Part 2: Your Business Grew, But Did It Grow With You? | Beverly Cornell

What if your marketing problem is actually a disconnection problem?

In this solo episode of Marketing, Magic and the Messy Middle: Wickedly Branded®, Beverly Cornell explores what she calls “The Great Disconnection,” the quiet gap that happens when your business keeps growing, but your brand no longer reflects who you are becoming.

Many established service-based women have full calendars, steady referrals, happy clients, and a business that looks successful from the outside. But underneath the success, something feels off. The work feels heavier. Marketing feels harder. Visibility feels more complicated. And the business that once gave them freedom may now feel like something they are managing, maintaining, or performing inside of.

Beverly shares how this showed up in her own business after years of saying yes to client requests, expanding services, underpricing, overdelivering, and slowly realizing that her clients had shaped parts of the business more than she had. She also reflects on how midlife, parenting, caregiving, health changes, loss, ambition, disappointment, and responsibility all shape the way women evolve as leaders and founders.

This episode invites listeners to look beneath the tactics and ask a deeper question: What have I become disconnected from?

Beverly also introduces three grounding questions to help founders reconnect with the current version of themselves and their business:

What is fueling me right now?

What deserves my focus?

What needs to fade?

If your marketing feels harder than it used to, this episode may help you stop chasing another tactic and start listening to what your business is trying to tell you.

Key Marketing Topics

1. Marketing Problems Are Often Disconnection Problems

Many founders assume they need a new website, a better niche, more consistent content, or a stronger strategy. Sometimes those things matter, but the deeper issue may be that the business they are presenting no longer reflects who they are now.

2. Your Business Can Grow in a Direction You Did Not Choose

Beverly shares how saying yes to client requests can slowly turn into services, expectations, and offers that may bring in revenue but drain energy. When founders keep building from obligation instead of alignment, the business can start to feel like something they are serving instead of something that serves their vision.

3. Fuel, Focus, and Fade Can Reveal the Next Right Shift

The episode offers a simple but powerful reflection framework: identify what fuels you, what deserves your focus, and what needs to fade. These questions help business owners reconnect with their priorities, release what no longer fits, and make more strategic decisions from the version of themselves they are now.

