I was a success. Until I wasn’t.

I was a success. Until I wasn’t.

When my daughter was born, I was running my first business.

It was a concert promotions and event marketing agency.

But after 15 years, life threw me curveballs.

Revenue slowed.

A frivolous lawsuit.

And a newborn baby girl.

I needed a change.

I wanted stability.

But transitioning from being my own boss to working for someone else was a whole new world.

I hit a wall initially.

My background was broad.

As an entrepreneur, I’d done a bit of everything.

IT.

Finance.

Operations.

HR.

Business development.

That made job hunting challenging.

I had the “ability” but did not have the “permission” to land the roles or the companies I wanted.

I sucked it up.

Took a significant step back in compensation.

And I landed a biz dev role at an experiential agency.

It was my shot.

I dove into learning everything I could, building skills, and networking.

Slowly but surely, it paid off.

I moved up.

I got recruited by another firm.

Step by step, I worked my way back to—and then surpassed—the level of compensation I was used to.

I see this play out with agencies and consultancies I advise.

Talented team.

Strong background.

Prior experience with large clients and projects.

However, the firm itself lacks the clients and case studies.

The “ability” is there, but they lack “permission” to win in the eyes of the prospect.

There are 10s of thousands of firms in the US alone.

Most have similar stories.

Clients are risk averse, though.

Unless your solution is remarkably different or delivers exponentially better results, it is not worth their risk.

What can you do?

Take a similar path as I did when I pivoted my career.

Double down on strengths.

Improve weaknesses.

Specialize.

Target prospects within reasonable reach.

Land and expand.

It’s about strategic steps, not leaps.

I took a step back to leap forward.

With patience and strategy, you can too.

It’s not only about having the “ability” to do the work in the room.

It’s about having “permission” to get in it.