Stop Hiding Behind Tiffany!
Are you taking yourself out of your business?
A few years ago I worked with Melissa (not her real name to protect Tiffany’s identity) who ran a tight, scrappy, one-woman operation. No staff. No contractors. Just her, her laptop, and a whole lot of elbow grease.
But she had a ghost on her team. Contest entries? Contact Tiffany.
Questions about prizes? Email Tiffany.
The problem?
Tiffany doesn’t exist.
My client invented her because she thought her business would look bigger, more legitimate as a business owner with a team. And, in a way, it did look better. But here’s what I kept thinking about: all those people who emailed Tiffany? They never got to connect with the actual human being who was brilliant, dedicated, and genuinely excited to hear from them. Melissa was outsourcing her best moments to a ghost.
Maybe not Tiffany… but who are you hiding behind?
Maybe we don’t go so far as hiring an imaginary friend as our VA. Sometimes it’s just about your consulting practice something that sounds like a firm - five syllables, maybe a geographic noun, definitely a sans-serif logo. Or writing “we” on your website when you mean “I.” Or even making the site and the marketing all about the methodology or framework or tech… but not about YOU.
I’m not throwing stones here because to some extent I’m guilty of this too. My own brand, SoloBizHacker, has a real team - Jasper, Christa, and me. And we still don’t talk about ourselves (individually) enough. The humans behind the work are largely invisible. Jasper and Christa are amazing people who you don’t hear from nearly enough.
Why are we hiding?
Two reasons, and they’re related.
The first is classic impostor syndrome. If I say *I* do this work, then *I* have to own whether it works. An “agency” feels like a buffer. A brand name creates some distance between the results and my ego.
The second is more specific: sometimes we don’t feel senior enough - or just “enough” in general to be the person a potential client would want to hire directly. I’ve seen this play out with really accomplished consultants who have decades of specialized expertise. They bury themselves under institutional language because they’re not sure the right people would take them seriously if they just... showed up as themselves.
Both of these are understandable. Neither of them actually solves the problem.
Here’s the question you should be asking…
What is your client actually asking you to do for them?
And when they hire you is it because of the resources of an agency? Or is it because of your talent, your judgment, your specific and hard-won way of seeing things?
For some offers, the “agency of one” framing makes total sense. If you have a productized service - a defined deliverable, a set price, a repeatable process - then sure, the product can carry the weight. The client is buying the product.
But if you’re doing consulting, fractional work, coaching -anything where the client is fundamentally buying access to *how you think* then the agency frame doesn’t protect you. It just confuses people.
Because at the end of the day, they’re hiring *you*. Not your logo. Not your “team.” Not your brand name. You.
So here’s the practical part.
You 100% don’t have to name your business after yourself. That’s not the problem. The problem is when the name becomes something to hide behind.
Go look at your website right now. Are *you* in there? Your face, your name, your actual story, your specific credentials, the thing you’ve done or lived through or figured out that makes you the right person for this work?
If not, get back in there.
You don’t need Tiffany. Your clients deserve you.
What’s one way you’ve hidden yourself in your own marketing? Hit reply - I genuinely want to know.