What To Do When You Don't Know What To Do

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The uncomfortable space between where you are and where you want to be

Most entrepreneurs eventually find themselves in a strange place. They know they want something different, but they cannot yet see the route that will get them there.

That uncertainty can be deeply frustrating. We are taught that successful people have plans, strategies and crystal-clear goals. We imagine that everyone else knows exactly what they are doing while we alone are making it up as we go along.

The reality is rather different.

At various points in my own career, I have stood on the edge of enormous change. I found myself there again recently. After years of building businesses, writing books and embracing new technology, I realised I was entering another transition period.

For a while, I became fascinated by artificial intelligence. Like many people, I could immediately see how useful it might be. It could help with research, planning and brainstorming. It could save time and help organise my thinking.

What I discovered, though, was that while I wanted AI to support my work, I did not want it doing the work for me.

I did not want a machine writing my articles or creating my videos. I wanted to remain connected to my own ideas and my own voice.

And so I found myself asking a familiar question:

What do you do when you know where you want to end up, but you have no idea how to get there? The truth: you don’t know what you don’t know

When people start businesses, they often spend months looking for the perfect marketing strategy. They buy courses, follow gurus and search for someone who can tell them exactly what will work.

The trouble is that nobody can.

You simply do not know what you do not know.

There is no universal marketing formula. The strategy that transforms one business may completely fail in another. Even two companies selling almost identical products can thrive using completely different approaches.

Why? Because businesses are built by people.

The personality of the owner matters. Their strengths matter. Their interests matter. Their willingness to stick with something matters.

One café owner may love Instagram. Another may hate social media but thrive at local networking events. One coach may enjoy public speaking. Another may prefer writing.

The methods that work are usually the methods you enjoy enough to continue doing.

That is particularly important in the early days because success almost always requires consistency. If you hate your marketing, you will stop doing it the moment life becomes busy or difficult.

Finding the right marketing strategy is not simply about finding customers. It is about finding the overlap between your customers, your business and your personality.

My own transition

Part of the reason this subject has been on my mind is that I am going through a period of reinvention myself.

For years, I built my business around mentoring, group programmes, masterminds and courses. Much of that worked brilliantly, but life changes.

Illness has a way of forcing clarity.

Towards the end of last year, I became extremely unwell. Eventually, after months of uncertainty, I discovered the cause and began treatment. Thankfully, the treatment has been working, but the experience made me question everything.

What sort of life do I actually want?

What sort of work gives me energy?

What am I no longer prepared to tolerate?

One answer became obvious very quickly: freedom matters enormously to me.

I realised that I no longer wanted a diary packed with appointments months in advance. I no longer wanted rigid schedules. I wanted flexibility, spontaneity and room to breathe.

That forced me to rethink my business model.

I had to ask whether I still wanted group coaching. I had to ask whether I wanted clients at all. I had to ask how I could continue doing meaningful work without recreating the sort of life I no longer wanted.

The answers are still emerging, but asking the questions has been incredibly valuable. Start from the beginning or begin with the end in mind

There are really only two ways to build a business.

The first is to begin at the beginning.

That is how I started back in the late 1990s. At the time, I was training as a life coach, although I already knew I was more interested in business and money. I did not have a grand plan. I certainly did not know where the internet would eventually take me.

So I started writing.

Every week, I sent out a newsletter. At first, it simply carried my name. Later, when I bought a hotel, it evolved into Diary of a Seaside Landlady.

I documented what I was learning about money, property, investing, business and the internet. I did not know what opportunities would emerge. I simply kept showing up and sharing the journey.

The second approach is to begin with the end in mind.

Ask yourself:

Who do you actually want to work with?

What kind of lifestyle are you trying to create?

What would your ideal customers be reading, watching and listening to?

Where do they spend their time?

Who influences them?

The answers to those questions shape your marketing far more effectively than copying somebody else’s strategy ever will.

Document the journey

One of the most powerful things any entrepreneur can do is document the journey. People connect with honesty. They are interested in process, not just polished success stories.

For weeks, I had been trying to persuade myself to sit down and record videos. I could not make myself do it. Yet the moment I decided to go live instead, everything changed.

I realised that I enjoy the slight danger of live broadcasting. I enjoy the fact that things can go wrong. I enjoy speaking spontaneously.

