If someone recommended your business today, what would they immediately say you’re known for? Not your job title. Not your Instagram bio. Not the 17 different things you’re capable of helping someone with. In this episode of The Real Truth About Business podcast, I’m asking service-based entrepreneurs to get clear on the ideas, outcomes, and expertise they want associated with their name. Because being good at a lot of things is very different from being known for something. After 9 years of experience building my business, my own answer has evolved into three words: profitability, sustainability, and certainty. Those three ideas now act as a decision filter for my content, offers, collaborations, and overall business strategy. This isn’t about forcing yourself into an overly specific niche. It’s about strategic positioning and creating enough consistency that people understand why they should hire, remember, and refer you. When you know what you want to be known for, your marketing gets clearer, your strategic planning gets easier, and you have another North Star for building a service-based business that supports long-term revenue growth.

What You'll Learn:

• How to identify what you actually want to be known for beyond your job title or niche
• Why being capable of solving multiple problems is different from having clear positioning
• How Michelle landed on profitability, sustainability, and certainty as her three core themes
• Why being known for something makes referrals, content creation, and business growth easier
• How to use your positioning as a decision filter for offers, content, collaborations, and opportunities
• How to determine whether your current audience perception matches what you want your business to represent

Episode Highlights:

[00:00] Introduction: What do you want people to immediately associate with your name?

[01:15] The challenge that made me rethink what I want to be known for

[02:00] A quick request to rate and review The Real Truth About Business

[03:15] Getting beyond your job title and finding the deeper answer

[04:30] My three words: Profitability, sustainability, and certainty

[06:15] What certainty means in my business strategy

[07:30] Why being known for something isn't the same as choosing a niche

[09:00] How clear positioning makes referrals easier

[10:00] Asking your best clients what they associate with your name

[11:00] Using what you want to be known for as a North Star and decision filter

[12:30] Why repetition matters when building authority

[13:15] Wrap-up: The three things you want your audience to remember

Key Takeaways:

Being Good at Something Isn't the Same as Being Known for It

A lot of us are multi-passionate.

We're capable of helping clients with a lot of different things. We have years of experience, different skills, and multiple areas of expertise.

But if I sent your name to someone who knows you and your business, what would they immediately say?

That's a different question.

What do you want someone to associate with your name without having to think about it?

This isn't necessarily about your niche. It's about the lens through which you see your work and the expertise you want people to remember.

My Three Words: Profitability, Sustainability, and Certainty

I spent weeks thinking about this question before I finally landed on my answer.

Profitability. Sustainability. Certainty.

Profitability has always been important inside my client work, even when I wasn't talking about it as much publicly.

Sustainability matters because I believe a business that isn't profitable isn't sustainable. And if your business strategy isn't sustainable for you, it's going to become increasingly difficult to maintain profitability.

Then there's certainty.

I want service-based entrepreneurs and solopreneurs to have the tools they need to make business decisions with certainty.

I want you looking at the facts instead of constantly making decisions from emotion.

These three ideas encompass so much of what I want my work to accomplish.

Your Positioning Can Become a Decision Filter

Once I identified those three words, they immediately made other business decisions easier.

Does this podcast episode connect to profitability, sustainability, or certainty?

Does this offer?

Does this collaboration?

Does this speaking opportunity reinforce what I want to be known for?

That clarity becomes a filter.

This is one of the reasons I talk so much about having a North Star in your business. Your North Star gives you a direction and helps you evaluate opportunities based on whether they're moving you closer to or further away from what you're trying to build.

Knowing what you want to be known for can become another version of that North Star.

This Isn't About Putting Yourself in a Box

Getting known for something doesn't mean you can only talk about one topic.

I can talk about pricing strategy.

I can talk about lead generation.

I can talk about your sales process.

I can talk about cash, offers, capacity, CEO mindset, and strategic planning.

All of those topics can still connect to profitability, sustainability, and certainty.

The same applies to the Focused Visionary Framework. Pricing, Pipeline, and Sales may be separate pillars, but ultimately they're working together to help you build a stronger, more sustainable business.

Being known for something gives all those topics a common lens.

It gives you structure with fluidity.

Clear Positioning Makes You Easier to Refer

This is where getting known for something becomes incredibly valuable for business growth.

If people immediately understand what you do and what you stand for, it's easier for them to refer you.

They see a social media post and tag you.

They have a conversation with someone and think of your name.

Someone tells them they need help building a more profitable and sustainable service-based business, and they immediately know who to recommend.

That's what you want.

You don't want someone thinking, “Michelle does a bunch of business stuff.”

I want them thinking:

“If you want to build a profitable and sustainable business, Michelle is your girl.”

That's clear.

And it's memorable.

