Ever just want to 'borrow someone's brain' to help you make sense of great business advice that might be going wrong for you for some reason?

Human behavior consultant Lisa Thurston helps solopreneurs cut through the overwhelm, overthinking, and wheel spinning that's often so much a part of the early stages of business. Using a simple line of questioning with her assessment to learn more about her client's values, personalities, and deep desires, she helps them swim through the sea of great business advice that might be wrong for them as an individual.

Listen to Lisa discuss three examples where great business advice went wrong and what to do instead.

Don’t Miss Inside This Episode:

• What is a human behavior consultant?
• How human behavior consultants help customize and plan the best business model for you, based on your likes, values, and your own personality.
• Three examples of generally great business advice and where it can go wrong for a specific individual.
• Why you might be struggling with content creation based on the business model you've currently got set up.
• Lisa's tool for validating your business ideas--where 'the rubber meets the road.'

Links and products mentioned in today's episode:

Nail Your Niche Workbook and Skill Audit

Marisa Corcoran, founder of Copy Confidence Society and The Copy Chat.

About Lisa Thurston

Human Behavior Consultant, Lisa Thurston is all about helping solopreneurs gain clarity, maximize their potential, and shine in their fields of expertise. 

From helping you maximize your strengths to creating your unique selling proposition to mapping out your customer journey, Lisa is obsessed with helping women solopreneurs create the life and business of their dreams.

Lisa's Website

NOTE: Lisa's website has changed since the recording date for this episode. She mentions in the audio that her website is LisaThurston.biz, but this is no longer current. The correct website is LisaThurston.cc, and the link below will take you to her current website.

LisaThurston.cc

Connect With Lisa on Social

Lisa Thurston on Instagram

About Your Host

Melissa Brown, MD - Coach, Author, Speaker, Teacher, and Podcast Host.

After leaving medical practice in 2009, Melissa discovered the online world and never looked back! After coach certification, she began a healthy lifestyle coaching practice online and quickly fell in love with blogging, writing, and content marketing.

Melissa believes that coaches have the power to change the world. Unfortunately, too many coaches get discouraged by the amount of content they need to create for marketing their business and this can lead to overwhelm and giving up on their dreams. There's such a ripple effect when a dream dies, so Melissa is on a mission to help coaches and solopreneurs overcome the overwhelm when it comes to content creation so they keep those dreams alive.

Your content can impact massive amounts of people and positively change the world. You've got content in there inside you; let's get it out into the world.

Check out these social media sites:

She's Got Content Facebook group:

Facebook

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Get your FREE Never Run Out of Content Ideas Tool Kit/Workbook

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to this podcast. It means the world to me to have you here on this journey! If you got value from this episode, please share it on social media, and recommend it to your business besties.

Please leave feedback or questions about this episode in the comment section below.

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Hello there, content creators. You're listening to the She's Got

Content podcast, where it's all about creating content for

your coaching business. I'm your host, Doctor Melissa

Brown, and I'm here every week to help you get your content

out of your head, out of your heart, and out there into the world

where that information and your services can impact the

most people. Get ready to take notes today, and

then Take action, content creators. Let's dive in with

today's episode because you've got content to get out

there. Welcome back, content creators, to another episode

of She's Got Content podcast. Today, I have as a

guest, Lisa Thurston. She is the queen

of overthinkers anonymous, for solopreneurs.

Let's have a big, big welcome to Lisa Thurston. Hey,

Lisa. How you doing today? Hi, Melissa. Thank you so much for having

me. Awesome. Well, I think we Probably have an

epidemic of overthinkers amongst solopreneurs. At least I am gonna

raise my hand and say, that's something that I have been guilty of . .

