November 11, 2025 • 20 mins
This episode dismantles the gap between generic business advice and the strategic depth established women leaders actually need. Sarah breaks down a recent experience that highlighted the disconnect between free advice, context, and advanced leadership goals. She examines why so many programs marketed as “advanced” are built for beginners, what seasoned women really want at this stage, and how to vet anyone selling strategy, masterminds, or high-ticket support.
Expect:
• Why advice hits wrong when it ignores your lived experience.
• The emotional weight experienced women carry and why it makes mismatched guidance feel destabilizing.
• How the online industry consistently underserves women with real expertise and leadership ambition.
• What advanced women actually want: purpose, impact, depth, and legacy-level influence.
• How to evaluate whether a strategist or mastermind is built to support someone at your level.
• Five targeted vetting questions you can use immediately.
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Subscribe to my newsletter for bold insights on leadership, strategy, and building your legacy — straight to your inbox every week.
Follow me on LinkedIn for more no-nonsense advice on leading with power and purpose.
And if you’re ready to dive even deeper, grab a copy of my book Bite-Sized Blasphemy and ignite your inner fire to do life and business your way.
The Business Blasphemy Podcast is sponsored by NYSH Strategic and Sarah Khan Out Loud.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Welcome to this space where bold truths, real
strategies, and unfilteredstories fuel ambitious women who
want more power, leadership, andlegacy on their turns.
Because in too many circles, awoman doing what she wants, how
she wants, and winning is toblasphemous as fuck.
Welcome to Business Blasphemy.
(00:24):
Hello, hello, blasphemers.
Welcome back to BusinessBlasphemy.
I am Sarah Kahn, yourblasphemous host.
I build leadership and strategywith women who've outgrown
beginner advice and are readyfor meaningful impact.
And that's what I want to talkabout today.
I want to talk about aconversation thread that has
been coming up more and more.
(00:45):
I've been experiencing thisthread for several years, but
lately, I don't know.
My peer groups seem to betalking about this a lot more.
And it's the moment you realizethat the advice that's out
there, the advice that you'rebeing given, doesn't match who
you've become.
All right.
Let me regale you with a story.
(01:06):
So a little while ago, I tookadvantage of a free marketing
consult.
I'm not going to get into thecontext of it, but I want to
caveat that by saying, like, Iunderstand free marketing
consult.
It's free, it's 30 minutes.
You are not going to get answersin 30 minutes.
And somebody who's offering afree consult should not be
giving you a strategy.
(01:26):
They should not be uh, you know,like the the lift has got to be
equal to the investment.
And if it's a free consult,there's no investment other than
your time.
So, no, you're not gonna get afull strategy baked out in 30
minutes.
It's not fair to the serviceprovider, and it does a
disservice to the person who'sactually in the consult.
So, all of that being said, Iget it.
(01:47):
Okay.
So I had this consult, and whenI got on the call, the person
maybe took like 30 seconds tolook at one social media
platform.
Okay.
I don't know if they had doneany research beforehand.
It wasn't apparent to me thatthey did, and then asked me to
talk a little bit about mybusiness, which was maybe
another 30 seconds to a minute,and then proceeded to go into
(02:12):
critiquing my one social mediaplatform and giving me advice.
Now, maybe they were having abad day, I don't know, right?
But the way the advice landedwas not nice, you know, it was
it was a little bit harsh.
So I'm gonna chalk it up to theywere probably having a bad day.
But um there is one point thatreally kind of pissed me off,
(02:32):
and it was it was saying that itwas not a big deal that I had
done a TED talk.
Yeah, it is a big deal, butthat's neither here nor there,
and that's my ego, fully owningthat.
Okay, so I got critiques on mysocial media.
Okay, fine, absolutely.
The advice that I was givenoverall was actually pretty
solid advice.
There was nothing wrong with thecontext of what or the content
(02:55):
of what she said, but it wasadvice for someone at a
different stage of business.
It was ultimately advice forsomeone who was still learning
the basics, someone who neededtemplates or plug-and-play, not
necessarily strategy.
Now, from my perspective, Iwalked into that call after a
(03:16):
really hard morning.
Like I was already carrying alot more than I wanted to.
And when the advice landed, Iwill be completely honest, it
triggered my ego, right?
I felt it land in a way thatreally wasn't about the advice.
It was more about the emotionalweight that I was carrying and
how I kind of took the advice.