Ask Your Best Clients What They Think You're Known For

You don't have to answer this question completely on your own.

Go ask some of your best clients:

“When you immediately think of me and my business, what do you associate with my name?”

Then listen.

If their answers align with what you want to be known for, that's a great signal that your positioning is working.

If their answers are completely different, don't panic.

That's useful information.

Now you know there's a gap between how you want to be positioned and how people currently perceive your business.

And you can start intentionally closing that gap through your messaging, content, offers, and conversations.

Repetition Builds the Association

I'll admit this isn't always easy for me.

Repetition is not naturally my thing.

But if you want people to associate you with something, you have to repeat it.

You can't create a completely different message every week and expect your audience to connect your name with one clear idea.

This is another reason identifying a few core themes can be so helpful.

You don't have to repeat the exact same content.

You can approach those ideas from different angles, tell different stories, teach different strategies, and create different offers.

But they should continue reinforcing the association you want people to make.

Use What You Want to Be Known For Across Your Business

Once you've identified what you want to be known for, look at your entire business through that lens.

Your content.

Your website.

Your offers.

Your speaking topics.

Your bio.

Your collaborations.

Your conversations.

Ask yourself whether those things reinforce what you want to be known for or pull you further away from it.

That makes positioning much more than a marketing exercise.

It becomes part of your business strategy.

What Three Things Should Your Audience Remember?

Here's the question I want you to leave this episode thinking about:

If your audience could remember only three things about you and your work, what would you want those three things to be?

Don't immediately overthink it.

Journal on it. Meditate on it. Or answer with the first things that come to mind.

Then ask:

Does my current content reinforce those things?

Do my offers reinforce them?

Does my messaging?

Would my best clients describe me this way?

If yes, figure out how you can amplify it.

If not, you don't necessarily need to rebuild your entire business. You may simply need to make some strategic adjustments so what people know you for aligns with what you actually want to be known for.

For me, it's profitability, sustainability, and certainty.

What is it for you?

Resources Mentioned

• Get your FREE Ceo Income Plan
• Book a CEO Strategy Call
• Learn more about The Missing Piece Intensive
• Learn more about The Focused Visionary Accelerator
• Download the FREE Lead and Conversion Tracker
• Subscribe to the Sunday Morning Brew Newsletter

About the Host:

Michelle DeNio is a business strategist based in Sarasota, Florida, specializing in helping service-based entrepreneurs break through revenue plateaus using her Focused Visionary Framework. With over 300 podcast episodes and 9 years running her consulting business, she helps coaches, consultants, and service providers scale sustainably through strategic planning, pricing optimization, and sales process development.

Connect with Michelle

1. Website
2. Threads
3. Instagram
4. LinkedIn
5. Facebook

If I send your name to someone who knows your business and knows you personally, knows you for as a friend, whatever, what would you want them to immediately say about you?

So not your job title necessarily, not your Instagram bio, not the 17, 18 million things that you are capable of helping someone with, but what is the one thing that they associate you with?

Maybe, maybe not one thing, but what is it that you want to be known for?

Because being really good at a lot of things, which we all, a lot of us are, especially those of us that are multi passionate.

Right.

But is different than being known for something.

And this is something I have been thinking about for over a month now.

And it started with a challenge that I did with Julie Costa Sheet.

She's a business hypnotherapist.

I love her.

One of my dear friends and she did a challenge, a 21 day challenge around being known.

AF, she called it.

She has a series.

This was the third in her AF series.

And it really, really stemmed so much for me and was like, really?

What do I want to be known for?

What am I known for?

Is it in alignment for with what I want to be known for?

Right.

And so this is, I thought it was just a really great thing to revisit because I think that a lot of times we, we get known for something and then somebody else something and then we change it.

Right.

And it's just a really great gut check.

So anyway, that's what we're talking about today and I hope this one gives you a lot to think about.

All right, so let's dive in.

Before we get to the rest of this episode, I have a favor to ask and I don't often ask for favors on this podcast.

So I'm going to, I'm going to ask you for a favor.

Will you please go on Apple podcasts or Spotify, but Apple's specifically and leave a review for this show that is something that I have not prioritized.

I don't ask for it.

And it really, really, really helps with the rankings and getting found in your search, discoverability and all the things.

And I am really on a mission to get this podcast in more ears.

I want it to be one that a lot of people are hearing and listening to.

I put my best content here.

I'm going to double down on my content here on the podcast.

And so I really would love if you would take five minutes to leave me a review and if you do take a screenshot of it, send it to me and I will reward you with a cup of coffee or a drink of your choice, whatever you.

Whatever you choose.

But please, please, please.

I really, really appreciate it.

The reviews mean a lot to me and to all of the bots in the world.

So please take a minute to do that.

