Turns Out I Am My Most Difficult Client

I've worked in digital marketing since 2011.

Over the years, I've helped market hospice and palliative care organizations, cannabis dispensaries, real estate professionals, recovery programs, construction companies, self-care businesses, bookkeeping firms, retailers, event planners, salons, tourism companies, bakeries, authors, and a variety of other businesses that don't fit neatly into a category.

After more than a decade of helping organizations tell their stories, connect with their audiences, and build trust with potential customers, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of how people make buying decisions.

Then I started building a business in a completely different industry.

Recently, I hired an assistant who helps support our client work first and foremost, collaborating with me to keep content, projects, and priorities moving forward for the businesses we serve. In her spare time, and under my direction, she has also begun helping create content for two of my own businesses.

That shift has created an interesting challenge.

For years, I've been the person asking the questions, developing the strategies, writing the content, and helping other business owners tell their stories. Now, for the first time in a long time, I find myself sitting on the other side of that process. Instead of simply creating the marketing, I'm also having to explain the business, define the customer, identify what makes us different, and articulate why someone should care.

In other words, I've become the client.

I may be my most difficult one.

When You Know Too Much

One of the biggest challenges in marketing isn't creativity, consistency, or even budget.

It's familiarity.

When you spend every day immersed in your business, it becomes incredibly difficult to separate what matters to you from what matters to your customers.

You know every decision that was made. You know why certain processes exist.

You know how much time, money, and energy went into getting something just right.

Your customers don't.

Nor should they.

As business owners, we're naturally attached to the details because we've lived through them. We remember the late nights, the setbacks, the lessons learned, the countless revisions, and the small victories that nobody else sees. Those experiences become part of the story we tell ourselves about our business.

The problem is that customers aren't evaluating us through that lens.

They're evaluating us through theirs.

The Difference Between What We Know and What Customers Need

As I continue building this new business, I find myself becoming fascinated by details that feel incredibly important.

I care about sourcing decisions. I care about processes. I care about testing, refining, researching, and improving. I care about all the things business owners tend to care about when they're building something from the ground up.

At the same time, I'm constantly reminding myself that most customers won't make a decision based on those things alone.

What they really want to know is whether the product is good. Whether they relate to the examples. Whether the experience is worth it. Whether they can trust the business. Whether it delivers on its promises.

That realization isn't groundbreaking, but it is humbling.

Because it's the same conversation I've had with clients for years.

Every industry has its own version of this challenge.

• A bakery owner may spend months perfecting a recipe while customers are wondering whether the cookies are worth the drive across town.

• A real estate professional may be fascinated by market trends and inventory reports, while a buyer simply wants to know if it's a good time to purchase a home.

• A salon owner may be excited about a new product line while clients are focused on the results they'll see when they look in the mirror.

• A bookkeeper may be proud of a new process, while a business owner wonders whether it will save them time, money, and stress.

Businesses naturally focus on the process.

Customers focus on the outcome.

Effective marketing bridges that gap.

What Consumers Are Actually Looking For

This isn't just a personal observation.

Social media has evolved far beyond simply promoting products and services. Today's audiences are looking for brands that educate, inspire, answer questions, and create genuine connections. According to the 2025 Sprout Social Index™, authenticity and relatability are the qualities consumers value most from brands on social media. Businesses that consistently provide meaningful, people-first content are far more likely to earn trust, strengthen customer relationships, and build long-term loyalty than those focused primarily on selling.

That research stands out to me because it reinforces something many marketers have suspected for years: consumers aren't asking for more content.

They're asking for relatable relevance.

They want content that reflects their lives, answers their questions, solves their problems, and gives them a reason to stop scrolling.

For years, businesses have been told that success on social media comes from creating more—more Reels, more posts, more graphics, more Stories, more updates. But the brands that stand out aren't necessarily posting the most. They're creating content that matters most to the people they're trying to reach.

While consistency certainly matters, volume alone doesn't create connection.

• People want content that helps them answer questions.

• They want content that reduces uncertainty.

• They want visual proof of your products/services.

• They want content that helps them decide whether a business is a good fit.

• They want to understand why the business matters to them.

• They get tired of the same trend/different product popping up in each account they follow. The repetition is exhausting and not memorable.

  
  

That's a very different objective than simply posting more often.

The Questions That Matter

As I continue building these businesses and collaborating on their content, I keep coming back to a simple question:

What would a customer actually want to know?

• Not what I find interesting.

• Not what someone else in the industry would appreciate.

• Not what took me the longest to figure out.

• Not an edited version of people on top of a building with a sign.

• What would genuinely help a customer make a decision?

  
  

That question changes everything.

It shifts the focus away from what the business wants to say and toward what the customer needs to hear, which means:

• Thinking about trust and how it's built

• Prioritizing clarity over complexity and trends

• Highlighting real value instead of features alone

• Focusing on the customer experience rather than just broadcasting your own business information

When businesses make that shift, their content becomes more useful, more relatable, and ultimately more effective.

Becoming the Beginner Again

One of the unexpected gifts of building a business in a new industry is the opportunity to become a beginner again.

For years, I've helped businesses identify their audiences, refine their messaging, and tell their stories. I've helped countless clients step back from their businesses and look at them through the eyes of a potential customer.

Now I'm doing the same thing myself.

It's a reminder that no matter how long you've been in business, it's easy to become so familiar with your own story that you forget what it looks like to someone encountering it for the first time.

The businesses that market most effectively understand this. They recognize that customers don't see the planning, the research, the late nights, the spreadsheets, the stress, or the countless decisions that happen behind the scenes.

They see the experience.

They see the value.

They see the outcome.

The role of marketing is to connect those two worlds.

As I continue building my own businesses (because I can't seem to stop...), I'm finding that some of the best marketing lessons aren't coming from industry reports, conferences, or client meetings. They're coming from the uncomfortable yet valuable experience of being the customer, the business owner, and the marketer at the same time.

After fifteen years of helping other businesses answer these questions, I'm finding myself answering them again.

And honestly, that's probably a good thing.