Imperfect Marketing
Imperfect Marketing
Are You Too Close to Your Business?
In this episode of Imperfect Marketing, host Kendra Corman dives into a common but often overlooked entrepreneurial struggle: being too close to your own business. Drawing from personal experience and conversations with clients, Kendra explores why it’s so hard to see your business clearly—and how that impacts your marketing, messaging, and momentum.
If you've ever found yourself stuck writing a LinkedIn post, unsure what makes you unique, or overwhelmed by daily to-dos, this episode will hit home. It’s a thoughtful, honest look at what happens when your expertise becomes a blind spot—and how to regain perspective.
- Are You Too Close to Your Business?
- How This Impacts Your Marketing
- Ways to Regain Perspective
Key Takeaways for Business Owners and Marketers
- Expertise blindness is real—just because you know it doesn’t mean your audience does
- Marketing is about connection, not complexity
- You don’t need a huge budget to get perspective—start with post-its or a monthly accountability check-in
- Even pros need coaches—asking for help is a sign of strength, not failure
Whether you're a solopreneur, service provider, or small business owner, this episode will help you slow down, zoom out, and market from a place of clarity—not assumption.
Connect with Kendra Corman:
- Website: kendracorman.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendracorman/
- Instagram: @kendracormancoach
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Hi, I'm Kendra Korman.
Speaker 1:If you're a coach, consultant or marketer, you know marketing is far from a perfect science and that's why this show is called Imperfect Marketing. Join me and my guests as we explore how to grow your business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned along the way. Hello and welcome back to Imperfect Marketing. I'm your host, kendra Corman, and today we're going to be asking the question are you too close to your business? I think if you're in business, if you're a solopreneur, entrepreneur, small business owner, the answer is probably yes, because it's definitely yes for me myself in my business. What does that mean, too close to your business? A lot of times it just means that you can't see sometimes the value that you're providing, the problem that you're solving and why people are coming to you. You also don't always pick up on all of the different things that they're talking about and questions that they're asking so that you can create better content and better position yourself in the market for you to get more business right. So let's talk a little bit about the signs that you're too close to your business. First off, can you identify the questions that your customers are regularly asking you? Customers, clients, suppliers, whatever it happens to be. I can tell you that I forget a lot of the questions I get asked at speaking events because I'm on such a high from the adrenaline that I'm looking for content and I'm like, oh my gosh, what did they ask me? I forgot right. And so I think that that happens a lot for people and it happens a lot more than we think. So becoming more observant and it happens a lot more than we think so becoming more observant, writing those down and getting ways that we can generate more interest or more ideas, for instance I'll just use this as an example. You know, going into the people also ask section of Google if you're searching for some keywords that you want to come up for or using answer the public. Look, asking AI. What are questions that these type of people ask might help jog your memory if you've totally blanked on what those questions were.
Speaker 1:Second sign that you're too close to your business is that you're taking your expertise for granted. You probably forget more in one day than most of your customers or clients now or prospects. Right, you are good at what you do and we are so close to ourselves in this, unfortunately, that we really do forget how much we know and we forget more than what they recall or know in a daily basis. Another sign is that it's hard for you to talk about your unique value proposition. Other sign is that it's hard for you to talk about your unique value proposition.
Speaker 1:What makes you special, what makes you different? I bet you that a lot of people not as close to your business as you could really see that right, they could identify what makes you special. But it's hard for us to see that because we're just too close to our business. And then, of course, we're always missing content, ideas and questions we can answer and ways to market ourselves better and more effectively and efficiently, because we're missing out on those cues that other people are seeing or hearing or listening to. We don't always question ourselves enough because we're too close to it. Oh, people know that. Oh, I don't want to talk down to people, right? And you have that question all the time and it's a big struggle. I find this all the time.
Speaker 1:I've had three conversations in the last three weeks of the time of this recording with people that are just too close to their business. They're looking for some help and some guidance because it's taking them forever to write a page of copy on their website or to write a LinkedIn post or whatever it is that they're looking to do. Come up with a podcast episode topic. They're really struggling with this because and the reason isn't because they're not good and it's not because they're not experts in their space, right? I just had a conversation with someone where I reiterated all the amazing things that she does and how truly amazing she is in her space and how unscary she is in what I would consider a very scary industry for a lot of people when you think about their emotions going into it. And she's like oh, like, yeah, it's amazing how much you really take out of it, which is pretty cool. So, just an interesting way to think about it.