All right, so what do you want to be known for, right?

Seriously, this.

I mean, it seems easy, right?

Like, it seems easy because it's like, oh, I want to be known for that, right?

And you can just start whipping a billion things off, but I want you to really think about, like, at the deepest core level, what is it that you want to be known for?

And what I mean by that is, like, what do you want someone to immediately associate with your name, right?

And one of the easiest ways I found to do this, now I sat with this, like I said, I did a 21 day.

It was a hypnotherapy, hypnosis, like, subconscious reprogramming meditation type style challenge where you were listening every single day, and so you were working with the subconscious.

And I will be honest, like, it took Almost a full 21 days for me to be able to come out with like, the simplistic version of, like, what do I want to be known for?

And it.

And then when I did do it, I had to, like, literally not think about it.

Actually, I was talking with Julie and she said to me, like, without thinking about it, I want you to immediately answer this question of what do you want to be known for?

And the answers that came out were profitability, sustainability, and certainty.

Right?

And when you think about it, it's like, yeah, that's it, right?

Like, I do know that I am probably starting to get known a little bit more for profitability.

My clients have always known that.

But, like, front facing, that has not been something that I have really spoken about a lot around the profitability side, around the accounting side.

You know that I've been in this kind of journey of bringing it all to the forefront.

And, you know, again, my clients on the back end know that profitability is something that's really, really important to me, but it was not what I was known for, right?

And that's the thing.

And so profitability, sustainability, because again, one of my big core values beliefs, all the things is that, like, if your business is not profitable, it's not sustainable, and if your business is not sustainable, it's very hard to make it profitable.

Because if you can't sustain it, right?

Like, there's only so long you can stay in business if you're creating a strategy that's not sustainable.

And then certainty.

What I mean by that is I really want to be known for giving business owners CEOs, the CEO of their business as a solopreneur.

Right?

The certainty that every decision you are making you is made with certainty.

Right.

Like I want to be known that.

Like I am giving you the tools, the tricks, teaching you the.

The little things that make it so easy for you to make a decision in your business.

And you know, it's funny because a lot of times we.

There's a lot of running jokes inside of my clients, you know, like little inside jokes around.

Like when I do what Michelle tells me to do, I make money.

Or they have this, you know, wwmd, what would Michelle do?

And it's because they have the thoughts and the tools in their toolbox and they are thinking so differently now about their business because of all of the work that we've done together, that when they are literally making a decision, they may be saying, what would Michelle do?

But really it's saying, what would Michelle encourage me to do?

What would Michelle have me think about doing?

How would Michelle approach this so that it's profitable, so that it's sustainable.

Right.

That's what I mean by certainty, is that they're.

You're making those decisions from facts, not emotions.

I say that all the time.

Right.

And again, so it's all about building wealth, getting well paid.

But in order to do that, you can't build wealth, you can't get well paid, you can't do all of those things if it's not profitable.

Right.

So profitability, sustainability, certainty, done, period.

That makes everything that I am doing so much easier because it's like I can very quickly ask myself, like, if I am doing this, does this tie back to profitability, certainty and sustainability?

Right.

No matter what I'm doing.

So again, even this podcast, all of the episodes, are they tying back to profitability, some type of building a sustainable business, and.

Or creating certainty around your decisions?

Yes.

Go back and look at all the episodes.

Most of them fall under those three categories, unless I've got just a small ranty one or whatever.

Right.

But this is not about choosing a niche.

This is about the lens in which you see business.

Right.

Because again, this is about thought leadership.

This is about repositioning yourself as an expert.

Like, what do you want to be known for?

There's a million business strategists out there.

There's a million profit strateg out there.

There's a million CFOs out there.

Right.

But again, what is really, if I really wanted to niche this down, is that it's profitability, sustainability and certainty while maintaining or remaining a party of one or a solopreneur, right?

Like that is very important to me.

You know this, I've talked a lot about this on the podcast that I really feel very strongly about, you know, not having to have a massive team and that you can build and create a lot of profitability and wealth in your business and be well paid without having million team members.

And I don't think most solopreneurs actually have the desire to have a lot of team members, right?

So if I was going to take this even further and truly niche it down, it would be around that, right?

Like profitability, sustainability, while maintaining a solopreneur style business.

Again, so you can help with multiple problems underneath that, right?

It's not about like putting yourself in a box.

And I know a lot of people really feel that way of, like, well, I don't want to put myself in a box.

And I felt that way too.

But again, like, there's so, so many things that I can talk about when it comes to profitability.

There's so many things I can talk about when it comes to sustainability and certainty.

And so again, you can still solve multiple problems, you can still have multiple content buckets.

But when you, when people talk about you or when people think of you, how, what do you want to be known for?