Dare to be Wickedly Branded

Transcript

Restream recording Jun 10, 2026 • 07:37:03 PM 0:00

welcome back to the Marketing Magic and Messy Middle Podcast. I'm Beverly Cornell, I'm your host, and I'm a founder at wickedlybranded.com. Today I wanna talk to you about something I have come to call the great disconnection. So this idea has been brewing in me for probably like 12 years-ish. It's something that I experienced, but it's also something that as I listen to so many of the clients that I've helped, the w- the women founders that we've w- we've watched really grow, I kept seeing a deeper pattern in, underneath so many of their business problems that I was witnessing as they, as I talked through the, through branding and marketing with them and where they wanted to go. We always look at where they've been, where they are now, where they wanna go, and the challenges they face. So this pattern kept reup- reappearing, and the pattern was they have a really good business, so much so that they are probably, overworked. they have a ton of referrals, a lot of work to keep them busy. they're very hardworking people, responsible business owners. But what happens underneath all of that is that they feel like the business isn't even theirs anymore. it's grown... It's like a beast they've fed, and now it's not their own. And I remember telling myself, my clients created my business, not me. So I didn't feel as connected to it because my clients asked me to do something, so I said yes. So that became a, a service we offered. My clients asked me to do this, and I said yes. So that became a service. And that really wasn't the thing that I was the best at, but I could do it okay, and it brought in revenue, so my rep, my bottom line looked good, my clients looked good, my clients were happy. But it was disconnected from what mattered to me, my values of what is important as a person, but also as important as the impact that I was making. it was dis-- I was disconnected from what mattered most, which is this ultimate goal, my why, is to help women grow their impact. Because really, some of the things that I was doing was not doing that, and not doing it well. So that's not fair to them nor to me, because it would take me way longer to do the thing than it would if I gave it to an expert to do it. and it really becomes like you're disconnected from who you've become. So I wanted this business to have flexibility so I could be home with my stepson. I wanted this business so I could do it from anywhere in the world in case we got moved by the army to, Europe or to Hawaii or to Alaska or wherever, I could still do the work. But what soon became-- what soon was actually exciting at first, it became exhaustion, and I actually felt very trapped. I felt trapped because I was making money, and I didn't wanna give that up, right? I don't wanna give that up. I was trapped because I was starting to resent some client work. Like- I let scope creep and all kinds of things invade into the work, and I wanted to be nice and deliver, over-deliver, and my pricing was way too low. Because, I can give things away so a lot of people can do it, but then if it's costing me so much for my burnout and exhaustion and my family and things like that, it's not worth it at the end of the day, right? So when the disconnection shows up in a business, it can easily be misdiagnosed, is what I've s- I've seen. 'Cause what they come to me with is not what's actually happening. They think they need a better strategy, or they think they need a new website, or they think I need to post more consistently, or I need a better niche is a big one, or I need to fix my content because it's not connecting maybe. And I agree, sometimes those things definitely need attention. Absolutely 100% they need attention. But often that is not actually the first problem that I'm seeing. Often the first problem is that your current business, the way you express it out into the world Is no longer connected to the inner current self. Because when you go through life, you have loss, and you have love, and you have joy, and you have, milestones, and you have clients that work and clients that don't work, and you have, results that are amazing and results that are not so amazing. And in all of that, between the client work and the evolution of you as a human being, whether you've leveled up as a parent, leveled up as a spouse, leveled up as a friend, you've lived a lot of life, and that makes you wiser and makes you more interesting and makes you, your opinion and your work matter more. And sometimes when people are living from that first build freelancer part, they're not saying those things. So there's a great disconnect between that. And I think this is especially true for women in midlife, because at this point, I'm not just building a business. that's not what I'm doing. I have a really full life. I'm carrying an entire life. I'm taking care of my two boys. I'm taking care of my husband. I'm taking care of my parents. I'm taking care of myself. I'm taking care of my community. I'm involved in my church. I have a very rich life, and I have all these things on top of that. I have love, and I have loss, and I have reinvention, caregiving, and marriage, and divorce, and health challenges. Not me personally divorce, but people do. I've had health chall- I've-- infertility. I- I've had so many things. Parenting has made me wiser. Perimenopause. I've been diagnosed with AuDHD. That has made me wiser in things. ambition. My ambition for what working years I have left and what I wanna leave to my children. I have a lot of disappointment. Disappointment in people who I thought were better and weren't. Disappointment in what I thought were friends that were clients, but they actually weren't. disappointment in leadership, from the business that I worked with before I started my business. I've had a lot of learnings of what I think is okay and what is not okay, and even a lot of responsibility. So now as that my business has evolved, I have a team and I have to pay them, and I have vendors and I have to pay them, and I have people that I want also to be happy working with us, and I have clients that I want them to be living their best marketing life. So the responsibility and care only magnifies as you get better with what you do. The opportunities expand, the expectations expand, the layers accumulate in that. And so what I see is so many women are carrying what I call a load that was added but never removed So yes, the business may feel harder, may