I Gave Birth Last Night—And It's Not What You Think
After eight long weeks of hard labor, sleepless nights, and intense soul-searching, I gave birth last night. Not to an actual baby (though, if you’re a parent, you'll definitely relate to the analogy), but to the true positioning for MBA Confidante.
In the process, a high-level small business strategist emerged —not the marketing employee that had been fluttering around on my website, LinkedIn, and social media for months. Let me explain.
To stick with parenting analogies, If you’ve ever cared for a baby or a young child, you know they go through those phases where they don’t sleep because their little brains are on fire, practicing some new skill they’ve just learned. Well, that’s been me for the past eight weeks. I’ve been tossing and turning, obsessing over how I show up in the world. You see, I’m highly skilled at positioning brands for my clients, but I wasn’t satisfied with how I’d positioned myself. I had a direction and was running with it, but I couldn’t stop rethinking it. Deep down, although everything looked exciting on paper, I felt something wasn’t quite right.
The Struggle to Market Myself
As my husband playfully pointed out, it’s highly ironic that while I’m an expert at helping others position their brands, I was spinning in circles when it came to marketing myself. In the past few months, I’ve been consuming every podcast, webinar, and course I could get my hands on to fill in the gaps of what I didn’t know about promoting myself as an expert. And still, I felt like I was wasting time and energy on the wrong activities, stuck in the weeds instead of moving the needle.
To complicate matters, as I built my website and my social channels, a nagging feeling kept creeping up—that I was underselling myself. My previous consulting clients have always found me based on my reputation and expertise. The right contracts came easily because I didn’t have to seek them out. They saw what I’d built, several times over, and wanted my support in doing the same. Since I’ve never had to sell my knowledge, I didn’t know how to articulate and package my full range of capabilities. Also, something was holding me back.
Last night, at 2 a.m. to be precise, it all finally clicked.
I Am Not Simply a Marketer. I Build Businesses.
One of the key challenges I faced in my previous attempts to position was effectively communicating the high-level strategic direction I provide. I am indeed a marketer. I run every business decision through a marketing filter and thrive on that level of engagement. But more than that I start by crafting customer-centric brands and then build businesses that leverage those attributes for long-term success. While marketing principles are integral to the work I do, they are just one thread in a much bigger picture.
The Struggle to Stop Thinking Small— I’m Not an Employee
Another challenge — in fact, the main one — was that I was unintentionally positioning myself as an employee within other people’s businesses. I was offering fractional marketing assistance and piecemeal services apart from attaching them to the bigger picture. But that undersells my skill set and holds me back from the work I thrive on. My role is to build small businesses, not work in them.
In a previous post, I emphasized the importance of benchmarking competitors but not copying.
In my case, I think I was inadvertently offering what I believed a marketing consultant "should" provide, based on what I saw on other marketing consultants' websites. Without meaning to, I was copying. And it didn’t sit right because marketing consulting is only a piece of what I offer. So copying the essential services marketing consultants offer set me back from articulating what I actually do. I’m a brand strategist who partners with entrepreneurs to grow intentional, profitable, and beloved small businesses through customer-centric brand building and optimized marketing.
How I Finally Got There
Investing time learning from coaches who specialize in helping women accelerate their business growth, led me toward the breakthrough I needed. They all but convinced me that I don’t have to, and shouldn’t, start small. I should start where I want to be, boldly going after the clients I want to work with. I already know how to do the work, and I'm an expert in what I offer. Now, it’s about conveying that effectively in a way that resonates—without worrying that I’m pricing myself out of the market.
Because here’s the truth: People who want to build intentional brands from the ground up will invest in doing it right. They need to invest. To attract these clients, I need to clearly and confidently define my offering.
It sounds simple enough, but it's high-stakes and honestly a bit terrifying. So when my brilliant friend Wendy, a fellow brand builder and dear friend texted me out of the blue yesterday, her message arrived right on time. She wrote, "I see your activities in the last few weeks and I really admire what you're doing. You have a lot of irons in the fire. You have it, my friend."
When I confided that I believed in myself but was frustrated by how slowly I felt I was moving, Wendy shared how she recently watched a mutual friend overcome the funnel-building inertia of launching a new business to become highly sought-after. She added, “but she did it without a 10+ year successful business, a University of Chicago MBA and major connections.”
Wendy saw me exactly as I had aspired to present myself, but hadn’t quite been able to fully articulate. Her words - you have it- gave me yet another push I needed to see myself clearly—and to communicate that confidently to my clients.
After grabbing my phone and putting it down 7,347 times after I’d already turned out the lights, I finally crafted the LinkedIn description of MBA Confidante that I’m ready to put out to the world:
Partnering with small business owners to achieve profitability & growth through customer-aligned planning and optimized marketing 🤝 | 10+ years as a successful founder 📈 | Children's industry expert 🧒
What’s Next?
Yes, I’m repositioning myself to serve higher-capacity clients. But as I scale to attract the clients of my dreams, I will be happy to serve clients who have fewer resources to go all-in. The client who can invest in what they can afford today and have the option to circle back as their profits align with their vision. The client I myself have been many times over. As long as I’m getting paid for my time to do the work I want to do, not every contract has to be massive.
In Starbucks terms, if you have the budget for a Grande caramel macchiato, half-caf, easy whip with sprinkles I will serve it up to you with white gloves and on a silver platter. But if you need a Tall black with room for cream, because the decked out latte is currently out of reach, I’ll make sure it’s brewed perfectly for your needs today and we can talk about adding the sprinkles and as much whip as you’d like, if and when the time is right.
Now off to go lose 8 more weeks of sleep rebuilding my website. At least this time I’ll be doing it with conviction and clarity. Also I’ll probably edit my LinkedIn bio a good 20 more times.