So holding my hand up and sayingthat I was also responsible.
(03:38):
But yeah, it triggered this partof me that was like, oh shit, do
I need to tear everything downagain and start over?
I ended up having to take thataway.
And I spoke to a good friend ofmine, and we we unpacked all of
it over about three or four daysworth of back and forth um voice
notes.
And honestly, Michelle, ifyou're listening, you are the
(03:58):
only person I will take voicenotes that long from because
you're amazing.
So thank you for all your help.
But once I kind of unpacked itand I sat with it, that's when I
kind of understood what wasreally happening here.
But that feeling of like, ohshit, do I need to like burn it
all down and start over?
That's a feeling that's reallyfamiliar to every established
(04:20):
woman I've ever worked with.
You carry all of thisresponsibility, you carry a
history of success, you carrythis insane pressure to keep
going.
And when guidance doesn't matchyour reality, it can absolutely
shake your confidence if you'renot careful.
So I took a breath, I got honestwith myself, and I realized that
the issue wasn't me and theissue wasn't her.
(04:43):
The issue is actually a lack ofcontext.
And here's the thing any advicewithout context is dangerous.
It doesn't take intoconsideration or even see your
history, right?
It doesn't see the complexity ofyour goals or your lived
experience.
It doesn't even see the scale ofwhat you're trying to build,
(05:04):
like what your vision is.
And this is what I want to talkabout today, right?
This gap, this gap in the onlinebusiness space for women who
aren't starting out, women whoare already established business
owners, they have provenexpertise, they have big
ambitions that go far beyondjust the next launch or the next
(05:24):
offer or fucking Black Friday,which is coming up.
They are not women who needmotivation.
They do not need a mindsetreset.
They don't need someone tellingthem to post more on social
media.
They need strategy, but not thesurface level definition of
strategy that says, you know,pick a niche, stay consistent,
or this worked for me, so thisexact strategy is going to work
(05:47):
for you.
I am talking about real strategythat accounts for your identity
and your capacity and yourvalues and your goals and your
life and your resources and yoursupport system and your energy.
Right?
This is the problem.
There, there's so much businessadvice out there, but it's
primarily built for newcomers.
(06:09):
And that's why it feels sogeneric.
It is supposed to.
It works when you're learningthe basics, but once you've
built something real, you needsomething very, very different.
And that kind of brings me tothe next experience I had.
And this is not um aconversation or a commentary on
one particular program.
This is actually a commentary onwow, let me see, almost two
(06:33):
years now of looking for aprogram, a mastermind, a
community, even, or evenone-on-one coaching that
actually meets me where I ampersonally, right?
I have been in business since2010 in some capacity or other.
I have worked for a very longtime in my business, on my
(06:54):
business.
I've worked with over a hundredwomen in their businesses.
Like there's a lot going onhere.
And I come with businessexperience, right, from the
entrepreneurial space, but alsofrom the corporate space, from
the educational space.
I worked in a variety ofdifferent um sectors.
So I have a lot of context, Iguess, with respect to my own um
experience.
And so I've been lookingrecently for some kind of
(07:18):
support mechanism that is goingto help me elevate to the next
level.
Like I'm at the point now whereI want to create something for
my for my community at large.
I want to create something thatis going to leave an impact, a
legacy that is going to outliveme.
Like that's where I am.
I am not interested in what Ican do now to make more money.
(07:41):
I want to know what I can do toactually make a difference.
So I have been referred to avariety of coaches, a variety of
programs.
And, you know, a lot of theseprograms are marketed as
advanced or elevated, right?
And they have this really slickbranding, they have all the
right language, they feel veryluxury, very high touch, and of
(08:05):
course they have a price tag tomatch all of that.
But when you look under thehood, most of them, if not all
of them, they teach visibility,they teach how to create
content, they teach mindset,they have a couple of calls a
month, and you might get into ahot seat, you might not, but
it's coaching, it's not really amastermind.
They teach all of these things,but they don't teach depth, they
(08:29):
don't teach foresight, theydon't teach how to build a body
of work that actually createsopportunity to scale.
And this is endemic in thesystem right now.
So if you have ever felt likenothing out there speaks to
where you are, you're notimagining it.
(08:50):
Women at your level, at mylevel, at our level, are
horribly underserved.
We're expected to keep investingin entry-level strategies while
carrying leadership levelambition and responsibility.
