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The Red Thread This Week:
"People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole." — Theodore Levitt
A few years ago, I was brought in to help run strategy for a digital agency. One of our clients was a hundred-year-old, family-run lock company.
They made physical locks. Had for a century. Steel, keys, tumblers. The whole thing.
When we started working with their leadership team, they described their business the way you'd expect:
We sell security hardware.
We bend steel.
We make locks that go on doors, gates, cabinets etc.
But what what their customers were actually buying wasn't a lock. It was peace of mind.
The confidence that the things they cared about most, their home, their assets, their privacy, their family, were protected.
The lock was just the delivery mechanism. And once their leadership team saw that, and leaned into that world view, everything changed.
New product categories opened up.
Digital security solutions became obvious extensions.
Partnerships that would have seemed off-brand suddenly made sense.
The business hadn't changed. The understanding of the business had.
That single reframe didn't come from the new shiny strategy deck that our team delivered (although it did look pretty sweet.)
It came from 2 honest questions that forced them to look at their own business differently.
Those same 2 questions are sitting underneath your business right now.
So the Red Thread this week is about the gap between the business you describe and the business you're actually in, and why closing that gap might be the most valuable strategic move you haven't made yet.
~ Jaime
🔑 The Unlock
The gap between the business you describe and the business you're actually in holds a lot of untapped value.
Operators rarely misread their craft. A coach knows how to coach. A retailer knows how to retail. A creator knows how to create. The blind spot is self-description.
When you describe your business too literally, you constrain it. You optimize for the delivery mechanism instead of the outcome.
You market the lock instead of the peace of mind.
Here are 2 questions that close that gap.
1️⃣ Are you willing to see it differently?
This is a question about identity, not tactics.
Most operators, when pressed, will say yes. Of course they're open to new thinking.
But real openness requires something most operators aren't expecting to give up: the version of their business they've been describing for years, sometimes decades.
The lock company had to stop seeing themselves as a steel manufacturer before they could become a security and peace-of-mind company.
That shift touched how they introduced themselves, how they priced, how they hired, what they built next.
For content operators: If you've been describing yourself as "a coach with a YouTube channel" or "a business owner on social media," you're doing what the lock company was doing. Leading with the mechanism.
The real question is: how would your customers or audience describe what you do for them?
Not the service you provide. What changes for them because you exist.
What pain goes away. What problem gets solved. What they can do or feel or become that they couldn't before.
That's the business you're actually in, and it's almost always worth more than the one you've been describing.
2️⃣ What would you need to believe for this new definition of your business to be true?
Lots of founders and operators stall, waiting for certainty before they act. They want proof before they shift.
Spoiler: The proof doesn't arrive until after the shift. (sorry 🤷♂️)
The lock company needed to believe their customers were buying an outcome, not hardware.
Once they could hold that belief, even temporarily, the path forward was much easier to see.
For content operators: Once you can see your business through your customer's eyes, look at your content with the same honesty.
Most operators treat it like advertising. A way to stay visible, drive traffic, and remind people the thing they sell exists.
But your customers aren't looking for ads. They're looking for evidence that you understand their problem and can help them through it.
Your podcast, your social media, your YouTube channel…when they're working, they're not “promoting” the products or services you deliver.
They're demonstrating the outcomes you make possible for your customers.
3️⃣ What does the more valuable version of your business look like?
Once you've answered the first two questions, this 3rd one appears pretty naturally.
The lock company didn't reframe their identity just for kicks, because we had some fun meetings and workshops.
They did it because the reframe opened new territory.
New products. New partners. New pricing logic.
The business they thought they were running had a ceiling. The business they were actually in did not.
For content operators: The folks I work with who make this shift, (coaches, educators, founders, service providers) almost always start from some version of this…
They've been doing the work of a media business while telling themselves content is just something they do on the side.
When they stop seeing the content as the support act and start seeing it as the headliner, something changes.
The products, the services, the offers, these become how they monetize the trust they've already been building with their content. Not the source of it.
💡 Mindset Shift
A lot of folks are running a content operation they didn't build on purpose, but instead built from outside pressure.
The world changed, and suddenly you needed a newsletter, a podcast, a LinkedIn presence, a YouTube channel…
So you bolted one on.
And because it was never core to how you saw yourself, you've been treating it like a tax. Something to manage and endure. Another thing on the list.
The stress that drops out the bottom of that approach doesn't come from “doing content.”
It comes from doing it without ever deciding what it's actually for, and that requires knowing the business you're actually in.
Not the thing you sell. But the outcomes you make possible for the people you seek to serve.
🎲 Prompt Playground
What Business Am I Really In?
Use this to stress-test your own business description and find the more valuable version hiding underneath it.
Prompt:
You are a business strategy advisor helping me identify the gap between the business I describe and the business I'm actually in.
My Current Situation:
What I do: [describe your work, service, or craft]
How I currently describe my business: [your standard elevator pitch or bio]
Who I serve: [your specific audience or clients]
How I use content: [newsletter, podcast, social, video, etc.]
What I actually help people achieve: [the real outcome, not the service]
My Strategic Question:
Am I leading with my mechanism or my outcome? What's the more valuable version of my business that I might be undervaluing?
Help me evaluate:
What business am I actually in, based on what I've described?
What outcome am I delivering that I'm not naming clearly?
What would change about my positioning, pricing, or products if I led with that outcome instead?
What content or media am I creating that could be the business itself, not just the marketing?
What's the most valuable version of what I've already built that I'm not yet claiming?
Be direct. Tell me what I might be missing about my own business.
Ask me clarifying questions in order to push my thinking as effectively as possible.
Need Help With This?
Sometimes the hardest business to see clearly is your own.
I work with operators, coaches, artists, and founders who are ready to look at what they've built with fresh eyes and build the media infrastructure to grow it intentionally.
If this sounds like you, hit reply and say “hi.”
I read every message, and I guarantee we’d have fun trading emails to help you move forward.
Let me know what you think?
~ Jaime
⚡ Before You Go
Here are a few other ways I can help:
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🚀 Speaking & workshops: Hit reply and write “Speak” - let’s talk!
📓 The 7-Day Podcast Playbook: Go from zero to podcast in 7 days (free)
🤖 AI Prompt Library: 12 prompts to use AI as a strategic thinking partner (free)
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Prefer Audio?
Thanks for spending time with Red Threads this week, I’m glad you’re here :)
~ Jaime