Speaker 1:Why does this happen? Why are we too close to our business? Why aren't we seeing these things? Well, a couple reasons. One is expertise blindness. We know it already so well that it feels repetitive. It feels like we've talked about it too many times already. It feels like we've just covered it to death. It's hard to remember what it's like not to know what you know. That's where we really struggle. And then I don't know about you but my calendar sometimes. Know about you but my calendar sometimes, a lot of times, is a hot mess and not having that time to take that step back and be able to see the big picture is really really hard on me and getting into that details. Working too much in the business, not on the business, has been a big struggle at times for me, because I get so caught up in answering the questions, answering the email, doing this, doing that, that I'm not taking time in between these things enough to really say, oh, there's a pattern there. People are noticing things, right, and that's really hard.
Speaker 1:Of course, again, too close to your business, there's an emotional attachment. Right, you're better than everybody else. Why? Just because, like, shouldn't people know that? Because you're amazing, because you do this differently or that differently, which is really not different. That's the same as what other people are doing. But again, we have that emotional attachment to our businesses and it's our babies, right. That idea, that website, that web copy that we spent hours slaving over, it's perfect. Why? Because we spent hours slaving over it, right, and so it doesn't mean it's good, unfortunately. I wish it was. But again, it's just the reason why we sometimes are too close to our business, you know.
Speaker 1:Going back to the calendar and the daily immersion and the details of doing the work and working in your business. That mental load can exhaust us at times and it doesn't give us enough time for perspective. You don't always see the forest through the trees, right. So I remember when I was working in corporate and I had done so many things, I had really changed the culture for the different departments that wanted marketing support and the way marketing support was provided, and the funny part is that I would forget that on a regular basis because I was so busy or this didn't get approved, or that didn't get approved, or maybe this other campaign wasn't performing quite as well as I had wanted, and that really was something that I struggled with, and it took other people reminding me about how far we had come and how revolutionary the shift in perspective had been for everybody else that I forgot that it existed Pretty cool way of looking at things, right, and so sometimes you just need somebody to remind you because, again, we're just too close to it so we're caught up in it. There's a lot more to it, and getting that person that's going to help you step back and take a look at it is just adds a lot of value.
Speaker 1:Now, how does this not being able to see the forest through the trees or being caught up in the details, really being too close to your business and having too much of an emotional attachment to it how does this affect your marketing? It does a lot, unfortunately. A couple reasons. One you think you know it all. You don't. You don't really recall exactly what your customers are going through. Your clients are going through, right, and it changes. So maybe you did when you started, but maybe it's different now, because that was several years ago or a decade ago, right, and because you're not seeing that stuff every day, maybe you're not refreshing your perspective. You don't know it all, and so you're missing their emotional state. You're missing their pain points that may have evolved over time. Right, they should just work with you because it's the right thing to do. Yeah, well, they sort of need a little more than that, right?
Speaker 1:Oh, one of the big things that I see affecting people's marketing is that they're writing content for their peers, not their prospects. I'm an expert, I'm going to show you all my expertise, right, but they're overcomplicating it and they're talking to themselves, not to their prospects. I had a client that did this all the time and they wouldn't listen otherwise. And then one day, one of the managers at the company that I was working with had said can we write? All right, we're going to give it a try, let's go ahead and write a blog that's approachable to the I'm not going to say average person. But I'm going to say you know, business owner with a college degree, don't you overuse lingo. I mean, they know what EBITDA is and fancy financing terms and things like that, but don't overly fill it with that. You want it to be approachable so that they understand that you understand their business Night and day, night and day.
Speaker 1:In the results of that, yeah, because we were no longer talking to ourselves or our peers. We were now talking to our prospects, who wanted to be talked about at a level that they understood, not a level where they felt talked down to or that they felt like we were above them, which is really important to think about when you are looking at your business. On that note, or building off of that, is assuming that your audience has knowledge that they don't have. I did a post on this three weeks ago, or I wrote an email on this three weeks ago, or six months ago, I talked about this and did seven different social media posts throughout the month. Whatever that happens to be, they didn't see it all and they don't remember it.
