You know your purpose. But what business do you want to build now?

23 Sept

A former client rang me recently because she wanted to make some changes to her website.

We’d worked together six years ago. Her business had changed since then, her life had changed, and what she wanted from the next few years had changed too.

It became apparent quite quickly that updating the website wasn’t really the issue.

She was trying to figure out how to stop doing much of the work the website was currently selling.

So I asked her a question.

“What would you love to be doing five years from now?”

And suddenly, she had plenty to say.

She talked about the work she really wanted to do. The ideas she wanted to develop. The parts of her experience she wanted to build on. The things that gave her energy rather than drained it.

At one point she stopped and said:

“Lucy, you’re in the wrong job.”

She meant I shouldn’t be designing websites.

I should be doing this.

And I laughed, because I’ve been asking myself some remarkably similar questions about my own business.

Sometimes you know your purpose. You just don’t know what to do with it.

There’s a lot of conversation about finding your purpose in business.

And purpose matters.

Knowing why you care about the work you do can help you make better decisions. It can give you something bigger than revenue to build towards.

But for an experienced business owner, I think there’s another question that can be even harder:

What do I actually want to build now?

Because you can be very clear about what matters to you and still have a business that no longer quite fits.

You can believe deeply in the work and still have too many offers.

You can have years of valuable experience but struggle to decide which part of it should lead.

You can be known for something you're exceptionally good at but no longer want to spend the next ten years doing.

You can have good clients, good referrals and good revenue — and still quietly think:

Is this really it?

The business you built isn't a contract

This is particularly difficult when your business has worked.

If it were failing, changing it might feel obvious.

But when you've spent years building a reputation, developing services, gathering testimonials and becoming known for something, walking away from any part of that can feel irresponsible.

So we keep adding.

Another service.
Another audience.
Another offer.
Another way of describing what we do.

Before long, the business contains almost every version of us we've ever been.

The problem isn't necessarily that any of those things are bad.

It's that they don't all belong in the business you're building next.

Your experience should make you more selective

One of the great advantages of having been in business for a while is that you have evidence.

You know which work you're brilliant at.
You know what people repeatedly ask you for.
You know which problems you're particularly good at solving.
You know which clients bring out your best work.
You know what people will pay you for.

And, perhaps most importantly, you know yourself better.

That experience shouldn't automatically result in more services.

It can allow you to choose. Fewer offers. Fewer types of client. Fewer things you want to be known for.

But more value in the work you keep. More expertise concentrated in the right place. More room to become exceptional at something.

And a business that's much easier for somebody else to understand.

Purpose doesn't make the commercial decisions for you

You might know that your purpose is to help women become more financially independent.

Or make workplaces more humane.

Or help children become more confident.

Or make professional expertise accessible to ordinary people.

That's important.

But it still leaves some fairly substantial questions unanswered.

Who specifically are you going to help?
What problem are you going to become known for solving?
Which part of your experience has the greatest value?
What are you going to sell?
What are you going to stop selling?
How should it be priced?
What do you want people to come to you for three years from now?

And perhaps the biggest one:

Does the business you've built actually support the life and work you want next?

These aren't branding questions in the superficial sense. They're business decisions.

Your positioning comes afterwards. It gives those decisions a clear shape in the market.

This is why I don't start with the website

Six years ago, the conversation with my client would probably have been about what pages needed changing.

Now I know better.

There's no point improving a website whose job is to sell a business its owner is trying to leave behind.

Before we change the website, messaging, visual identity or marketing, we need to know what we're asking them to communicate.

That's why I work from the business outwards.

What are you building?
Who is it for?
Where is the greatest value?
What deserves to lead?
What are you ready to leave behind?
What do you want to be known for?

Only then do we decide how the business needs to show up.

Maybe you don't need to find your purpose

Perhaps you already know it. Maybe the uncomfortable feeling isn't because you've lost your way. It might be because you've outgrown some of the decisions you made when you started.

And the next phase isn't about throwing away everything you've built. It's about using everything you've learned to make better choices about what comes next.

So here's the question I'd start with:

If you weren't obliged to keep running the business you've already built, what would you choose to build now?

Your answer may not require an entirely new business. But it might require a much clearer one.