Meet Dan: The Best Kept Secret
I want to introduce you to someone I've been writing for, and about for years: Dan.
Dan started his coaching business four years ago, and he feels stuck. He's good at what he does. The problem is barely anyone knows he exists.
Dan calls himself a "best kept secret," a phrase that gets me every time, because so many of you have used words like these to describe yourselves or someone you know.
The only real way to find out what Dan does is to talk to him directly, and not enough of those conversations are happening. He's uncomfortable with the idea of being visible, so he stays hidden instead, stuck in scarcity mode: never enough clients, never enough revenue, never enough content. And soon, not enough money to keep going.
Torn between two instincts
So Dan ends up chasing prospects, always searching for the next possible client, and it exhausts him. He feels the financial pressure so acutely that when he does land in front of an ideal client, they can sense it. He’s passionate but it comes across as pushy, the very thing he wants to avoid, as his enthusiasm smacks of desperation.
He gets his clients, the few he has, through referrals. But referrals need people who already know you exist, and Dan just doesn’t have enough of those.
Here's what gets me about Dan. He knows that what he offers would help the people who need it. But he doesn’t want to sound like he's selling. It’s a persona he simply cannot make himself adopt. So he holds back, torn between wanting to shout on the rooftops what he can offer, and staying quiet for fear of alienating people. And the work he could be doing stays hidden, right along with him.
Loud marketing
Meanwhile, the marketing world around Dan is loud about exactly what he thinks he needs: more leads, more clients, guaranteed results. Coaches and gurus promise programs that sound like precisely the fix he's looking for, and the fear of missing out is doing a lot of the selling for them. Dan has already taken a couple of these programs. His savings are lighter for it, and he's no closer to finding clients than when he started.
Dan isn't sure how many more months he can keep going like this before he has to go back to a job that doesn't light him up.
Alone with a blinking cursor
I picture him on a random evening at his desk, cursor blinking on a blank post, typing a sentence and deleting it before he ever hits publish. It's the kind of evening I imagine him having, and if you've had one too, you already know Dan better than you think.
Building something of your own can be intimidating enough on its own, without the added weight of people close to you responding with skepticism, or telling you outright to just get a job instead. It takes real courage to move through that and tiptoe into visibility in spite of the discomfort and the fear.
The myth that keeps Dan stuck
The belief keeping Dan stuck is simple, and it's one I see play out constantly:
Dan believes that chasing clients and selling to them is what marketing is, and you have to do it to have a business.
But that's not actually what marketing is.
Marketing isn't about finding clients to buy from you. It's about helping them find you, and want to buy from you.
Dan in the novel
I've been writing the story of Dan, and three other characters I'll introduce here in the newsletters ahead.
In the novel, four years into his business, something starts to shift for Dan. There’s the single sentence he crafts carefully but almost doesn't have the nerve to post. A stranger reaches out because of something Dan said. Slowly his network stops feeling like an empty room. He takes a stand, out loud, for something he actually believes.
And somewhere along the way, clients start finding him, instead of the other way around. Little by little, his voice changes, and so does what he's able to build.
Want to meet Dan?
If you want to see how that shift unfolds for Dan, and get to know him better, his struggles, his tentative steps, his wins, and how others help him along the way, then sign up for my novel launch team. You'll get an advance copy, plus resources, cut scenes, and a seat in a private workshop where you'll do the same exercise that changed everything for Dan. I’ll also be asking you for an honest review around launch day.
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