Are you unknowingly holding your business back? If you hate your website, you won’t share it. If you’re stuck on how to talk about your business, you won’t talk about it. These behavior bottlenecks keep you from showing up and growing.

In this episode, I break down how to spot the moments when your stuckness is costing you—and how to decide when it’s time to DIY or bring in an expert. Plus, I share the game-changing hires that helped me scale my business with confidence.

🎯 You'll Discover:

• The sneaky ways "behavior bottlenecks" block your growth
• A simple question to pinpoint where you're stuck
• How to confidently choose the right expert for your next move
• Why AI can make hiring the right experts even easier

📝 Resources Mentioned:

• ✨ Magic Strategy Day: Need clarity on your brand, offers, or systems- like your elevator pitch, signature service, or client experience? Let’s bust your biggest bottlenecks together! Book a free kickoff call: greateststorycreative.com/magic

🎧 Listen now and start unlocking growth with the right support!

#BusinessClarity #ScalingYourBusiness #HiringExperts #BrandMessaging #WorkWithConfidence

PS: Small Biz for Kids: Check out my illustrated children's book on real-life entrepreneurship: smallbizforkids.com

  If you hate your website, guess what you don't do share it. If you're frozen on how to talk about your business, guess what you don't do? Talk about it.

These are what I call behavior bottlenecks. And they're my favorite way to figure out when it's time to DIY and when to bring in an expert. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the Establish Yourself® Podcast, your guide to elevating your brand, offers, and systems as a coach, consultant, or service provider. I'm Annie Franceschi of Greatest Story Creative®. I'm a brand strategist, author, former Disney storyteller, and forever Muppet fan. If you're ready for next level success, we'll get clear on your brand, Package Your Process™, and streamline your systems so you can land quality clients, boost profit, and make time for big dreams in your business and beyond. If you're ready for less confusion and more magic, it's time to Establish Yourself.

When it came to developing and growing my business, I used to think that I had to do everything myself. Being scrappy was my badge of honor. I have a lot of the abilities. I can do a lot of design and writing and strategy. But one of my big steps to move my business forward was actually hiring my virtual assistant, Sarah. I kind of felt like I was admitting defeat. But hiring her for that first project freed me to focus on the revenue generating work that I love. I stopped getting so bogged down in the administrative tasks that I didn't even enjoy.

And instead got to spend my time on things that directly grew my business. Asking for help on the things that I could do, but we're not a good use of my time- that really reframed for me how I think about hiring experts now. Over the years I've seen that same light bulb moment happened with my clients. So let's talk about how to know when it's time to invest in help. And how to choose the right expert to keep you moving forward.

Nobody has infinite time, money, or resources.

As a business owner, you end up bringing a lot of hats, marketing, sales, operations, taxes. It is a lot. But what I've noticed is that one area starts to hold me back when it changes my behavior, that's when I know I have a problem. For instance, I've had clients who felt so frustrated with how their websites looked, that they avoided showing them to potential clients. I talked with someone who said they'd had their website created two years prior and they'd never launched it.

They were that lacking in confidence about it. I've had other people who didn't feel confident about their pricing. So they weren't out there selling. They weren't even talking about their offer. These things weren't just inconveniences. They were creating real obstacles to grow. You can't grow your business, if you're afraid to show people your website or to talk about what you do or dare I say, sell what you do.

One of the questions I like to ask people is if someone reached out to you tomorrow and was ready to work with you, would you be able to set them up?

Would you be able to say yes, and here's how we work together. Let's get this scheduled. Many coaches and consultants I talk to can't answer that question confidently. They're like, ah, hadn't quite gotten there yet. Because they're so worried about their website or some other aspect of their marketing, how they're showing up, how they're talking about what they do, that they're not even ready to serve a client who would say yes on the spot, just based on referral. We've got to fix that.

This is why I use a concept for myself and for my clients that I call behavior bottlenecks. These are moments when you feel stuck. And that sticking is changing. How you're showing up in your business. The key is to identify where your actions or inactions are holding you back.

And that's where to invest in help. If you feel frozen on how to talk about your services, You don't talk about them at all. Right. And if you're not talking about your business, then nobody can hire you. Identifying that bottleneck is going to be the first step to moving forward.

A behavior bottleneck happens when you're stuck and it changes how you show up, grow or feel proud of your business. For example, maybe you've been avoiding a sales conversation because you don't feel clear on your pitch, or you've been skipping networking events because you don't feel confident on how to introduce yourself.