So when I've had theseconversations with my clients
and my colleagues and myfriends, what I have come to
(09:11):
realize is that women at thisstage, we don't want, like I
said, more income for income'ssake.
We already know how to earn.
We already know how to makemoney.
We already know how to marketfor the most part.
What we want is purpose.
We want broader impact.
We want to build opportunitiesfor other women that are not
(09:32):
necessarily confined to theboxes of, well, create a course
or hey, create a coachingprogram, or hey, let's do a
retreat.
Like, no, right?
I want to expand influence inways that shifts conversations,
in ways that opens doors andactually creates that systemic
change that we desperately,desperately need.
And that requires a differentlevel of support.
(09:54):
It requires somebody who knowshow to build strategy that fits
your life, your personality,your goals, your lived
experience, your values, yourcapacity, all of that.
It requires someone who isn'ttrying to turn you into a clone
of themselves.
Real strategy demands clarityabout who you are and what
(10:17):
matters most right now in thisparticular season of life.
And because our seasons evolveand we evolve, your strategy is
going to evolve too.
Real strategy demands awarenessof the realities of that life,
right?
What are your responsibilities?
What is your energy level on anygiven day or any week?
What's your money situation?
(10:37):
I may have a lot of money, but Idon't necessarily want to invest
all of my business, right?
What are my priorities?
You can't build a legacy on thescaffold of somebody else's
model.
And every woman that I have everworked with brings a very
different set of assets andambitions and constraints.
(10:58):
That is the primary reason whyno one I've ever worked with has
left with the same plan.
And I have often been criticizedfor that.
I've often been told that nothaving a one-size-fits-all type
of program is the reason I willnever be able to scale.
But maybe I don't want to scale.
Maybe that's not the goal forme.
Strategy is something you earn.
It is built in partnership, itis grounded in identity, and it
(11:23):
has to reflect the scale of whatyou're trying to create.
And this is why so many programsfall short.
They're built for scale, sure.
But they're not built for depth.
And women at this stage, thisseason, we need depth, baby.
Without it, what happens is youend up with what more content,
more busy work, more visibility,but there's no real movement
(11:44):
beyond that.
Like, where is all of thiseffort taking you?
What's the end result?
And this is the reason why I'vereshaped my own business this
past year.
Right?
I'm not here to help women churnout more marketing or push
harder or hustle more.
I'm here to help women at thetop of their game build
something that fits their lifeand expands that impact.
(12:07):
I want to support women who wantto use that success to create
opportunities for other people.
That want to lift communitiesup, that want to make their work
matter beyond their ownbusiness.
And if you are a woman likethat, you don't need more hype.
You need a very clear strategygrounded in who you are now.
(12:27):
You need somebody who can seethe big picture with you.
Someone who's not going to beintimidated by your ambition or
your intelligence, and who isn'tgoing to look at your goals
through their own perspective,through their own limited belief
in what's possible.
Because that's one of the bigchallenges I've had is when I
share what I want to do, a lotof the time people say, That's
(12:48):
that's not nobody wants that.
That's not possible.
Really?
Then why is it something that'sbeen on my heart for as long as
I can remember?
That's a conversation foranother day, but there you go,
right?
So here's your action for today.
The next time you take in advicefrom anybody, I want you to
pause and take a breath beforeyou internalize it.
And I want to I want you to askthe question does this advice
(13:12):
fit who I am today or who I wasfive years ago?
If it matches who you were fiveyears ago, if it doesn't match
at all, put it aside.
It doesn't necessarily mean theadvice is wrong.
It's just not right for you.
And if you are looking forsomebody who is selling
strategy, if you're looking forthat support, I want you to
(13:32):
start looking beyond the slickbranding, the fancy language,
the high ticket price tag.
Because look, I have been inthis business a long time.
And I will fully admit that Iwill often have all the feelings
too.
When I see somebody's brand, andI'm like, oh man, that looks
amazing.
You do feel that pulp.
That's what marketing issupposed to do.
(13:54):
Nobody's immune to it.
That is literally the point ofmarketing, all right?
It's supposed to make you haveall of the feelings.
So that's why I want to sharewith you today some questions
that you can ask that willhopefully help you vet whether
or not somebody's program hasactual strategy that is actually
going to help you.
I'm gonna share five reallyquick ones right now.
(14:18):
But if you're interested inquestions that are more
in-depth, that you can askeither through an email or a DM
or even on a call, send me atext.