Because when you can get known for that, then it makes it much easier for people to refer you.

It makes it much easier for people to tag you on social media when they see a post because they immediately say, like, thought of you.

Right?

Because that's what you want to be known for.

And again, this takes some time.

This takes some time.

And one of the things that I would encourage you to do a little bit is go back and ask some of your best clients.

Like when you immediately think of me, what do you associate with my name?

Because they're the ones that are going to tell you from the outside looking in and you can decide, is that what I want to be known for or not?

Because if you ask people and they give you some kind of feedback and it's not what you want to be known for, well, now you know that you've got just a little bit of work to do on your positioning, right?

But if they come back and tell you exactly what you want to be known for, then you know that you're on the right path.

So this is, I mean, it's so helpful.

Again, it's like one of those North Star moments.

You know, I talk a lot about having a North Star.

So, like you always know the direction you are coming or going, right?

Like, this is another version of the North Star of like, what do I want to be known for?

And it becomes, once you have those things, it becomes that North Star.

So that you can look at that through the lens of your content, your website, your offers, any of your speaking topics, your bios, the conversations that you're having.

Right?

Are those things reinforcing what you want to be known for or are they drawing you further away?

Right.

Repetition is very important here and I'm not good at that.

I'm very, I'm.

I actually, quite honestly, I suck at it.

When I was telling a friend of mine, I was like, you know, I know we're supposed to be repeating topics all the time, but like, I don't repeat anything in my life.

It's crazy.

And I really had to have this, like, I had this massive eye openening moment where I'm like, I don't do well with repetition.

Like, there's very few recipes in my family's life that we've eaten more than twice.

Like, I literally find new recipes every single week to make.

And it's crazy, right?

Like, repetition is not my thing, but I'm working on it.

But having these three things of what I want to be known for again allows me, I always say, like, structure with fluidity.

It gives me structure, but it also allows me to maintain fluidity of the topics that I'm talking about.

As long as I'm tying them back to those three things.

That makes it so much easier because you're not creating a brand new message every week, right?

And again, it becomes a decision filter.

And that's what I love.

This is what I mean by that certainty piece is like you have these filters, these decision filters that allow you to make these decisions with such certainty.

Because it's like, does this topic reinforce what I want to be known for?

Yes or no?

Does this offer enforce what I want to be known for?

Yes or no?

Right?

It does.

This collaboration, if I say yes to collabing on this thing, is this what I want to be known for or not?

Really?

Right?

Again, like, it makes it so easy.

And that's where that certainty piece comes in.

Because you have these decision making filters.

That's why I love the North Star piece.

Does this get me further from my North Star?

Closer to my North Star, right?

Is this the season I'm currently in or not?

Do I Need to put this on hold, right?

Like, everything comes down to these filters that you have that allow you to make these decisions with certainty.

But this one is also allows other people to help in that of like, oh, this is Michelle.

This.

She's.

If you want to really focus in on building a profitable and sustainable business, she's your girl, right?

Like, that is.

I can repeat that so often that that's exactly how people describe me.

And I'm like, yes, please.

Right, again.

So really think about that question and you may want to journal on it, you may want to meditate on it, or you may just want to spew out the very first thing that to mind.

Because a lot of times that very first thing that is your subconscious talking, right?

Because it's like you're just spitting something out before your conscious mind has time to override it and think about it and overthink all the things.

So again, like, what, when I say, what do you want to be known for?

I want you to just literally spit out what I.

What it is that you want to be known for.

And then ask yourself, are the actions that I'm taking, is the content that I'm creating, are the offers that I have, do they all fall in alignment with that?

If not, this is a great opportunity to make some slight changes, right?

But if they are, that's amazing.

Now, how can you amplify it, right?

That's all you're really looking at is like, is there a way that I can amplify this?

So again, if your audience could remember only three things about you and your work, what would you want those three things to be?

Don't think about it.

Again, if you need to meditate on it.

And this may take time and it may be something that you're like, today it's this, tomorrow it's that.

Like, it will come out.

And when it comes out, you are going to know it because it is going to feel like the most visceral hell.

Yes.

Like, yes, that is it.

That is what I want to be known for, right?

It's going to be so, like, it's going to feel like I said, it's just going to be this visceral reaction.

You will know exactly when you hit on it.

So think about that.

What do you want to be known for?

And is what you're doing now in alignment with that?

Okay.

And I love, love, love to hear what you want to be known for.

So again, shoot me a DM on Instagram, send me an email, all the places, and please, if you would take a minute to rate and review the show.

That literally would mean the absolute world to me.

And I would be happy to buy you your drink of choice in return for the favor.

Okay.

All right.

I love you guys.

I believe in you, and I will talk to you soon.