feel like a lot more work. marketing may feel more challenging, and visibility may feel more charged. So I know post-COVID, I didn't wanna leave my house. during COVID and post-COVID, something changed me. I got to be, like, a recluse. I don't think it's-- I'm alone in this. A lot of women feel the same way. So visibility can even change in, what season you're in, depending. because I think the thing that I want the listeners to really understand, those who are in businesses right now doing this thing, is that it's not because you need, some kind of magic book of, this is what you do, or more discipline to do it better, or more time management. You can be more intentional about your time, for sure. but it's simply that you're just carrying so much. You're carrying too much, you're suppressing too much, or you're performing a version of yourself that is just not around anymore. And so when you do that's why women who are high-performing, highly capable, feel stuck when they go to write an Instagram caption, because they're still living in the previous version, and they haven't quite accepted this new version of themselves yet, fully. And this is why someone who I think is absolutely brilliant in the room when you hear them speak or on a podcast, and they're really hesitant when they're online, to write. That's why I think, a suc- one of the most successful founders can look extremely together and polished and all those things, but you still, you're not connecting with them. They're not deeply con- They're deeply-- They still feel deeply disconnected from the work. So we've talked about it. We've named it a little bit, the great disconnection. We've talked about the loads we carry. We've talked about how we've evolved, all the things that make us who we are as human beings. So what helps? I can promise you it's not more pressure 'cause for myself, type A, high performer, I don't need no more pressure. I have a lot of pressure. But it's awareness that this is happening, and then taking time to reconnect with who you are right now, how you've evolved, and space to tell your truth. I often bring people back with these three questions. There's a lot of questions we ask in our Brand Spark Experience, service that can really help. Sometimes, a lot of times, founders are so close to their work, it's hard to, to see it. So you can't see the forest for the trees 'cause you're so in the trees. So we ask a mountain of questions in the Brand Spark Experience. It's like brand therapy. It's amazing. But I often go back to these three questions. What is fueling me right now? What am I super excited about? what is it that I get up every day and I'm excited to do every day? And then what deserves my focus? So if I have client work or commitments that I've made, what do I need to focus on as well? And then what needs to fade from my life right now? What is not serving me? What is draining my energy? What is the thing that I procrastinate on and put off time and time again? And then how do-- can I remove that, whether it's completely just not doing it? 'Cause sometimes we do things out of habit and not because we actually need them to do anything. they actually don't have a result that matters to us, to the bottom line or to our evolution. How can I hire somebody or delegate it or automate it even so that I don't have to do it anymore? So those questions sound really simple, but they are very revealing because someone-- when someone cannot answer them It means that the dis- it means the disconnect is not just operational, it's very relational. They've lost touch with themselves because of all the to-dos, and all the checklists, and all the noise that we get from the internet, and all the noise we get from social media on how you should do this, and do this, and do this, and do this, and do this. But what really sustains you at the end of the day is your fuel, the things that matter, that make you excited to do work, to work to help people. Focus is what matters in this season and what's closest to the dollar for your business, and fades are the things that you're ready to release. So this is not just personal, preference. This is actually deep strategic work that you're doing when you ask these three questions. You can make a chart, make, f- fuel, focus, fade, and then you can put a line between them and you can start write the things that, that, that fuel you, things that you know you need to focus on for this quarter, this year, this month, this day, and then you can fade. And once you write that fade, the power of the fade is amazing because just like-- I use this example all the time. When you buy a car, I bought a 2012, white Town Country many years ago when I first became a mom, and when I... I was never a minivan girl. And when I bought that, I realized that there's a lot of people with a white Town Country minivan 'cause they were everywhere. So my awareness allowed me to see things I had not seen b- that, before that were always in front of me. So when you write your fade list, what happens is solutions start to appear for your fade list, whether it's an automation, or a book, or a vendor, or a person that will-- can solve your problem. Because now you have awareness in a way you never had before. So if if you're feeling-- So I know you're disconnected if you, if this is the feeling you have. you have, you over-explain, because connected people speak more simply and clearly, and have frameworks, and they have examples, and stories, and metaphors, and real proof of the transformation they're making. Disconnected people over-explain, right? People who are connected do not. People who are disconnected, they chase visibility like this s- is some ultimate goal or some ultimate goal or reach that you want to get. but connected people, they become recognizable because of their simplicity, and their frameworks, and their metaphors, and their stories. So if your marketing feels hard, feels tough when you go to do it right now, before you assume you need a new tactic or a new tool or a new, platform, I want you to ask yourself a deeper question: What have I become disconnected from? Where have I become disconnected from myself? So if I could give you one thing to consider, one thing to think about is from this episode, it's what feels like a marketing problem is often a disconnection problem, and where are you disconnected? Until our next episode, I want you to think about that, and I also want you to dare to be a little bit more wickedly branded by being more connected to who you are today