. trying to work on that. And overthinking leads to

overwhelm. And I know that that's one of the big focuses

that you have in your business. Tell us a little bit about what

it is that you do, Lisa. Absolutely. I am

certified as a human behavior consultant. I got certified in 2010, and

I've worked with people all over the spectrum, helping them with

all kinds of areas. But in 2019, I decided I wanted

to shift to help businesses. I have just seen

so many people, whether it be choosing a career or figuring

out what Kind of business to start. It's just so confusing, and they have so

many false starts and so much overwhelm and frustration, especially,

I would say, since covid So the past couple years so

many people have been trying to start home based businesses on their own and

there is so much just overwhelm, frustration.

They overthink everything, and I gotta raise my hand on

that as well because It's just a real thing. There's just so many

opportunities and thank goodness there's just so many talented

and brilliant people out there, but how do you focus and choose What

kind of business to start, which then just leads to frustration

and procrastination or just confusion when they

try to put their message out there because it's okay. I'm gonna do this. Well,

now I'm doing this too. And, oh, yeah, I have this other thing that I

do and it just confuses everyone and just

Stops the potential or hinders the potential of the entrepreneur

and the people that they're trying to reach. And so I love maximizing

potential in Helping people find out what they're great at, how to bring their

ideas together into something that's just they're excited about, that

helps a lot of people. It's just something that I love and I love helping

people with. Awesome. So needed.

Absolutely. There are so many people that have false starts or

Restarts or rebranding, and there's a place

for that. But if we can get started right from the get

go with something that is best

meant for us, almost like customized. And like you said, like,

I'm doing this. I'm doing that. It's almost like the smorgasbord

of ideas that some people feel like they've gotta put everything in

there In order to be successful, but I guess you're here

to tell us that that's not necessarily true.

Absolutely. Yes. There's just so many situations out there

and, again, so much potential and we all have our unique gifts. And

I just had a client Say, I just needed somebody else's brain. So when you

can get that outside perspective looking at your situation,

it's not that you can't figure it out. It's just You're too close to the

situation. Tell us again, you're a human behavioral

Human behavior consultant. So Consultant. Right. Tell us about

what is, For those who don't know, what is a human behavioral

consultant? So our very first

session when you work with me is an assessment. And so what

we do is not so much

a list of hard questions. My clients actually love it because I say, hey. It's

not difficult. You come in. I ask you multiple choice questions and I don't

know is a completely perfect answer. I need you to be honest with me.

I don't want you to fabricate something just to Try to get through

the test or actually, that's what we do a lot as business owners. We try

to get an answer out there without being clear on what it is. And

so I ask you really simple questions like,

hey. At the end of a long day, would you rather shut your door and

read a book, or do you need to go out with friends and just kind

of Get some of that energy out there. What does your perfect evening look like?

And simple questions like that. And we just talk through it and it

brings us closer and closer to What I call a profile,

and then we go through that profile. The q and a we have is

about behaviors and your preferences, how you make decisions,

How you're energized, things like that. And then this all comes together

to something that we then verify and say, okay. Does this sound like you? Yes

or no? We adjust Until we find your perfect fit, and then we say,

alright. Well, let's look at these behaviors. You said this is

true, and then these are the things you're considering for your business.

Let's talk about how this fits together. So

you say that you love being with people. If you have 3 decisions for your

business, Which one does that fit with

or what takes away from it or how does this really energize

you most? We just bring all these pieces together and talk through

your business. And it doesn't mean necessarily you have to just choose 1. I have

a client I'm working with right now where she has Three things that seem

unrelated, but when we talked about it, the thread that came

through all of them was freedom. These are 3 aspects of

her life that she felt She needed to

maximize in order to have the kind of freedom she wanted.

And so she wants to help other people And she just didn't see

that thread before and she didn't see who she was trying to help before. But

once we brought all that together, We had a whole lot of Ah Ha moments,

and we went from her feeling stuck

and confused and unclear And actually creating

businesses that were hindering her freedom to

creating something that just allows her to explore and dip

her toes Short term into different things, meet the needs of

the people that she wants, and just she's just so excited and passionate about it.

