So many coaches say the same thing to me:
“I expected one type of client, but I keep attracting another. Maybe I need to change my copy?”
And almost every time, the copy isn’t the problem.
What’s happening is quieter than that. Somewhere along the way they’ve decided they can only help people who mirror their own experience. So when a different client turns up, they assume they’ve got something wrong.
You haven’t. You’re just focused on the differences, when the gold is in the similarities.
The trap of “but that’s not my story”
Here’s the truth about expertise. It’s rarely about the surface. It’s about the principle sitting underneath.
Take body confidence. How I show up in my body looks nothing like how you show up in yours. Different shape, different history, different mirror. But if you can coach someone to confidence in their body, you can coach confidence, full stop. The principle travels. The story is just the packaging.
It’s the same in business. I’m a business coach and strategist. I am not a dressmaker, and I couldn’t sew you a straight hem to save my life. But I can absolutely coach a dressmaker to build a thriving business, because I understand the first principles that hold true no matter the trade:
- How business actually works,
- How people connect, and
- How that connection turns into clients.
None of that changes because the product changed.
Master the principle, not just the example
When you only see what’s different between you and the person in front of you, you shrink. You start believing you can serve only a narrow slice of the world.
When you see what’s the same, the pattern, the principle, the truth underneath, you expand. Your expertise suddenly stretches well beyond your own lived experience.
That isn’t stepping outside your zone of genius. That’s finally understanding what your zone of genius actually is.
So before you rewrite a single line of copy, ask a better question:
Once you can name the principle you’re truly an expert in, you’ll realise you were never as boxed in as you thought.