Head to the show notes and sendme a text.
I will happily send you a listof questions.
How many have I got here?
I've got three.
I have nearly 20 questions thatyou can ask any strategist, any
(14:40):
mastermind host, anybody sellinga high, high-ticket program to
actually assess whether theyhave the ability to build a
business strategy for you.
So if you want that list, justsend me a text.
Head to the show notes, send mea text, hit me up on social
media.
There is no paywall, there is nobox you got to sign up for.
I will just copy and paste thosequestions and send them to you
(15:02):
in a message, okay?
Absolutely free, no stringsattached, because I really feel
like we need to ask betterquestions of people.
We need to hold them accountableto actually representing
clearly, we need to hold peopleaccountable to being able to
tell us whether or not they canactually serve us in the way
that we want.
And these questions arequestions that I am starting to
(15:23):
use with people when I'm askingabout whether or not I'm gonna
get what I'm actually signing upfor.
Because again, you know how Ifeel about marketers, right?
And and marketing techniques.
But right now, here are fivethat you can use at any time
when you're trying to vet anykind of potential strategy
relationship.
Okay.
So here's the first one.
(15:45):
How would you identify andprioritize my target customer
segments?
How would you identify andprioritize my target customer
segments?
So this is really looking at whoyour potential audience is and
which segments of thoseaudiences you need to be focused
on and how they would go aboutmaking a list of who to focus on
(16:06):
first.
Question two, what channelswould you explore for my
business?
And how would you decide where Ishould invest my marketing
budget?
So look for knowledge of digitalmarketing channels.
So, like SEO, uh paid ads,content for sure, email,
(16:26):
partnerships, that sort ofthing.
What they do to test theirmethodology and what sort of
data they're going to beproviding for you in order to
make those decisions rather thanrelying on personal preference.
Because you'll have people whoare like, well, I prefer
LinkedIn or I prefer Instagram.
No, no, no.
You want data to drive thosedecisions.
(16:48):
Here's question number three.
Can you walk me through astrategy that you've built for
an online service business?
What worked, what didn't.
You are not looking for them torehash the entire strategy,
obviously.
But what you want to look for isrelevant experience.
Have they worked with businessesthat are similar to yours?
And you're looking for honestreflection on failures.
You don't want just spectacularmetrics and conversions, right?
(17:12):
Ask for specific metrics,specific outcomes, and lessons
learned that you could apply toyour situation.
All right, here's question four.
How do you approach messagingand positioning for a service
business versus a productbusiness?
This one is looking for anunderstanding that they actually
do know that each of thoseservices requires a different
(17:33):
approach, right?
Trust building, social proof,demonstrating experience,
managing intangibles, andobviously the very much longer
sales cycle that's involvedversus based against a product
business.
Question number five (17:48):
What metrics would you track to
measure if the marketingstrategy is working?
So you're not looking just forlikes, follows, and shares.
You're looking for a focus onyour business outcomes.
So they're going to understandwhat your out your desired
outcomes are, right?
Um, conversion rates, pipeline,uh, all of that stuff, not just
(18:09):
vanity metrics.
And they should reallyunderstand unit economics and
how marketing impacts them.
So people who actually havemarketing chops, all right.
Here's a bonus question that youcan ask.
What would you need to learnabout my business, my customers,
and the market before developingthe strategy?
So, what you want to look forhere is thoughtful questions
(18:30):
around current customers, yourparticular sales process, the
competition, past marketingefforts, right?
Someone who just jumps inwithout asking questions and
starts offering solutions, hugered flag, walk the fuck away.
All right.
So those are very quickquestions that you can ask.
Um, check the transcript if youdidn't catch them in time, or
(18:52):
just listen to the episodeagain.
But if you want that longer listof questions that you can ask
that you can use to vet businessstrategists or mastermind hosts,
or really anyone who's going tobe developing any kind of
strategy for you, whether it'smarketing or growth or
otherwise, drop me a note.
The text link is in the shownotes.
Um, also, you're more thanwelcome to contact me on social
(19:13):
media.
That is what I'm here for.
And again, there are no stringsattached.
I will just send you the list.
Okay.
So if you have been feeling likeyou are lonely because nobody
understands where you're tryingto go or what you're trying to
build, and all the advice justseems to be super basic and
super easy, and you just don'tunderstand how to find somebody
(19:34):
who can bring you to the nextlevel.