That make sense? That makes Total sense. It's like

you connect the dots. You had this person who had the

3 different things that she wanted to do, and Some

business advisers might say, oh, you gotta pick 1. You can't do all

3 of them, but you really got to connect The dots for

her to create something that I'm sure is gonna take the world

by storm. Awesome. And it's still very niche. It still meets

1 audience, Fulfilling one problem, but it doesn't tie

her into any particular thing other than,

alright, It actually is. This is what you wish you had

had to help you solve this problem. You're creating it to

help others. And so She still has the framework that a

typical business coach would say she needs to have. It's just done in

a completely unique way that fits her. Right. It's all

customized, it sounds like. Absolutely. Yep. Okay. That is

a beautiful thing. Well, when we're talking about Customized.

I know today we're talking about business advice,

great business advice gone wrong. And when you think

about hiring a coach or

talking to somebody about business and you get advice,

They're generally giving generic advice.

True? General and you have 2 This isn't

cutting anyone down, but if you're going to meet a wide

audience and create a book, create a course, anything like

that, it has to be Somewhat general to meet the

general need. Mhmm. But there becomes a point where

you just get oversaturated information. Your mind just

Goes crazy with ideas and then it just it gunks up. It

just gets stuck or you get on this wheel that you just keep going

around and around. Okay. I like this, but This and then

but that but that. And then you just can't land on

anything. And so that's when you need me. That's when you need, As my one

client says, somebody else's brain to just help you think clearly through

it in a very objective way, not, Oh,

what about this idea? Did you try that idea? There's a lot of advice out

there, but sometimes you just need someone to say, alright.

This is who you are and this is how you're uniquely gifted.

This is the potential I see. This is where you're passionate. I see your

eyes light up when you talk about that, And you kinda get blaise

when you talk about that. And you need that extra input and someone

to help you not just come up with ideas, but then take the proper next

steps to creating, validating,

and maybe seeing potential that you don't see or has been around the

business world long enough that they know possibilities are out there or maybe

what's emerging, things like that. Right. It sounds like you help people

really think outside the box looking at

This human behavior and their

personality, their values, all of those things kind of distilled into

1. Right. So there is the general content that works for a lot

of people, but I am there to help the people that it doesn't

work for. Okay. Let's dive into that. Let's talk about some

of this great business advice gone wrong and sort of

how that may have come about and how

you might be able to identify it for someone. So you got some

examples there? I do. So the 1st piece of business

advice that is good, but sometimes it can go wrong and actually

went wrong for me. So the first one was

find a pain point that you have found a solution to. And

that's awesome. And actually, my current business, I do do

that. But time that went wrong for me,

I hate cooking. And I found a product

that really helped me simplify cooking, and it was something that I

could resell. And I was so excited about it.

I'm like, alright. I just gotten that advice and you've checked those boxes, click, click,

click, good commission, good this, good that. I'm like, alright. I can totally do

that. Put the business plan together. And then I

realized I had to create content for it All the

time, forever. On a topic

that you don't like, cooking. So that meant

I had to get in the kitchen, which I hate being in the kitchen, and

get out ingredients, which I hate getting out ingredients and

cutting and sorting and filming and looking

happy about doing this task that I absolutely hated.

So this Solution that I was solving, less time in the

kitchen, was creating more time in the kitchen.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So,

yeah, when you're doing that, when you're creating content, people will see how

you feel about it. You can't really fake your enthusiasm.

And so when you're choosing a business, it's great

if you have a pain point that you solved. You can really

relate to your client. But think about that long term

creating content. You have to be in that headspace

and be excited and passionate. You have to make it contagious or

people aren't gonna want it. Right. And so if you're feeling forced

or frustrated or whatever when you're trying to imagine, alright, For

me, in the kitchen cutting things up, I just didn't even think about that

aspect of it. So you can't build a business

around something that is continuing to cause you pain

if creating content about it is causing you pain. So, yeah,

Yeah. If the solution turns into something that you love and you wanna tell the

world about it and show them and demonstrate it, etcetera, all the

time, that's great. But if it's going to create a situation

that's causing you dread, then, yeah, you should probably

move past that one onto another idea. Right. Keep moving. Keep

asking yourself, what else could I possibly pick as a business

idea? That's such a great point because if you are immersing

yourself Into the content creation of

something that you found a solution

for this pain point that You initially had you found a solution

for it, but then you have to go back to the pain point repeatedly

just to get that content and live in it To get that content

created for selling your solution,

Yeah. I don't think that would last too long with most people, But you're right.

