Hey, welcome to this episode. I’m really excited about this one. I’m pretty sure I say that about all of them, but actually, for real, it’s about finding your voice again in your late 40s and early 50s.

Being that myself, I firsthand understand where you can lose confidence. You can get the wobbles, particularly if you’ve been in your business for 10 plus years. You can sometimes forget what you’re an expert in and feel like maybe you kind of retreat back into yourself and that can knock your confidence.

So I had a beautiful client come to me and it was like looking in a mirror. Everything she was saying I could completely resonate with.

And she was talking about how she wanted to come out and grow her business. She had been doing a lot of contract work and she wasn’t clear on her niche and she was feeling really fuzzy around the whole thing and like she was losing her voice and that perhaps losing more confidence than she had realized with.

But when we talked it out, the truth came out for her that actually she was an incredible expert in what she did. She’d led amazing regional initiatives, managed multimillion dollar projects with her eyes closed. Like, this girl’s got skills. And we can actually sometimes forget those until you actually have someone present them back to you and go, I don’t know what evidence you were looking at, but here’s what I see for you. And it was a beautiful moment.

But I know she’s not alone, right? We can all feel like that. So I wanted to do this podcast for all of you who might be feeling like that today.

So she actually wasn’t unclear. She was actually really clear. What I said to her was, you’re drowning in your own expertise. Actually, you know too much and you potentially spread yourself too thin because there’s so many things you can do.

You spent decades building skills and managing complexities and delicate delivering results, only to find yourself suddenly unsure about how to talk about what you do when you’ve got to go back out to promote yourself, which, you know, can put the fear into most people. Like, “oh, what do I do again?”, particularly when you see the younger crew coming through.

So we’re going to talk about it. So you can actually know too much and be drowning and having too much experience. Like I said, that is actually a real problem because you feel like you can do everything. Like I said, because you know lots of things and you’ve worn every hat. You know, branding, stakeholder engagement, project management, you name it, you’ve handled it.

And when we’ve got to go pitch ourselves, we have to come back to, what is it that you love? You now get to control what the work it is that you want to be doing. What do you love?

So when I asked her what, what’s the work that you love that you just want to do all the time, and she knew, she was crystal clear. So I was like, you’re not unclear about who you help and what you want to do. It was actually just getting her to claim it and trust it.

And that comes down to, and you heard me say it before, is the evidence. She’s got a lot of evidence that she is that and can do that because she’s been doing it.

So we then spoke into, oh, I see these younger ones coming through and they’re so loud online. And I feel like I’ve kind of missed my moment. Sad, right? I’ve missed my moment.

I think the more we talk about it for middle aged women, the more we can see that we haven’t missed the moment. Actually, people are going to choose you because of your wisdom and because of your lived experience. And that becomes a competitive advantage.

And I said to her that I had an interior designer once and she was this beautiful older lady and she’d interior designed for a really long time, years and years, you know, like 15 years. And she was like, oh, the younger ones are coming through and their marketing and their branding, like it’s just so powerful and energetic.

And I said, yes, but your competitive advantage is you’ve had toddlers, teens and young adults live in your house. So when you’re going to design a house for a family, you ergonomically understand how the house needs to function through that life cycle. And you know about upholstery and textures that can withstand that environment.

Now the younger generation can, you know, hear from suppliers, maybe have a little bit of lived experience, but not as much as someone who’s been through that cycle. Right? And that is one reason why someone would choose you because of that understanding. So sometimes we have to check ourselves, right?

Someone who’s been through complex initiatives, they’re going to want that experience as opposed to someone who’s read a book about it. Or you’re going to choose someone who’s been in the room for 30 years, who understands the nuances in relationships.

So don’t undersell yourself. You don’t actually need to compete with that younger generation. You actually need to own what they can’t offer yet, which is that lived experience and be punchy with your own voice. Own it.

So in some of my sessions where someone is unclear about what they do, it’s about niching. We’ll often start with, I’ll niche you so tight, you feel so uncomfortable and you think, oh my gosh, Nat, is there anyone who would buy this thing?

And we go have a look at who your current audience is and who’s been currently buying from you. And sure enough, we’ll find that that is the audience. It’s just that you’ve probably never had to tighten it down.

I think I’ve said this story a few times how this lady’s made millions of dollars making parrot clothing for people who love to dress their parrots. I mean, how beyond niche is that? And quirky, but it works.

So the tighter you can get the niche, the better because you can then talk to that one person when you’re doing your marketing.

So I’ve got to put in the show notes a little bit of questions for you to tighten it up a bit. It’s pretty standard, you can google that kind of stuff. But I just put some examples of, you know, who do you help, what’s the pain you solve, what problem do you take away?

And I know it’s uncomfortable with niching because you feel like you’re excluding people, but when you try to be everything, you sound like everyone. So the more that you can talk into who you want to work with, the better you will do.

So you may have noticed a move from my messaging as opposed to me just being all about sales. I’m a business coach who does way more than sales. But I chose that niche to be able to go and help that woman who needed that help with sales and to take that imperfect action. Right?

So now as my business is morphed and I’ve grown as a coach, I’m very much interested in established businesses who are looking for a reinvention and expansion and that is usually businesses who have been in seven plus years and middle aged women. So I could go back through and even tighten some of my niche. But just if you sound like everyone, no one’s going to remember you.

So finding your voice again in your midlife, really own the amazing stuff you’ve done and stop thinking of yourself as a contractor if that is you, and actually start thinking of yourself as a trusted New Zealand advisor, one of New Zealand’s trusted analysts, whatever it is that you do. Because if you’ve been around long enough and you’ve had people who keep repeatedly coming back to you, then you are a trusted person.

So this client was like, oh, that sounds so grandiose, Nat. But I’m like, yeah, but we’ve got so much factual information that backs that up. So I suppose it’s like, yeah, own that accolade and own all those years of work, otherwise you’re really dismissing it. You’ve got that track record. You’ve got to stop waiting for that tap on the shoulder or no one’s going to give you permission that you’re now finally the expert. You’ve actually got to inherently give that to yourself, as crazy as that sounds.

So clarity doesn’t come from adding more or trying to be more. It comes from taking away everything that isn’t essential and really what do you love doing and where is the factual information to back that up?

So some actionable tasks from here are go and look at your LinkedIn. Is it actually reflecting your expertise? Is there someone you can really narrow down into your LinkedIn? Write an article, share an example of your strategic thinking.

I very much, this is a real growth for me, sharing in my podcast the work of my clients, the work that I do. Because you know, part of my fear is someone will be like, oh, that’s the wrong thing to be telling people. That’s, that’s ridiculous. You know that I have self doubt too, like everyone. But actually after 11 years of doing this, I have to back myself at some stage and be like, well, this has worked for me, is working for me and is working for my clients. So I’m going to own a little bit of that. And if we don’t own that, then becomes very dismissive of the people who do purchase our work. What does that say about them? If we think that we’re no good, what is that? As a discerning buyer, not the greatest.

So direct offer, reach out to an existing client, ask for a referral if you haven’t had to grow your business for a little while because maybe you’ve had lots of referrals, maybe you’ve just had a couple of main clients and now you’ve got to go back out and reinvent and refresh.

The world does not need more generalists, so stop trying to be there for everyone. The world needs your specific brand of genius. So I want you to go on. Own your voice. We’d love to know what you think of this episode, share it around.