or assume no one wants to hear from them.
How do I turn my expertise into content?
Talk before you write. Record yourself answering a real client question, or have someone interview you, then pull out the strongest lines. Lead with the problem your client has, and let the first versions be a little messy.
What should experts post about on LinkedIn?
Start with the questions clients ask you most often. Add stories about problems you've solved, mistakes you see in your industry and opinions you hold that others might not. Each one shows how you think.
How can a B2B company get its experts posting on LinkedIn?
Give each expert their own lane of expertise and start with conversations instead of blank pages. When several people show up as themselves, all tied to one brand, that expert visibility usually reaches far more people than the company page alone.
Building something of your own? Start with the free Human-Led Content Guide or book a fit call. One of the experts on a B2B team? See how I help teams become known for what they know.