That is great. It's great business advice for

some people. It that it's not for everyone.

One size does not fit all. Right. One size does not

fit all. Okay. Alright. So are there

other great Advices that you have

discovered were not so right for some people? This is an

iffy one because there's good and bad to it. Again, you have to think through

it. So the second one is just pick something you're good at and do it.

Sure. It needs to be something that you're good at, but just pick

something you're good at and do it. There's some issues there.

1 client, she's very administrative. And

so she's like, alright. I think I'm gonna be a VA, a

virtual assistant. People can just I can go in their business

and they say, alright, this is what I need done and I just do it.

And that is great for a lot of people. When we

started doing her assessment, we realized that she's a natural

leader. So I was talking to her, and I said, listen.

You are the kind of person who is great at going into a

business, Identifying what's wrong and figuring out how to fix

it. How are you going to do when you go into a business and

say, hey. I'll do whatever you need to do, And you've identified these

5 things wrong and you know the solutions, but they just want you to do

what they tell you to do. How is that gonna sit with you? You could

see her face. She was just kind of

that would not go well because that part of her that

knows How to fix things is gonna be squashed, and she's just

gonna be frustrated every day working for that person knowing I can

fix this, this, this, this, and this, But instead, I'm just doing these

mundane tasks that aren't using my gifts. That's

so good because identifying that for a person before they get

into that frustrated mode of, I just don't I don't

wanna do this because I know that this is wrong, But

because you're taking orders from the business owner, you

gotta bite your tongue and just do it. And then because this is someone

who wants to work from home, That's gonna spill out somewhere. That's

gonna spill out to your husband. That's gonna spill out onto your kids, and that

tension is going to bleed. You're not the kind of person that can close the

door on that and walk away. Right. Yeah. And this is what

you're looking for in a home business. It's something that you can

Thrive in so that then you can close the door and be there with your

family. So with a situation like

that, Where you identify that the person is more of a natural

born leader and has these skills in, let's

say, Dubsado. Would a better

idea be for her to go into something that's more consulting

or going into somebody's Dubsado The way it's

set up and identifying where they have their problems. So

she's more of a consultant than a VA. We've identified

she needs to be Seen as an expert, so she has the authority to

go in and say she's not invited in to just do their task. She's

invited in to identify problems, be the expert, and then come up

with solutions. And so that is what we came up with her is to

become a Dubsado expert. And we're actually still in the process,

can Still, she needs to niche down and everything. So she didn't have

that skill set to begin with, but we just looked at different

options for her. And then she did a little research to narrow it

down, and so that is what she's chosen is Dubsado. She's gonna be niched down

even more. But, yes, She's a natural leader, but she needs that

authority so the people recognize her as that and a place to

target it. So that's what she's doing is she is Partnering with a

Dubsado expert, learning the area of expertise, learning

the system so that she can come in and say, I'm gonna focus on

workloads or I'm gonna focus on what do coaches need or what

do service you know, that part is still being worked out. But

absolutely, she's going in Right. Figuring it out so that she can have that

authority and work in her gift in a way that she

can then close the door on it And then be with her family without

constantly thinking or being frustrated about what's going on.

Yeah. That's beautiful. To be able to identify that

and actually channel your gifts into

something that's not gonna frustrate you. And when you say she's

niching down, so for instance, it would be like she could

become a Dubsado expert for home stagers

and then identify people who already had Dubsado set up

and say, I think you need to or maybe want to

change this. Or even a new home stager, she could set it

up right from the get go and say, this is the way you

need to do it. Teach people to do it and then be on to the

next person. She's not the one who continues to do it on a day to

day basis. Or even one thing she's considering

is once she goes in and learns it, she can create an agency

so she can hire and manage so she can get that

Recurring income, so she doesn't always have to chase clients, but yet

she's actually a teacher right now and that's what she's trying to get out of.

