Who are you, and what do you do, exactly?
Why clarity about what you do can feel so elusive. Getting consultants and coaches ready for Authority status.
I did Improv comedy for the first time in ages last night.
We were given an opportunity to do a monologue mid-scene, and, when my turn came, I burst into song.
This decision came unexpected to the audience (and to myself, honestly).
This is what we call a ‘Bold Choice’ in Improv.
Bold choices make the audience go nuts; they love the confidence, they feel more connected to the player, and it makes the whole show more enjoyable to watch.
I promise I was not thinking about work during improv last night, but here I am telling you… this is exactly what positioning looks like in practice.
Making bold choices in how you talk about your work, what you do, who you do it for, why it matters is exactly what’s required to:
Make clients take notice
Make others remember you (and refer you)
And creates energy and excitement around your business.
Want to make bolder choices in how you position yourself? I'm teaching a masterclass on exactly that tomorrow:
Sign-ups have been rolling in, and I’d love to see you there!
10 Reasons You’re Not Clearer
I spend a lot of time in coaching sessions saying: “So basically what you’re trying to say is... [X]?”
Because my clients are brilliant. But brilliance can be hard to explain when you’re deep in your own head. I've seen how the more my clients know about their field, the harder it can be to distill it. Knowledge compounds and it's easy to get lost in a sea of ideas, words, and phrases. It's a lot harder to find the a cohesive narrative that ties it all together.
“You helped me articulate my story in a way that made people actually care.
I knew it already, but I didn’t know how to express it.”
— Authority Club member
If your work is hard to talk about, that’s not a personal flaw or failing.
Let me guess, if you are an independent consultant or coach, that you’d really like to be able to…
To talk clearly about what you do, and what you achieve for your clients.
To say, with confidence, why someone should choose you.
To know that your message is getting in front of the right people.
To feel you can market your work with more ease and confidence.
Yup. I hear you.
Why is this stuff so hard?
Let me share with you ten reasons why it might be harder for you than it feels like it should be.
1/ You want love and money.
Often the type of work you love to do, and the type with the biggest commercial opportunity, feel mutually exclusive. You know for your work to be both fulfilling and financially rewarding, but finding the intersection is a challenge.
2/ You’ve changed.
Your business is a reflection of you, and the words to describe it need to match you, as well. Your experiences, values and beliefs might have shifted and now you seek alignment between what they are and how you talk about your work. Or, your business itself is in a transition period.
3/ The competition got louder.
You notice that there are many others like you, offering something similar, and you are keen to stand out in a way that is authentic, not just saying something for the sake of difference, but finding true difference. which isn’t always staring you in the face.
4/ You have multiplicity.
You have a range of interests, skills and strengths and figuring out which lever to pull and which one(s) to focus on, is a paradox of choice.
5/ You are wracked with self-doubt.
Whilst there is an area you’d love to focus on, you question how much of an ‘authority’ you are in this area, truly.
6/ You are afraid of specificity.
You’ve heard it helps, but finding the exact language feels like the walls are closing in on you or you’ll indadvertedly leave someone out. Not all your clients fit into one box.
7/ Your work is complex.
The average person on the street wouldn’t understand what you do — and the advice to ‘explain your business like you would to a five year old’ feels far to reductive.
8/ You’re avoiding fluffy.
You have ideas and aspirations for the impact you want to make in the world but whenever you start to explain it, it feels… fluffy, wooly, intangible and weak.
9/ You’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself
You’re smart and you understand that explaining your business clearly could make all of the difference for you, and could finally be what makes entrepreneurship have more ease, flow, and inbound interest in your work. That belief is creating an unwanted gift — a concoction of perfectionism, pressure and stress.
10/ You haven’t stepped into your Authority
You are dancing around the edges of owning your expertise, calling out what you believe, can do and why someone should choose you. You are playing small and it’s having big consequences.
Can it be easier?
Yes, it can. Each of those ten areas can be worked through with some time, some effort and ideally, some objectivity.
It’s what I work on with clients daily and have created an intentional space for inside Authority Club (alongside a range of support structures to help you clarify your ideas, build your body of work and grow your client base).
“What changed for me through Authority Club was how I talk about what I do. The work didn’t change. But the way I position it did and that’s what gets people to say yes.”
Did you know doors opened a week ago, and I’m currently accepting applications for the next intake? It’s different in many ways to the first two iterations in 2024 and I am beyond excited about the caliber, energy and diversity of people coming through.
But whether you end up landing one of the spots inside Authority Club or you simply want to grease the wheels a bit more on your positioning, here are some prompts that will help you get those wheels turning…
Use general specifics
Yes, this is a juxtaposition. But it will massively help when you can find a general theme that sums up your work e.g. supporting 'women in leadership' but then applying specifics to the situation that make the context feel more immediate and relevant, e.g 'who are working in male dominated spaces'.Boil it down
In Improv comedy, we are taught to find the 'funny/shiny thing' and keep playing it. That becomes the game that an audience can understand, and find interesting. It also helps the players know what's going on, when the story is literally being written as it happens! The simpler/more boiled down the 'game' is, the better. So you are looking to take a concept, and keep boiling it down to a basic form - like 'does what it says on the tin' ... just say that.Combine 2 ideas
Imagine a venn diagram that combines two things (as a client working in both clinical psychology and coaching has done). Her coaching homework is to find the intersection on the venn digram of the two and focus on that. It doesn't mean you can't then pull ideas from both sides but you'll find it easier to focus on what sits in the intersection, as your hook.Focus on the transformation
HOW you get a client a result might be complex aka your process, but hopefully you can make the result itself, feel simple. If you are focused on the transformation and outcome itself you can attract people who say 'I want that' to your idea.X meets Y
Often, the uniqueness you offer is because you have collided two seemingly disparate worlds. So you can show that its "Thing A meets Thing B' by putting an 'x' in the middle.Focus on what's missing
You might be doing something in a crowded space but you've brought something new to the field that was previously missing. Make that your focal point.Tell a big idea
If you can connect your work back to a big idea about your work, your thesis, so to speak, other people will more readily connect to it, than if you simply speak about your services. Inside Authority Club this is about defining your One Big Idea, and building your body of work around it.
Ready to take things up a notch?
If positioning is something you’d value working on, it’s just step one in the journey of what’s available to you inside Authority Club, all year round.
This is a purpose built container for consultants and coaches hovering at an income level they know they can exceed, with some help and who are tired of doing everything solo.
If you’ve been signing clients but don’t feel your work carries the reputational weight that it should in your field… Authority Club is for you.
Imagine what could be different if you had:
→ Total clarity about your value, who you serve and what you offer
→ Strategic support on your business model and revenue streams
→ Momentum and accountability to keep building month in month out
→ A community to collaborate with and to cheer you on
This is exactly what has been created.
Or, if you need a bit more context on Authority Club first, I’ve got you — join this list.
Thanks for reading as alway, and until next time!