Speaker 1:I was recently recording another episode with a guest and we were talking about the fact that people forget a lot of what we do, and I mean there's probably like 15 episodes that I've talked about that because we're not just, we're just not that important to them. So there's people that repeat things a lot, and it's not that they're repeating it just to repeat it, but they're repeating it because you don't remember. You don't remember that they're the one that said it, you don't remember what it was that they talked about, and so it's okay to reiterate it and don't assume that they have that knowledge or that because you talked about that one tool that now they're using it every day because they're not Again being too close to it. In your marketing, you have a tendency to forget some of the roadblocks or the objections that they're going to have to working with you or working with someone that does what you do, because it's so obvious, right, and there's a lot of that obvious that goes around and we forget and struggle, putting ourselves into other people's shoes so that we are able to talk about it in that way, and that causes us issues to be able to really connect with our audience through email, through social posts, through phone calls, through presentations, whatever it happens to be. If you're too close to your business, you're really gonna struggle here and again. We're all there.
Speaker 1:Again, I'm not saying that you oh yeah, don't care about your business or step away from your business. I just want you to think about it from a different perspective. I want you to start thinking about how to look at your business a little bit differently so that you don't get lost in all of these issues that other people are running into, including myself, right? I mean, I hired a writing coach last year. I'm still working with her on a case-by-case basis, not because I'm not a good writer, but because I was too close to some of my own stuff and I wasn't able to write as powerfully as I should have been because it was for my business and I was too close to it. So how do you do this? Well, not everybody has the budget to hire coaches and consultants and things like that. I get that, but if you do, feel free to let me know and I'll be happy to work with you.
Speaker 1:No, but think about finding an accountability partner for your business. Do you have an accountability partner that can help remind you, that could do an hour call once a month, that could hold you accountable for what you say you're going to do, but also provide that other perspective when you're questioning some of those things that you're working on? I think that that's really important. Another thing so I'm really bad at systems. I don't know if like processes, things like that. I can't build a flow chart to save my life, but I love processes and systems. It's just about finding the ones that work for you. So, like my assistant, carol, who's amazing, she does a lot of my systems for my to-do list and gives me a lot of that base so that I don't nothing drops through the cracks Not that it hasn't ever, but we try to avoid it. So if you're a systems person, if you love those flow charts and things like that, create one to capture customer questions. And if you're not a systems person like me and you struggle sometimes with what those systems are, then grab a stack of Post-its and just start leveraging those and when you hear a question, write it down and post it on the wall. Okay, make it as easy for yourself as possible so that you don't forget it, and then you know again.
Speaker 1:Of course, working with a coach or consultant is always a good way to take a step back from your business. You could be a marketing pro, you could be a great writer. Still, getting a marketing coach or a writing coach doesn't say failure. It doesn't say you don't know what you're doing. It says I need a different perspective and I need to make sure that I'm doing this in the best way. I know how, and it'll really give you an objective perspective or, if they're not giving you the answers, which is usually better, it'll help you get to a better place on how you're envisioning and seeing everything that you're doing.
Speaker 1:When you're too close to your business, it's going to really affect your marketing, your business, how you're doing it. You're going to struggle with content, you're going to struggle with relating, you're going to struggle with connecting with your audience, and so I really want to encourage you to try and take a step back. Grab an accountability partner or hire a coach and think about how you can look at things differently. Make sure that you're understanding your customers pain points and the issues and the struggles that they're dealing with, so that you can talk about how you help them with those problems. That's really what it's all about.
Speaker 1:So this is just a little bit of a rant today, because I feel like so many of us that are just not giving ourselves enough grace because we're too close to our business. I am too close to my business. I've been too close to my business, I've been too close to my job when I was in corporate. It happens to us all and there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with admitting it. It's all about figuring out how can we work around it so that we don't have the marketing mistakes and issues that we could have if we are too far along. So work on growing your business and keep tuning in to episodes of Imperfect Marketing. Until next time, have a great rest of your day.