So it's very natural for her to Become a teacher. Equip

people. Put it out there so they can do it, and she can just get

a percentage of the recurring income. Mhmm. Identifying her

as having those leadership qualities would really lend her to a lot of

things like an agency Yes. Having that as her business.

So Yeah. Well, are there other examples

of great business advice gone wrong that you I have one last one

for you. So Okay. Again, this is good advice,

but it doesn't always work well. So just target the past

version of yourself. I have a client who

again, she has an area that she's passionate about, but it's because of a lot

of things that she's been through. And so people are telling her, listen.

Your target audience is the past version of yourself, just 1 or 2 steps behind

where you currently are, Which is awesome for a lot of businesses.

It makes you very relatable, very passionate. People will follow that,

but for her, she's coming out of a traumatic event. And

she's like, I can't handle that. I do not even wanna talk to

the person who is the past version of myself. It's very triggering for her at

this point. Mhmm. And so as we work through

that, we did the assessment and we

realized that her superpower, so to speak, is to inspire

and motivate people. And so we went

through the whole thing and we realized, okay, she doesn't wanna talk to the past

version of herself Because they can be very

depressing and they just wanna vent a lot. They want someone to hear them because

they're in a situation where people don't typically Understand or

relate. And so when they find someone who can get it, they just wanna blah,

get it all out there. Mhmm. Mhmm. And so She's like, I can't handle

that. I'm like, alright. Well, let's tweak your message so that it's

targeting this particular audience and say, who are ready To move

forward and take the steps to become the best version of their selves, to

maximize their potential, and things like that. And that is a

qualifier And she can just speak to

that desire to move forward rather than

to the person in the middle of the pain. That

is such a great example of what my mentor,

Marisa Corcoran, calls calling in the

Tiggers. Okay. Okay. Yeah. If you

are focusing on pain points or

where someone is And they're wallowing

in I mean, I'm not saying that as a derogatory, but somebody

who's not ready to take action to move themself

Forward like a Tigger. You know how they're always bouncing around? They're taking action. They're

doing. But if they're an Eeyore, an Eeyore

is very much into

their negative stuff. You know what I

mean? If you're calling in that former Part of yourself

or that former version of yourself who may have been

an Eeyore, and and you're not calling in the Tiggers, but

you wanna work with the Tiggers. Then, yeah.

That would not be the best advice for a person who wants

to Really work with somebody who's past the point

of being in the problem, and they want to be

in the solution. So Right. And to be fair,

the person who is ready to move forward is a past version of herself or

a past and current version. It's just really taking a sliver.

It's not what she went to mentally or emotionally.

So it was just redirecting that. But again, she

recognized right away, that is not what I wanna create content for. That is

not who I wanna talk to. That's not who I can engage with right

now. She just needed to know how to redirect it

and to oh, it's okay to call out that little sliver that was for

her felt like 10 minutes Go. Or maybe something that she's constantly trying to

chase. She has the ability now to create that environment

for herself and for others to move

forward and have that community that she didn't have before.

Such an important thing because then the more people that she can pull

in, Magnetize into her world and help

at the point where they're ready to move forward. That will actually

Show those. I'll call them the Eeyores, but the people who are really in the

problem and not looking at the solution, they can

see. Wow. There really is a way out of this

because of all the people that she's helping at that point.

