The Work Is Good. The Results Are Real.
But You Are a Ghost.

By Tim Ikels · Last Updated:

Tim Ikels - Profile Hi, it’s Tim here…

You are an expert and brilliant at what you do. When a client hires you, their problem disappears. You deliver incredible results, they get exactly what they paid for, and more.

Your clients love you. So why does it feel like you’re on a treadmill?

Then the project ends. You send the final invoice.

And you vanish.

You become a memory. A line item on a past budget. You’re the best-kept secret in your industry. And you go back to the hunt, looking for the next person who needs your specific brand of magic.

This is the silent tragedy of the expert: you are replaceable. There is always someone else who can do good work. Maybe not as good, but good enough.

Unless.

Unless you stop being a service and start being a source.

The Most Dangerous Business Advice You’ve Ever Followed

Someone, somewhere, told you to guard your secrets. To protect your “proprietary process.” They told you your knowledge was your value, so you should only give it to those who pay.

That is the advice of the starving. It is the path to being a ghost.

The truth is the opposite. Your knowledge is worthless when it’s locked in your head. Its value multiplies - wildly, outrageously - the moment you share it.

An architect named Pat Flynn was studying for a difficult exam. He took his notes and, instead of putting them in a notebook, he put them on a simple, public website. He wasn’t trying to build a business. He was just organizing his thoughts. He was just being helpful, to himself.

He passed the exam and forgot about the site.

A year later, he was laid off. The economy crashed. Broke and adrift, he remembered the website and logged in. Thousands of people were visiting it. Every. Single. Day.

Those “worthless” notes he gave away had become an accidental authority signal to the entire world. That website has since made him millions.

He didn’t sell his expertise. He shared it.

And in doing so, he became the only person they wanted to buy from.

Stop Selling. Start Teaching.

This isn’t a “tactic.” It is a fundamental shift in seeing the world.

Selling is chasing. It is convincing. It is trying to prove your worth.

Teaching is attracting. It is demonstrating. It is letting your worth speak for itself.

When you write down the answer to a painful question your client has, you are doing more than marketing. You are building an asset. You are creating a permanent, silent salesperson that works for you forever.

Every article, every guide, every simple explanation is a beacon. It draws in the curious, the frustrated, and the ambitious. And it filters out everyone else.

It builds you an audience of perfect potential clients who arrive pre-sold, not on you, but on your way of thinking.

They don’t just want a solution. They want your solution.

But Who Am I To Teach?

This is the fear that keeps you a ghost. “I’m not the world’s #1 expert.”

Good.

Nobody wants to learn from the guru on the mountaintop. It’s intimidating.

They want to learn from the person who was in their shoes just a year or two ago. The person who remembers the struggle. The person who can say:

“I know this is hard. Here’s how I got through it.”

Your “imposter syndrome” is actually your greatest asset. It makes you relatable. It makes you real. You don’t have to have all the answers.

You only need to have one answer that someone else is looking for right now.

Stop Waiting To Be Picked.

Remember being a kid in the schoolyard, waiting for the team captains to choose? That feeling of hoping, of trying to look worthy, of praying you weren’t the last one standing?

Most businesses are run like that. Waiting for a client to pick them. Waiting for a magazine to feature them. Waiting for permission to feel successful.

Waiting.

To publish is to walk onto that field, grab the ball, and start your own game.

You don’t need to be a publisher. Or an author. You don’t need a platform. Or a list.

You need a single idea and the courage to write it down.

The work you’re doing is too important to remain a secret. The clients who need you are out there, lost. They aren’t looking for a salesperson. They are looking for a guide. They are looking for a light in the fog.

They are looking for you.

Go. Turn on the light.

Your only task for today: Find one question your clients always ask. Open a blank page. Write the answer as if you were explaining it to them over coffee.

That’s it. You’ve just started your own game.

Best,
Tim

The Automatic Lead Machine - Book Preview

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