If you’ve outgrown the business you’ve built, the problem is rarely strategy. It’s a business identity problem.
I remember the year I had 8 offers to launch.
I had a full team. I was being featured left and right. By every metric the coaching world used to measure success, I was killing it.
And I remember hitting that highest revenue year and not even pausing. Like, not even a moment of, okay, that was good. It was just, alright, what’s next, what am I launching next, how do I not lose this.
And I didn’t understand at the time that I wasn’t working hard because I loved my business. I was working hard because some part of me still didn’t believe I’d actually earned it yet. That was the thing running underneath all the strategy.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I see it a lot in the people I work with. Someone comes in saying their messaging is off, or their offer isn’t converting, or they’ve tried a few things and none of it is sticking. And the conversation starts with strategy.
But pretty quickly, it becomes clear that the strategy isn’t actually the problem.
The problem is that they have outgrown their business and they don’t know it yet.
They made decisions when they were trying to prove something, or when they needed the money, or when they thought they were supposed to want a certain kind of success.
And now the whole thing fits a little wrong and they’ve been adjusting the details instead of asking the bigger question.
I’m not saying strategy doesn’t matter. It does. But there’s a layer underneath it that has to come first.
Most of the advice people get is tactical because that’s what’s visible. Change your messaging. Refine your positioning. Do a better job of communicating your value.
That advice isn’t wrong. It just isn’t deep enough.
The human stuff has to come first. Questions like:
Who are you now, versus who you were when you built this? What were you trying to prove, and do you still need to prove it? What would you build if you weren’t afraid of disappointing anyone’s idea of you, including your own?
I know that sounds less concrete than a content strategy or a pricing overhaul. And yeah, it’s a harder conversation. But it’s the truthful conversation that actually changes things.
If that’s where you are right now (a solopreneur who may have outgrown their business), I’d love to talk. A Walk and Talk session is a good place to start. We both go outside, no agenda, no prep required. Just an hour to get underneath what’s actually going on. You can book one below.