I love that. Knowing that, okay, when I'm ready, there is a place, for

me. Yes. Okay. So, yes,

this just really hits home about great business advice

is not for everyone. You've got 3 great examples

here of where it was great business advice, but it was the

wrong person or maybe the wrong time or the

wrong sliver of the person, and that

really is an important point because A lot of times we

think, alright. Well, they're telling me I've gotta do it this way. Just think

about an earlier version of myself. But then if that's a

traumatic Past version, you don't wanna be

sitting in that all the time and rehashing with

your clients And going back through that yourself if

it's still a trigger for you. Right. So

I love that. I never really thought about a human

behavioral consultant being, like,

the person to go to for this Overthinking, this

overwhelm, this spinning of the wheels when one is niche

niche how does one say that? Niching down. I

say it different every time. But niching down, you really just pointed

out how important that is that solopreneurs really understand

themselves, in order to be able to

be successful and not frustrated,

overwhelmed and just overthinking.

It takes so much time and energy

and, honestly, emotional expense, if

you can just work through that as early as possible.

I think we all go through certain phases of business just like,

a a baby becoming a toddler. That's a business growth as well. And so there's

it's an important part of the process. But, yeah, when you know

something you know in your gut. I got something here, but I can't

clarify it. That's when you need someone like me who can just come

in and very logically, just help you

through the process, maybe see things from a different perspective,

bring pieces together that you didn't know could be brought together.

Connect the dots. Yes. Yeah. And I know

you've got a gift for our listeners today, can you tell us about that? Because

I think that's gonna help with what you just said about this helping to

find your place and niche down. Tell us about it.

Yeah. So I would love to give for free to your audience

a workbook I've created called Nail Your Niche. And so it is

something that you can work through on your own help you identify your

skills and talents. It actually has a skill audit in there

with this neat little thing that helps you narrow it down

so you can focus on just a few of them. And

then from there, it can help you validate your ideas and create a marketing

plan. It is a great start for your listeners with they're like,

alright. I have a few ideas or even no

ideas, and I definitely wanna start a business. It can certainly

help move them a lot faster through that process.

That sounds wonderful. And for those who are listening and they're

of the overthinking anonymous fan

club. And maybe they've got a business, but something's just not right. Like you

said before, something's not right, but they can't put their

finger on it. Would this be something that might help them to go through that

skill assessment and some of these questions to try and

figure out what that might be? Honestly, anytime you can put something

down on paper, it really helps you think a little bit more clearly through

it. Again, the audit Plus the validating is so huge. It's

something that's so easy and very tempting to

skip over. It's fun to ideate. It's fun to come up with all the

ideas. But validating that offer, that's

where the rubber meets the road Yes. Where it's like, alright. I

think it's a great idea. Sure. It sounds fun. There are a lot of possibilities,

but is it what people are really looking for? Are they really ready to invest

in it? Those are the types of things that Not

as fun, but so important. And this helps you walk through some

of that. I'll make sure that the link For that

is in the show notes. Lisa, what is the name of your website?

Where are you on the web? Just lisathurston.cc.

Okay. And it's t h u r s t o

n. Right? Okay. And where do you hang

out on social media? Where can people connect or Find you on social.

On Instagram, you can find me @coachingwithlisaT

Well, this has been such a great talk. I've learned so much, and I

think that our audience is gonna really, really get value out of

this. And everybody get over there and get your free copy of

the Nail Your Niche workbook. Yes.

Alright. Thank you so much, Lisa, for being here today. And

Thank you, Melissa. Alright. And thank you, audience. Thank you all

the listeners for tuning in for another episode of She's Got

Content. We'll be back next week. Thank you for tuning in

to this episode of the She's Got Content podcast. I

hope you got at least 1 nugget to take action on this week. If

you got value from today's episode, I would be so grateful when you leave

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make my day, and you just might receive a shout out on the show as

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And last but never least, if you want an endless supply of just right

ideas for content you can write about for your blog post,

your emails, your videos, podcast episodes, all the content

things, Then you wanna head over to my website at she's

got content.comforward/content, and pick up your

free workbook. Never run out of content ideas. Look for that

link in the show notes today along with the other links mentioned in

today's episode. Until next time, content creators. You've got

an audience waiting to hear from you, and you've got content to share with

them. Stop being the best kept secret and make a bigger

impact when you've got Content out there in the world.