The Hardest Marketing Decision You'll Ever Make

Most businesses don't have a marketing problem. They have a decision problem. Until you decide what you want to be known for, every website, email, and social post works harder than it should. Clarity feels risky—but it may be the one decision that transforms the way customers find, remember, and recommend your business.

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There comes a point in every business owner's journey when the marketing questions stop being tactical.

It's no longer, Should I post more on LinkedIn? or Do I need a better website?

Instead, the question becomes much more personal:

What do I actually want to be known for?

That sounds like a branding exercise, but it isn't. It's one of the hardest decisions a business owner will ever make because choosing what you want to be known for also means choosing what you won't be known for.

For many entrepreneurs, that's terrifying.

After spending more than two decades helping some of the world's biggest brands—including Nike and Adidas—clarify their stories, Kris Jones has seen that fear play out again and again. Today, as the founder of Red Door Stories and a StoryBrand Certified Guide, she works primarily with coaches, consultants, and advisors helping them discover the one message that helps the right people immediately recognize themselves in their marketing.

The hesitation she encounters isn't usually a lack of strategy.

It's a lack of permission.

"Almost everybody has angst around niching down."

That single observation captures a struggle almost every entrepreneur understands.

The fear isn't that narrowing your focus won't work.

The fear is that it will cost you opportunities.

The Myth of Keeping Every Door Open

When businesses struggle to explain what they do, it's rarely because they don't know their services.

It's because they're trying to write a sentence that includes every service, every audience, every possibility, and every future opportunity.

On the surface, that feels wise.

In reality, it often produces marketing that no one remembers.

This conversation builds naturally on an earlier discussion in this marketing series, Why Customers Don't Remember Your Business. In that article, Dr. J.J. Peterson argued that customers don't remember businesses simply because they're different. They remember businesses because they're clear.

Kris takes that idea one step further.

Clarity doesn't begin with better marketing.

It begins with a decision.

Until you decide what you want to be known for, every piece of marketing has to work overtime explaining who you are.

Once you make that decision, everything else becomes easier.

Your website becomes clearer.

Your content becomes more focused.

Referrals become more natural because people finally understand exactly who should be sent your way.

Choosing isn't about becoming smaller.

It's about becoming memorable.

Clarity Doesn't Mean Limiting Your Business

One of the biggest misconceptions about niching down is that it means saying goodbye to everyone outside a single audience.

Kris challenges that assumption.

Businesses often serve more than one type of customer. The question isn't how many audiences you have—it's whether they're connected by the same transformation.

She shared the example of teachers and school administrators. They have different roles, different responsibilities, and different daily challenges. Yet they often share the same underlying mission. A business can serve both without creating two completely different brands because the story remains the same.

Compare that with a company that offers catering services while also selling software. Those are fundamentally different businesses with different customer journeys.

The distinction isn't the number of audiences.

It's whether you're solving the same problem.

That's an important shift because it reframes niching as an exercise in clarity rather than limitation.

One Story. Many Formats.

One of the most practical ideas Kris shared comes from the StoryBrand framework.

Every story begins with a hero who has a problem they can't solve on their own.

Your customer is that hero.

Your business exists to guide them toward success.

Once that story is clear, it doesn't need to be reinvented every time you create a piece of marketing.

Kris compared it to an accordion.

The same story expands into a keynote presentation, a website, or a podcast episode. Then it compresses into a two-sentence elevator pitch or a social media bio.

The story stays the same.

Only the length changes.

That idea offers enormous freedom for business owners who constantly feel like they have to create something new.

Instead of inventing new messages, they're learning to communicate one message consistently.

That consistency matters because, as Kris reminded listeners,

"You'll get sick of your message long before your audience does."

Business owners live with their message every day.

Their customers don't.

Most people skim a website in seconds, glance at an email, or catch a single social media post before moving on. What feels repetitive internally often feels refreshingly consistent to everyone else.

Two Questions Worth Asking

As the conversation turned practical, Kris shared two questions she asks every client.

The first is deceptively simple.

"What do you want to be known for?"

It's a question many business owners have never seriously answered.

The second digs beneath the surface.

She asks clients to think about someone they worked with during the past year whose transformation genuinely excited them. Then she asks if they've experienced that same kind of story with anyone else.

Patterns begin to emerge.

Not because someone invented a niche.

Because they finally recognized one.

Those stories reveal more than a target audience.

They reveal the work that gives a business energy, purpose, and direction.

Permission Changes Everything

Perhaps the most surprising insight from the conversation wasn't about marketing at all.

It was about confidence.

Once business owners become clear about what they want to be known for, they gain permission to say no.

No to clients who aren't the right fit.

No to projects that pull them away from their strengths.

No to opportunities that create revenue but not momentum.

Ironically, that's often when referrals begin increasing.

People know exactly what you do.

More importantly, they know exactly who should call you.

That's the paradox at the heart of great marketing.

Trying to appeal to everyone feels safe.

Choosing what you want to be known for feels risky.

Yet the businesses that become memorable are almost always the ones willing to make that choice.

If this conversation resonates with you, start by listening to the full episode above.

Then, if you haven't already, go back and read Why Customers Don't Remember Your Business, the first article in this marketing series. Together, these two conversations answer two questions every business owner eventually has to wrestle with:

What do I want people to remember me for?

And do I have the courage to build my business around that answer?

When you're ready to put those ideas into practice, download Dr. J.J. Peterson's free One-Liner Worksheet to clarify the message you want customers to remember.

Then visit Kris Jones' Five StoryBrand Soundbites That Bring You More Clients to learn how to communicate that message with clarity and confidence.

Knowing what you want to be known for is the hardest marketing decision you'll ever make.

The businesses that grow are usually the ones that finally make it.

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Why Customers Don't Remember Your Business