When you're for everyone, you're for no one.
Why "I help women in transition" quietly kills a business — and the one-sentence test that fixes it.
There’s a sentence I hear constantly from accomplished women building something of their own. It goes some version of: “I help women navigate change.” “I support people in transition.” “I work with leaders who want more from their next chapter.”
Every time, I want to gently stop them and ask: which woman? Which leader? Change from what, to what?
Because here’s the uncomfortable truth about the second act: the broader you make your offer, the more invisible it becomes. When you are for everyone, you are for no one in particular - and “no one in particular” is impossible to refer, impossible to remember, and impossible to charge a premium for.
Why we do this, and why it’s specific to us
The instinct to stay broad isn’t laziness or a lack of clarity. For women like us, it comes from something almost noble. We have spent decades being useful in wildly different contexts - solving problems across functions, industries, teams, life stages. We have genuinely helped a great many people, in a great many ways. So narrowing it down feels like a betrayal of all that range. We want the door open to everyone we could possibly serve, because we’ve served so many.
“Range is a private asset. It is not an offer”
But a door open to everyone is a door no one walks through. Range is a private asset. It is not an offer.
What vagueness actually costs you
Three things, and they’re expensive. First, referrals - people can only refer you if they can finish the sentence “you should talk to her, she helps ___.” If your work lives in abstractions, even the people who like you most can’t send you clients, because they don’t know who to send. Second, pricing - “support through transition” is priced like a commodity because it sounds like one; “I help senior women leaving corporate turn fifteen years of expertise into a consulting practice that replaces their salary in year one” is priced like a transformation, because you can see the result. Third, your own energy - vague positioning means every conversation starts from scratch and every piece of writing tries to say everything. Specificity is rest.
The one-sentence test
Say this out loud, to someone who knows nothing about your field: “I help [a specific person] [achieve a specific, valuable outcome].” If they immediately understand - if they could repeat it back, or think of someone it’s for - you’ve done the work. If they nod politely and the room goes quiet, you haven’t. Not yet. The test isn’t passed when you’ve described what you do. It’s passed when you’ve named who it’s for and what they leave with, in language a stranger gets in one pass.
“But I don’t want to exclude anyone”
I know. This is the part that snags every accomplished woman, and it snagged me too. Choosing one specific person to serve feels like turning your back on all the others. It isn’t. Specificity is a doorway, not a cage. The woman whose problem you name precisely is the one who walks through the door - and once she’s in your world, you can serve her in all the ways your range allows. The specific sentence is how she finds you. It is not the limit of what you do for her once she has. You are not shrinking your gift by aiming it. You are making it possible for someone to receive it.
Your homework
Take the broadest sentence you currently use to describe your work. Cross out every abstraction - transition, change, growth, potential, transformation. Replace each with something a stranger could picture. Name the actual woman. Name the actual result. It will feel too narrow. That feeling is the work landing, not the work going wrong. And if the sentence you land on makes you slightly uncomfortable - too specific, too bold, too much like a real claim - you’re close. Hit reply and tell me the sentence you landed on, or the one you’re stuck on. I read every reply.
Until next time,
- Pia