I had a conversation with a client recently that has been stuck in my head ever since.
We weren’t talking about video strategy. We weren’t talking about social media or AI or content calendars. We were talking about everything else she had on her plate, and somewhere in the middle of the conversation she laughed and said, “I don’t even know why I keep trying to do this part myself.”
I knew exactly what she meant because I’ve heard versions of that sentence more times than I can count.
Sometimes it’s about marketing.
Sometimes it’s bookkeeping.
Sometimes it’s payroll.
Sometimes it’s trying to figure out why the printer suddenly refuses to acknowledge the existence of paper.
Owning a business has a funny way of convincing us that if we can do something ourselves, we should. I think that’s especially true for small business owners. We wear our independence like a badge of honor. We figure things out. We watch YouTube tutorials. We Google. We stay up too late. We tell ourselves we’re saving money.
Sometimes we are. Sometimes we’re not.
Years ago, before Queen Bee Consulting looked anything like it does today, I had this idea that I should know how to do everything. It seemed responsible. If I was going to help other business owners, surely I needed to master every platform, every tool, every trend and every shiny new piece of software that came along. I was scared that if I ever appeared to not know what I was doing, I would not be considered credible.
Do you know what I discovered?
There will always be another platform.
There will always be another algorithm update.
There will always be another tool that promises to change your life by Tuesday.
The finish line keeps moving. Eventually I realized I wasn’t building a business anymore. I was chasing the internet, and that’s an exhausting way to live.
I think about that whenever someone tells me they spent their Saturday trying to figure out how to edit a video because they didn’t want to “bother anyone” or spend money hiring help. I understand that mindset because I’ve been there. Most entrepreneurs have. But I also think we ask ourselves the wrong question.
Instead of asking, “Can I do this myself?” maybe we should start asking, “Is this the best use of my time?” Those are very different questions.
Of course you can learn to edit videos. You can probably learn graphic design. You could become pretty good at writing captions. You could spend hours researching keywords and figuring out how to schedule posts and reading articles about the latest changes to LinkedIn.
It reminds me of the immortal words of Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park – “you were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn’t stop to think if you should.””
Because every hour you spend becoming a mediocre video strategist is an hour you’re not spending being an exceptional financial advisor. Or realtor. Or attorney. Or veterinarian. Or contractor. The businesses I admire most aren’t successful because their owners do everything, they’re successful because their owners know what only they can do. Everything else becomes someone else’s job.
That’s not giving up control. That’s protecting your energy.
One of my favorite parts of working with clients is watching them realize they don’t have to carry all of this by themselves anymore. It’s subtle at first. They stop apologizing because they haven’t posted. They stop texting themselves content ideas at eleven o’clock at night because they’re afraid they’ll forget them by morning. They stop feeling guilty every time they open LinkedIn. Somewhere along the way, marketing stops being this heavy thing sitting on their shoulders. It becomes a conversation we have together.
I honestly don’t think that’s talked about enough. People assume they’re hiring me to help with video. Yes… we absolutely create a strategy around video. But what they’re really getting is someone who’s paying attention..someone who’s listening for the story they didn’t realize they were telling.
Someone who says, “That’s a great idea. Let’s build on that.”
Or sometimes…
“No. You don’t need to do that.”
You would be amazed how freeing those five words can be.
Maybe that’s why I enjoy working one-on-one so much. Every client is different. Every business is different. Every personality is different. There isn’t a template for that, there shouldn’t be. The internet loves templates because they’re scalable, but people don’t work that way. Relationships don’t work that way. Great marketing definitely doesn’t work that way.
The businesses that stand out don’t sound like everyone else.
They sound like themselves.
That’s the real work. Not creating more content, but helping people become comfortable enough to sound like themselves again. I guess that’s why I don’t think of myself as someone who just helps people with video marketing anymore. Video is simply the vehicle.
What I’m really helping people do is communicate with confidence.
And if I’m honest, I think that’s a much bigger transformation than learning what to post on Tuesday.
One Last Thing…
If you’ve been carrying your entire marketing strategy around in your head, wondering why it feels so heavy, maybe this is your reminder that successful business owners aren’t the ones who do everything themselves. They’re the ones who know when it’s time to invite someone else to the table.