You are not alone.
We really need to build more ofthose communities.
And that's something I'm I'mhoping to do in the coming year.
So stick around, stay tuned forthat, and hit me up on social
media.
Let me know if this resonatedwith you because I'm looking to
find my people.
And I know that if you are oneof those people, you're looking
(19:55):
for us too.
So, all of that to say, have awonderful week.
You can have success without theBS, and I will talk to you soon.
Thanks for listening.
Hey, do us a favor.
Subscribe to the show, rate yourfavorite episode, or share it
with your friends.
And remember, your blasphemy isnecessary.
Welcome to this space where bold truths, real
strategies, and unfilteredstories fuel ambitious women who
want more power, leadership, andlegacy on their turns.
Because in too many circles, awoman doing what she wants, how
she wants, and winning is toblasphemous as fuck.
Welcome to Business Blasphemy.
(00:24):
Hello, hello, blasphemers.
Welcome back to BusinessBlasphemy.
I am Sarah Kahn, yourblasphemous host.
I build leadership and strategywith women who've outgrown
beginner advice and are readyfor meaningful impact.
And that's what I want to talkabout today.
I want to talk about aconversation thread that has
been coming up more and more.
(00:45):
I've been experiencing thisthread for several years, but
lately, I don't know.
My peer groups seem to betalking about this a lot more.
And it's the moment you realizethat the advice that's out
there, the advice that you'rebeing given, doesn't match who
you've become.
All right.
Let me regale you with a story.
(01:06):
So a little while ago, I tookadvantage of a free marketing
consult.
I'm not going to get into thecontext of it, but I want to
caveat that by saying, like, Iunderstand free marketing
consult.
It's free, it's 30 minutes.
You are not going to get answersin 30 minutes.
And somebody who's offering afree consult should not be
giving you a strategy.
(01:26):
They should not be uh, you know,like the the lift has got to be
equal to the investment.
And if it's a free consult,there's no investment other than
your time.
So, no, you're not gonna get afull strategy baked out in 30
minutes.
It's not fair to the serviceprovider, and it does a
disservice to the person who'sactually in the consult.
So, all of that being said, Iget it.
(01:47):
Okay.
So I had this consult, and whenI got on the call, the person
maybe took like 30 seconds tolook at one social media
platform.
Okay.
I don't know if they had doneany research beforehand.
It wasn't apparent to me thatthey did, and then asked me to
talk a little bit about mybusiness, which was maybe
another 30 seconds to a minute,and then proceeded to go into
(02:12):
critiquing my one social mediaplatform and giving me advice.
Now, maybe they were having abad day, I don't know, right?
But the way the advice landedwas not nice, you know, it was
it was a little bit harsh.
So I'm gonna chalk it up to theywere probably having a bad day.
But um there is one point thatreally kind of pissed me off,
(02:32):
and it was it was saying that itwas not a big deal that I had
done a TED talk.
Yeah, it is a big deal, butthat's neither here nor there,
and that's my ego, fully owningthat.
Okay, so I got critiques on mysocial media.
Okay, fine, absolutely.
The advice that I was givenoverall was actually pretty
solid advice.
There was nothing wrong with thecontext of what or the content
(02:55):
of what she said, but it wasadvice for someone at a
different stage of business.
It was ultimately advice forsomeone who was still learning
the basics, someone who neededtemplates or plug-and-play, not
necessarily strategy.
Now, from my perspective, Iwalked into that call after a
(03:16):
really hard morning.
Like I was already carrying alot more than I wanted to.
And when the advice landed, Iwill be completely honest, it
triggered my ego, right?
I felt it land in a way thatreally wasn't about the advice.
It was more about the emotionalweight that I was carrying and
how I kind of took the advice.
So holding my hand up and sayingthat I was also responsible.
(03:38):
But yeah, it triggered this partof me that was like, oh shit, do
I need to tear everything downagain and start over?
I ended up having to take thataway.
And I spoke to a good friend ofmine, and we we unpacked all of
it over about three or four daysworth of back and forth um voice
notes.
And honestly, Michelle, ifyou're listening, you are the
(03:58):
only person I will take voicenotes that long from because
you're amazing.
So thank you for all your help.
But once I kind of unpacked itand I sat with it, that's when I
kind of understood what wasreally happening here.
But that feeling of like, ohshit, do I need to like burn it
all down and start over?
