3 Questions to Figure Out If Your Business Is Going in the Right Direction
Prefer to listen rather than read? Listen to the podcast episode covering this same topic here → The Quietly Disruptive Business Podcast
If something in your business feels off but you can’t name it, these three questions will help you see what’s really going on, and what to do next
In our last blog post we asked asked whether you’re going in the direction you actually want to go. If you sat with that question and felt even a flicker of hesitation — a quiet “I’m not sure” — then that’s your invitation to dig a little deeper. What I’ve got for you today are three questions designed to help you figure out what’s really going on under the surface of your business, so you have the information you need to decide what happens next.
Question One: What Part of My Business Doesn’t Feel Like Me?
This is the question that reveals the gap between how your business looks and how it feels. Something might be working on paper — getting downloads, generating enquiries, ticking the right boxes — but if it doesn’t feel like you, that’s worth paying attention to.
To give you a real example: this podcast. The episodes I was putting out previously were working. They were being downloaded, the numbers were good, the topics were on point. But the format didn’t feel right for what I wanted to do. I want to inspire more founders to be themselves in business, to do things differently, and to change their corner of the world in the way they want. Doing a podcast like everybody else could achieve that to some degree — but not in the way I wanted to do it. And that’s the thing. You don’t just get to choose the destination. You get to choose how you walk towards it.
So have a look at your business. What’s functioning but doesn’t feel like yours? What’s producing results but doesn’t reflect who you actually are? That gap is information.
Question Two: What Have You Been Trying That Feels Like Friction?
Marketing is a brilliant place to start with this one, because it’s where most founders first feel the rub between what works and what feels right. You’re doing something because you’ve been told it works — or because you’ve seen it work for other people — but it feels heavy. Forced. Not quite you.
For me, it was drifting towards pain-led marketing. Understanding what’s difficult in someone’s business is important, but pushing on that pain — making people feel worse about a problem so they reach for you as the solution — that’s not how I want to do business. I found myself on the edges of it, not quite there but heading in that direction. And being able to see that meant I could change course completely — go the other way before it became the norm.
But you can only change course if you first ask the question. Where in your business does something feel like friction? What feels just a bit too hard, a bit too heavy, or a bit too far from how you’d naturally do things? That friction is telling you something. Peel back the layers and see what’s underneath.
Question Three: If You Stripped Away Everything Secondhand, What Would Be Left?
This is the one that cuts deepest. Think about all the approaches you’ve borrowed, the methods you’ve absorbed from courses and coaches and competitors, the strategies you adopted because that’s just how it’s done. If you stripped all of that away, what would actually be left? What’s genuinely, unmistakably yours?
The version of my business I’m in now is the most me it’s ever been. I use social media platforms differently to how they’re intended — I don’t do the classic post-and-hope; I reach out, I start conversations, I use Instagram as an archive rather than a feed. My offer, my marketing, even my podcast format — none of it follows the expected playbook. And that’s not accidental. It’s what was left when I stripped away the secondhand.
If your answer to this question is that most of what you’re doing comes from someone else’s template, that’s not a failure. It’s just information. And it’s your chance to look at each piece and ask: do I actually agree with this? Do I want to keep it? Because if not, you have the ability to change it.
The Answers Are Information, And Information Gives You Options
Everything these three questions surface is feedback. Valuable, honest feedback about where your business actually is versus where you want it to be. And when you can see the reality clearly, options appear — reposition, pivot, overhaul, or simply adjust. You can evolve or change direction at any time, dramatically or slowly, because that’s one of the best things about being a founder. You make the decisions.
The only thing you can’t do is change course without first understanding where you are. So take these questions for a walk. Sit with the answers. And trust that whatever you find, you have the ability to do something about it.
About the Author: Becky Benfield Humberstone partners with Quietly Disruptive founders to build businesses that change their corner of the world, on their terms. If you started your business because you believed things could be done differently, and you're ready to make that vision real, she gets it. Based in the UK and working globally via Zoom and in person, she's done this work herself, more than once.
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