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Ep135: Why following others' advice can hurt your business
Episode 13528th April 2026 • Unfrazzle • Louise Miller
00:00:00 00:04:44

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Could 'here's what I'd do' be the most unhelpful advice out there? In this episode, I dive into why imitating others can actually do more harm than good, especially when it comes to your unique journey as a solo business owner. By focusing on what feels easy and aligned for you, you can grow your business in a way that feels good. Join me as we explore how a kinder, more personalised approach will pave the way for your success.

Transcripts

Speaker A:

Foreign. Welcome to Unfrazzle, a podcast for solo business owners with a big vision who are ready for a kinder, more sustainable approach to productivity.

I'm Louise Miller and each week I share bite size insights to help you step away from the hustle, stop faffing and stay focused so you can make your brilliant ideas happen and make a bigger impact in the world.

And before we dive into today's episode, if you enjoy what I'm sharing here on Unfrazzle and you'd like to support the podcast, you can buy me a cuppa by going to buymeacoffee.com louisemiller and making a one off donation. I'll pop a link to that in the show notes. Okay, grab yourself a cuppa and let's get started.

A little while ago I saw a post from a well meaning business coach who said most of the time you don't need more information. So far, so good. That's what I tell people too. But the next thing they said ruined it for me.

They said most of the time you don't need more information, you just need the right person to say here's what I do. And I couldn't disagree more. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that people saying here's what I do is actually incredibly harmful.

Because doing what they do and expecting to get the same results will only work if you are them.

If your business is the same as their business, if your definition of success is the same as theirs, if you have the exact same personality, life experience, opportunities, hours in the day, energy levels, the list goes on. And I think you get my point. So take my client, Teresa. She is running a hugely successful online business and is at the absolute top of her game.

And if I told her about the challenges I face in my business and she said here's what I do and I then acted on that. I would spend a ridiculous amount of my time recording and editing videos for YouTube.

So she's in her element and is an absolute natural on camera and has a brilliant editor on her team. I am most definitely not natural on video and I don't have the team that she has.

So what takes her a few hours would take me a few days at least and the end result would, let's be honest, be terrible.

So if I was trying to do what she did, I would be applying to speak on big stages and then I'd get rejected because I'm not someone who speaks on stages and I don't have the credibility that comes with her level of name recognition. At least not yet. So thankfully, Teresa is not the sort of business coach who would ever tell someone to do what she does.

She takes the time to get to know someone and then helps them figure out what would feel good and what is most likely to work for them. And I know this because we spent some time together last year, the year before, creating a strategy that felt so right for me. It was.

It was ridiculous.

So if I was in the early stages of running my business, or if I was feeling vulnerable because things were feeling particularly hard for me, someone saying here's what I would do would be no help whatsoever. But it would be very tempting for me to listen and want to replicate what they're doing.

So over the years I've been told that I should add more content to Make It Happen club. If I want people to stay, I should franchise the process I use in Make It Happen club so that I can scale and make more money.

Back in the day when I was a va, I was told I should bring in associates so that I could grow. And those are all perfectly valid suggestions, but they're not right for me.

And if I'd been paying for a program where that's the kind of advice I was being given, where the people giving it hadn't taken the time to get to know me first, I'd have been seriously annoyed.

So I absolutely agree that unless you're just starting out and still figuring out what on earth you're doing, you probably don't need more information.

But what you do need is to figure out what success looks like for you, what feels easy and in flow for you, what your values are, what the rest of your life looks like, and how to balance that with your work.

Because that depth of understanding and self awareness is what's going to bring you growth in a much more aligned and fruitful way than listening to what somebody else would do. So as always, I hope that this helps and I look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you for listening to Unfrazzle.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who needs a dose of calm productivity in their life and I'd love it if you could leave me a rating and a review as that will help more people discover this podcast.

If you'd like to hear more from me to help you stop faffing and take back control of your time, you'll find a link to join my mailing list in the show notes and I would really love for you to join us. So thanks so much for your support and I look forward to seeing you next time.

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1. Episode 1: Welcome to Unfrazzle!
00:07:54