That's a feeling that's reallyfamiliar to every established
(04:20):
woman I've ever worked with.
You carry all of thisresponsibility, you carry a
history of success, you carrythis insane pressure to keep
going.
And when guidance doesn't matchyour reality, it can absolutely
shake your confidence if you'renot careful.
So I took a breath, I got honestwith myself, and I realized that
the issue wasn't me and theissue wasn't her.
(04:43):
The issue is actually a lack ofcontext.
And here's the thing any advicewithout context is dangerous.
It doesn't take intoconsideration or even see your
history, right?
It doesn't see the complexity ofyour goals or your lived
experience.
It doesn't even see the scale ofwhat you're trying to build,
(05:04):
like what your vision is.
And this is what I want to talkabout today, right?
This gap, this gap in the onlinebusiness space for women who
aren't starting out, women whoare already established business
owners, they have provenexpertise, they have big
ambitions that go far beyondjust the next launch or the next
(05:24):
offer or fucking Black Friday,which is coming up.
They are not women who needmotivation.
They do not need a mindsetreset.
They don't need someone tellingthem to post more on social
media.
They need strategy, but not thesurface level definition of
strategy that says, you know,pick a niche, stay consistent,
or this worked for me, so thisexact strategy is going to work
(05:47):
for you.
I am talking about real strategythat accounts for your identity
and your capacity and yourvalues and your goals and your
life and your resources and yoursupport system and your energy.
Right?
This is the problem.
There, there's so much businessadvice out there, but it's
primarily built for newcomers.
(06:09):
And that's why it feels sogeneric.
It is supposed to.
It works when you're learningthe basics, but once you've
built something real, you needsomething very, very different.
And that kind of brings me tothe next experience I had.
And this is not um aconversation or a commentary on
one particular program.
This is actually a commentary onwow, let me see, almost two
(06:33):
years now of looking for aprogram, a mastermind, a
community, even, or evenone-on-one coaching that
actually meets me where I ampersonally, right?
I have been in business since2010 in some capacity or other.
I have worked for a very longtime in my business, on my
(06:54):
business.
I've worked with over a hundredwomen in their businesses.
Like there's a lot going onhere.
And I come with businessexperience, right, from the
entrepreneurial space, but alsofrom the corporate space, from
the educational space.
I worked in a variety ofdifferent um sectors.
So I have a lot of context, Iguess, with respect to my own um
experience.
And so I've been lookingrecently for some kind of
(07:18):
support mechanism that is goingto help me elevate to the next
level.
Like I'm at the point now whereI want to create something for
my for my community at large.
I want to create something thatis going to leave an impact, a
legacy that is going to outliveme.
Like that's where I am.
I am not interested in what Ican do now to make more money.
(07:41):
I want to know what I can do toactually make a difference.
So I have been referred to avariety of coaches, a variety of
programs.
And, you know, a lot of theseprograms are marketed as
advanced or elevated, right?
And they have this really slickbranding, they have all the
right language, they feel veryluxury, very high touch, and of
(08:05):
course they have a price tag tomatch all of that.
But when you look under thehood, most of them, if not all
of them, they teach visibility,they teach how to create
content, they teach mindset,they have a couple of calls a
month, and you might get into ahot seat, you might not, but
it's coaching, it's not really amastermind.
They teach all of these things,but they don't teach depth, they
(08:29):
don't teach foresight, theydon't teach how to build a body
of work that actually createsopportunity to scale.
And this is endemic in thesystem right now.
So if you have ever felt likenothing out there speaks to
where you are, you're notimagining it.
(08:50):
Women at your level, at mylevel, at our level, are
horribly underserved.
We're expected to keep investingin entry-level strategies while
carrying leadership levelambition and responsibility.
So when I've had theseconversations with my clients
and my colleagues and myfriends, what I have come to
(09:11):
realize is that women at thisstage, we don't want, like I
said, more income for income'ssake.
We already know how to earn.
We already know how to makemoney.
We already know how to marketfor the most part.
What we want is purpose.
We want broader impact.
We want to build opportunitiesfor other women that are not
(09:32):
necessarily confined to theboxes of, well, create a course
or hey, create a coachingprogram, or hey, let's do a
retreat.
Like, no, right?
I want to expand influence inways that shifts conversations,
in ways that opens doors andactually creates that systemic
change that we desperately,desperately need.
