What building a business looks like behind the scenes
A friend, and fellow business owner, told me last week she’d just finished building a workbook from scratch. Four long days of headspace, theories, exercises, the lot, bespoke to a programme she was about to run.
She wasn’t proud of it. She was tired. Frustrated, really, at how much of her had gone into something that wasn’t her zone of genius.
I remember exactly what I thought, listening to her. You needed a wing woman for that.
Here’s the truth about building something of your own that nobody tells you upfront. Most of it happens in the dark. Not because you’re not capable, you clearly are, you’re out there doing the do. But because nobody talks honestly about the mechanics, what to charge, what’s normal to hand off, what other women in your exact position are quietly doing differently. You end up guessing at things other people already know the answer to, and then blaming yourself when the guess costs you four days you’ll never get back (and possibly didn’t factor into your costs).
Where the real gaps tend to show up
And it’s not only the workbook…
A proposal that wasn’t landing, not because the work wasn’t strong, but because it was speaking fluent programme and methodology when the market right now needed to hear business outcomes and return on investment first. A price that had stayed the same for years, picked more by guesswork than evidence, with a quieter question sitting underneath it that she’d never said out loud, ‘who am I to charge this?’ I played her own experience and feedback back to her until the higher number wasn’t brave, it was simply accurate. Someone who wanted to leave employment and finally had an actual, actionable plan for her business in front of her, not just permission that she could.
In every case, the missing thing wasn’t talent or effort. It was someone alongside who could see what she couldn’t. Because when it’s your own, sometimes you’re too close to even see it.
What a Wing Woman actually is
That’s the part of my work I’ve come to call Wing Woman.
A wing woman is the person who flies alongside you. Not ahead of you, telling you which way to go. Not behind you, pointing out what you should have done differently, or better. Right there, level with you, paying full attention to you and the business you are building.
Why having someone alongside changes everything
None of this is really about the workbook, or the price, or the proposal, on their own. Those are just whatever shape the gap happens to take that particular week. What’s constant is having someone already alongside you, so the next thing doesn’t catch you on your own again.
If you’re somewhere in the dark right now, guessing at something you suspect other people already know, I’d like to hear what it is. Tell me what you’re stuck on. There’s a good chance I’ve seen it before, and an even better chance we can do something about it together.