How do you identify a behavior bottleneck in your business? You should look for what you've been avoiding or being really inconsistent with. That's usually going to give you a clue. Is it your website, your pricing, your elevator pitch? I want you to reflect on what has been holding you back in a way that's affecting how you show up, grow or feel proud of what you're doing.

I once had a client who hated their elevator pitch so much that they avoided introducing themselves at events altogether. Fixing her pitch unlocked a whole new level of confidence for her, and she was out there talking. You know, if you talk to no one versus 10 people, you're going to get a lot better result.

When you've hit a point where you can't solve the problem on your own, that's when it's time to hire an expert. That is worth hiring an expert to fix, because if that expert comes in and can help you fix that so you can feel more clear and confident-

that is a huge impact.

It can be wise to focus on areas that would free you up, boost your profitability, and build your confidence. With myself, hiring a virtual assistant was such a game changer because it totally cleared my plate of tasks that I didn't want to do. It gave me back time-

my number one inventory as a service provider- to focus on higher value work. In the past year I've hired a bookkeeper because for me, I was reluctant to sell my books because of all the rigmarole I have to go through with sales tax. Even though I can do the sales tax reporting, it's exhausting and it's always taxing my brain. So now I pay someone quarterly to do the part that was really holding me back. Fixing that bottleneck and then going out and selling more books as a result is huge.

I feel more confident to talk about my books, to bring them along to events, to sell them because I solved that bottleneck. I hired the expert I really needed to hire. And I made this an opportunity for myself. So it's time to hire an expert when you've got a big enough problem that it's a bottleneck, but you don't have the skillset, the time, the energy or focus to solve it on your own. Now who would be worth hiring? I don't think that all experts, coaches and consultants are created equal. You've probably had at least one get burned moment. I think that happens a lot because people in this space, as much as I want them to, do not have stellar client experiences. I have hired a number of experts and I think very few of them have delivered on being not only know like, and trustworthy, but really excellent at what they do and a pleasure to work with. I want you to find those kinds of people.

So when you figured out where you're stuck, where's that behavior bottleneck, which one do you think an expert is worth hiring for. It's important to really vet who you hire. I always look for people who are very clear on their expertise, very confident in their process and they offer a great client experience. I'll tell you, at the very beginning, if they're hard to get ahold of, or they don't seem professional, that's a big red flag. Client experience starts from the very first time you talk to them. Do they offer a way to talk to them?

Do you have to go over email? Are they difficult to have conversations with? Are they listening to you? I was interested in hiring someone to help me with my speaking. And I got on a phone call with that person, and all they did was talk about themselves for an hour. They barely listened to me.

And I went from being ready to work with them, just wanting to know what was the right fit to. Wow, I probably will never, ever work with this person. They're really not a fit because they're not listening.

And you want to work with somebody who's got their ducks in a row. It doesn't mean that they have to have the perfect brand or the perfect website or any of that. But when you talk to them, You get the sense that they are not guessing at what they do. They are listening to you. They're repeating back what you're saying.

They're matching what you're concerned about to an offer they have. And they're very clear on how it works, how to work with them. And they don't balk at questions like. Can I speak to a past client of yours or what would happen if I'm not happy or do you work on a timeline? My clients know I don't let people sign up for experiences with me until they're a hundred percent comfortable with exactly how it's going to go. They know exactly what to expect. They know when we're meeting or when they're getting deliverables. You want to look for those things because an expert might cost you hundreds to thousands of dollars of your precious resources. So it is really important that not only that they're great at what they do, but they care about you, and you're going to get good results because part of those results is not just the stuff you're going to get, or the clarity you're going to get. Those things won't happen and they won't be as meaningful if they're not delivered well.

You want to look for somebody who's not only great at what they do, but also delivering a great experience.

I also want to try to remove some of the pressure about this.

Make the best decisions you can with this, but trust my experience, every single one, even the one that I'm like, man, that was not a great client experience and I won't recommend her again.

I still got stuff out of it to help me solve for my behavior bottleneck- to help me get from a, to B to C, and that's really what it's all about. There's no one person- hate to spoil this- there's no one person including me that can come in and save your business for you. I can help you find clarity. I can help you be more confident.

That's why I love this framework of how to decide whether to DIY or hire somebody because it's really about bringing somebody expertise in that you desperately need to get from a to B. It may not look exactly what you thought it was going to look like.

It may not be everything in the universe. I think expecting it to be everything in the universe is also not a great expectation, but really looking for what is worth your time, money and resources. Because when you hire an expert, it's still not being completely done for you. You're going to have to show up, contribute and get as much out of it as you can, too.