And that requires a differentlevel of support.
(09:54):
It requires somebody who knowshow to build strategy that fits
your life, your personality,your goals, your lived
experience, your values, yourcapacity, all of that.
It requires someone who isn'ttrying to turn you into a clone
of themselves.
Real strategy demands clarityabout who you are and what
(10:17):
matters most right now in thisparticular season of life.
And because our seasons evolveand we evolve, your strategy is
going to evolve too.
Real strategy demands awarenessof the realities of that life,
right?
What are your responsibilities?
What is your energy level on anygiven day or any week?
What's your money situation?
(10:37):
I may have a lot of money, but Idon't necessarily want to invest
all of my business, right?
What are my priorities?
You can't build a legacy on thescaffold of somebody else's
model.
And every woman that I have everworked with brings a very
different set of assets andambitions and constraints.
(10:58):
That is the primary reason whyno one I've ever worked with has
left with the same plan.
And I have often been criticizedfor that.
I've often been told that nothaving a one-size-fits-all type
of program is the reason I willnever be able to scale.
But maybe I don't want to scale.
Maybe that's not the goal forme.
Strategy is something you earn.
It is built in partnership, itis grounded in identity, and it
(11:23):
has to reflect the scale of whatyou're trying to create.
And this is why so many programsfall short.
They're built for scale, sure.
But they're not built for depth.
And women at this stage, thisseason, we need depth, baby.
Without it, what happens is youend up with what more content,
more busy work, more visibility,but there's no real movement
(11:44):
beyond that.
Like, where is all of thiseffort taking you?
What's the end result?
And this is the reason why I'vereshaped my own business this
past year.
Right?
I'm not here to help women churnout more marketing or push
harder or hustle more.
I'm here to help women at thetop of their game build
something that fits their lifeand expands that impact.
(12:07):
I want to support women who wantto use that success to create
opportunities for other people.
That want to lift communitiesup, that want to make their work
matter beyond their ownbusiness.
And if you are a woman likethat, you don't need more hype.
You need a very clear strategygrounded in who you are now.
(12:27):
You need somebody who can seethe big picture with you.
Someone who's not going to beintimidated by your ambition or
your intelligence, and who isn'tgoing to look at your goals
through their own perspective,through their own limited belief
in what's possible.
Because that's one of the bigchallenges I've had is when I
share what I want to do, a lotof the time people say, That's
(12:48):
that's not nobody wants that.
That's not possible.
Really?
Then why is it something that'sbeen on my heart for as long as
I can remember?
That's a conversation foranother day, but there you go,
right?
So here's your action for today.
The next time you take in advicefrom anybody, I want you to
pause and take a breath beforeyou internalize it.
And I want to I want you to askthe question does this advice
(13:12):
fit who I am today or who I wasfive years ago?
If it matches who you were fiveyears ago, if it doesn't match
at all, put it aside.
It doesn't necessarily mean theadvice is wrong.
It's just not right for you.
And if you are looking forsomebody who is selling
strategy, if you're looking forthat support, I want you to
(13:32):
start looking beyond the slickbranding, the fancy language,
the high ticket price tag.
Because look, I have been inthis business a long time.
And I will fully admit that Iwill often have all the feelings
too.
When I see somebody's brand, andI'm like, oh man, that looks
amazing.
You do feel that pulp.
That's what marketing issupposed to do.
(13:54):
Nobody's immune to it.
That is literally the point ofmarketing, all right?
It's supposed to make you haveall of the feelings.
So that's why I want to sharewith you today some questions
that you can ask that willhopefully help you vet whether
or not somebody's program hasactual strategy that is actually
going to help you.
I'm gonna share five reallyquick ones right now.
(14:18):
But if you're interested inquestions that are more
in-depth, that you can askeither through an email or a DM
or even on a call, send me atext.
Head to the show notes and sendme a text.
I will happily send you a listof questions.
How many have I got here?
I've got three.
I have nearly 20 questions thatyou can ask any strategist, any
(14:40):
mastermind host, anybody sellinga high, high-ticket program to
actually assess whether theyhave the ability to build a
business strategy for you.
So if you want that list, justsend me a text.
Head to the show notes, send mea text, hit me up on social
media.
There is no paywall, there is nobox you got to sign up for.
I will just copy and paste thosequestions and send them to you
(15:02):
in a message, okay?