That insight mattered because the best content strategy is rarely the one that looks most impressive on paper. It is the one you will actually sustain.

If you enjoy writing, write.

If you enjoy speaking, speak.

If you enjoy conversations, start a podcast.

If you enjoy photography, document what happens behind the scenes in your business. The format matters far less than the consistency.

Why content is non-negotiable

Many business owners still believe content marketing is optional.

They tell themselves that social media is only for influencers or that their industry is too boring to create interesting material.

I do not believe that for a second.

Without content, you are effectively invisible.

Whether you run a café, a consultancy, a beauty salon or a local taverna, people need reasons to remember you.

I have watched this happen in Greece. Ten years ago, many of the tavernas I love had no idea how to promote themselves online. They had special evenings, musicians and wonderful food, yet nobody outside the village knew what was happening.

Slowly, that has changed.

The businesses embracing social media are thriving because they are creating small moments of connection with their customers.

The same is true in Shoreham. Some restaurants are brilliant at social media. They post photographs of new dishes, announce events and celebrate the dogs who visit during the day.

Those posts are not random. They are building relationships.

Meanwhile, businesses that remain silent are leaving space for their competitors to take the attention.

There is always content to create

One objection comes up repeatedly.

‘My business is different.’

It never is.

I once knew a pest-control expert in Alabama who became locally famous because his friend filmed him doing his work. He crawled under houses, investigated infestations and explained how he solved problems.

On paper, pest control does not sound particularly glamorous.

Yet those videos transformed his business. Eventually, he became known not only as the best pest-control specialist in the area, but also as someone who understood how to market expertise.

Every business contains stories.

Every business solves problems.

Every business has lessons, customers, mistakes, surprises and insights.

The challenge is not finding content. The challenge is paying attention to what already exists. The channels that have worked for me

When I look back over nearly three decades online, certain patterns emerge. Newsletters have worked.

Books have worked.

Speaking engagements have worked.

Podcasts have worked.

Partnerships and joint ventures have worked.

Networking has worked.

None of that means those same approaches will work for everyone, but it does prove an important point: you should start with your natural strengths.

I love writing.

I love speaking.

I love conversations.

I enjoy live video.

I enjoy discussing entrepreneurship, wealth creation, investing, hospitality, marketing and all the unusual twists my career has taken.

The more closely your marketing aligns with your personality, the more sustainable it becomes. The Venn diagram that changed everything

For years, I kept a simple Venn diagram on my desktop.

It contained three circles:

What do I love doing?

What do people want?

What will people pay for?

The sweet spot sits in the middle.

Many entrepreneurs build businesses around only one or two of those elements. Some pursue passion but ignore the market. Others chase money while slowly growing to hate their work.

A real business needs all three.

You must enjoy it.

People must want it.

And they must be willing to pay for it.

Whenever I feel confused, I come back to that diagram and ask myself where the overlap lies.

Test your assumptions

Entrepreneurs are often emotionally attached to their own ideas.

The market, unfortunately, does not care about our feelings.

Recently, while promoting my book A Better Entrepreneur, I experimented with different advertisements and book covers. Artificial intelligence suggested that one design would perform better than another.

Rather than trusting the advice blindly, I tested it.

I ran different advertisements and compared the results.

That is one of the great advantages of advertising. It is not simply about making sales. It is about gathering information.

Advertising tells you whether people care.

It tells you whether your message is landing.

It tells you whether there is enough interest to build a business around an idea. The best entrepreneurs learn to treat feedback as data rather than judgement.

The only question that really matters

Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I ask myself a very simple question:

What is the one thing I could do today to move my business forward?

Sometimes there are three answers.

Sometimes there is only one.

That is enough.

We often assume progress requires giant leaps, elaborate plans and perfect clarity. In reality, progress usually comes from small actions repeated consistently over time.

Write the article.

Send the newsletter.

Make the phone call.

Record the video.

Start the conversation.

Most people delay because they want certainty. They want proof that their next move will work. But entrepreneurship has never offered certainty.

It offers possibility.

The people who succeed are not necessarily the ones with the best plans. More often, they are the people willing to keep moving before they can see the entire road ahead.

If you do not know what to do next, perhaps the answer is simply this:

Do the next useful thing.

Then do another.

And trust that the path will reveal itself as you walk it.