So last but not least as we're bringing this around of how to decide when to DIY versus when to hire an expert, I wanted to touch a little bit on AI, artificial intelligence. I've been playing around with AI tools like chat, GPT, Gemini, and Claude for about two years. And there is a lot of discussion and even fear in the coaching and consulting world that AI tools are going to take away our jobs.

They're going to take away our coaching or consulting our ability to show up and be experts. Like you're going to use AI instead of come to me to clarify your message. But here's what I want to say about that . AI tools are incredible for taking a lot of those little tasks off your plate. But they're not going to be able to replace someone who's going to be able to guide you through the big picture and really get to know you as a person. For example, AI can help me draft social media posts, but it can't necessarily develop my overall brand strategy the way an expert can. Yes, I can type in, give me a brand strategy, but if you're using a tool to do that, you're not necessarily gonna trust that tool.

You don't know that a tool really knows you. Many of us don't even have the skillset to tell these AI tools what we're all about.

I don't think the question is really AI versus experts. I actually think having AI tools makes it possible to hire the best experts. Nobody has infinite time, money, and resources. What I have found through using AI tools is it helps me be a better DIY -er. Be a better problem solver in my own business.

AI has been helping me save time and do better work faster. It allows me to not have to hire experts for everything. if I have a quick random legal question or random tax question or bookkeeping question, I can go into these tools, you know, see what they say, maybe backup that research.

You don't want to assume everything you see is true. Right. But that allows me to not have to hire a bookkeeper, a tax person, a lawyer at a consulting rate of an hour, et cetera. It allows me to pool those funds and do what I did last year, which is invest back in my business coach.

I'm pretty good with these tools. I can get these tools to totally coach me, but I want to go to the person, the real human who has the results that I want, who does it with authenticity and be able to ask her the person who knows me, what they think. And because I'm not having to hire for every little question I have, that should be answered by an expert or would be most effectively handled by one, I get to prioritize my behavior bottlenecks.

So they'll save you some time. They'll help you be a better DIY -er and they will allow you and empower you to hire the experts that are going to make the biggest difference, not just in the changes in your business, but in how you feel about your business. Because I think when you feel more confident and clear to show up and grow your business and to take action and to experiment and to see what works, that's when you're going to see the results and the scaling you want. This is the kind of work that I do with my clients privately in what I call a Magic Strategy Day. If your behavior bottleneck is feeling stuck about how to talk about what you do, your offers or the systems you use to work with clients, if you don't have a great client experience, like what I was talking about. We can tackle those things together. For example, if you hate your website, In a magic strategy day, I often roll up sleeves with clients and fix it so you can feel confident sharing it again. Magic Strategy Days days are really fun.

They start with a free 30 minute kickoff call to figure out what's been holding you back. What should we focus on if you're not sure what your behavior bottleneck should be? You can set a free call to talk with me at greatest story, creative.com/magic. I'll put it here in the show notes as well. This is an opportunity if you need a brand and marketing expert with 11 years of experience and three books and a podcast to help you get all that spaghetti out on the table and go. How do I fix this?

How do I put this back together in a clear way from a messaging and offer systems perspective or all three, we're going to roll up sleeves and we're going to get it done. So you can move forward with clarity and confidence.

If you've been on the fence about whether to DIY or to hire somebody, I really look at the places where you have felt stopped on showing up, feeling confident and taking action in your business. If that has anything to do with getting clear on your brand, your offers and your systems, I'm your girl.

Don't forget to check out a magic strategy day. I'm here for you. We are going to bust those bottlenecks together.

   Hey, do you like surprises? Here comes the show's credits, but just like a Marvel movie, stay to the end so you don't miss something fun I put in just for you. Thanks for tuning in to the Establish Yourself® podcast. I'm Annie Franceschi and I want to hear from you. Follow me on LinkedIn. Share your favorite takeaway from today's episode as a comment on my latest post.

Mention your favorite Muppet in your message so I know you're a fan of the show. And for expert branding help, a free consultation and more resources, visit greateststorycreative. com / slash podcast. Now here it is your moment of magic.  

I touched on this briefly , but did you know, I wrote a children's book. It's called small biz for kids. I also illustrated it.

I'm very proud of it. It's about animal entrepreneurs. And One of the most fun things about it is it's based on real business owners. All of the animals with businesses are based on people like my mom and grandparents and other people in my life from friends and family members to referral partners and clients,

and you can actually look all of them up at small biz for kids. dot com.