Absolutely free, no stringsattached, because I really feel
like we need to ask betterquestions of people.
We need to hold them accountableto actually representing
clearly, we need to hold peopleaccountable to being able to
tell us whether or not they canactually serve us in the way
that we want.
And these questions arequestions that I am starting to
(15:23):
use with people when I'm askingabout whether or not I'm gonna
get what I'm actually signing upfor.
Because again, you know how Ifeel about marketers, right?
And and marketing techniques.
But right now, here are fivethat you can use at any time
when you're trying to vet anykind of potential strategy
relationship.
Okay.
So here's the first one.
(15:45):
How would you identify andprioritize my target customer
segments?
How would you identify andprioritize my target customer
segments?
So this is really looking at whoyour potential audience is and
which segments of thoseaudiences you need to be focused
on and how they would go aboutmaking a list of who to focus on
(16:06):
first.
Question two, what channelswould you explore for my
business?
And how would you decide where Ishould invest my marketing
budget?
So look for knowledge of digitalmarketing channels.
So, like SEO, uh paid ads,content for sure, email,
(16:26):
partnerships, that sort ofthing.
What they do to test theirmethodology and what sort of
data they're going to beproviding for you in order to
make those decisions rather thanrelying on personal preference.
Because you'll have people whoare like, well, I prefer
LinkedIn or I prefer Instagram.
No, no, no.
You want data to drive thosedecisions.
(16:48):
Here's question number three.
Can you walk me through astrategy that you've built for
an online service business?
What worked, what didn't.
You are not looking for them torehash the entire strategy,
obviously.
But what you want to look for isrelevant experience.
Have they worked with businessesthat are similar to yours?
And you're looking for honestreflection on failures.
You don't want just spectacularmetrics and conversions, right?
(17:12):
Ask for specific metrics,specific outcomes, and lessons
learned that you could apply toyour situation.
All right, here's question four.
How do you approach messagingand positioning for a service
business versus a productbusiness?
This one is looking for anunderstanding that they actually
do know that each of thoseservices requires a different
(17:33):
approach, right?
Trust building, social proof,demonstrating experience,
managing intangibles, andobviously the very much longer
sales cycle that's involvedversus based against a product
business.
Question number five (17:48):
What metrics would you track to
measure if the marketingstrategy is working?
So you're not looking just forlikes, follows, and shares.
You're looking for a focus onyour business outcomes.
So they're going to understandwhat your out your desired
outcomes are, right?
Um, conversion rates, pipeline,uh, all of that stuff, not just
(18:09):
vanity metrics.
And they should reallyunderstand unit economics and
how marketing impacts them.
So people who actually havemarketing chops, all right.
Here's a bonus question that youcan ask.
What would you need to learnabout my business, my customers,
and the market before developingthe strategy?
So, what you want to look forhere is thoughtful questions
(18:30):
around current customers, yourparticular sales process, the
competition, past marketingefforts, right?
Someone who just jumps inwithout asking questions and
starts offering solutions, hugered flag, walk the fuck away.
All right.
So those are very quickquestions that you can ask.
Um, check the transcript if youdidn't catch them in time, or
(18:52):
just listen to the episodeagain.
But if you want that longer listof questions that you can ask
that you can use to vet businessstrategists or mastermind hosts,
or really anyone who's going tobe developing any kind of
strategy for you, whether it'smarketing or growth or
otherwise, drop me a note.
The text link is in the shownotes.
Um, also, you're more thanwelcome to contact me on social
(19:13):
media.
That is what I'm here for.
And again, there are no stringsattached.
I will just send you the list.
Okay.
So if you have been feeling likeyou are lonely because nobody
understands where you're tryingto go or what you're trying to
build, and all the advice justseems to be super basic and
super easy, and you just don'tunderstand how to find somebody
(19:34):
who can bring you to the nextlevel.
You are not alone.
We really need to build more ofthose communities.
And that's something I'm I'mhoping to do in the coming year.
So stick around, stay tuned forthat, and hit me up on social
media.
Let me know if this resonatedwith you because I'm looking to
find my people.
And I know that if you are oneof those people, you're looking
(19:55):
for us too.
So, all of that to say, have awonderful week.
You can have success without theBS, and I will talk to you soon.
Thanks for listening.
Hey, do us a favor.
Subscribe to the show, rate yourfavorite episode, or share it
with your friends.
And remember, your blasphemy isnecessary.
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