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Rooted & Relentless is the podcast for big-dreaming, soul-led entrepreneurs building businesses—and lives—on their own terms.
Hosted by Biz Growth Strategist & Operational Powerhouse Steph Rubio, this show blends unfiltered business strategy with personal growth stories, mindset shifts, a touch of randomness, and plenty of humor to keep you laughing. Everything is on the table. It’s raw, real, and relentlessly honest.
New episodes drop weekly(ish). Bring your notebook & an open mind. This is where strategy meets soul, & scaling doesn’t mean selling yours.
Hang with Steph:
Boost Your Biz Strategy Sesh: https://www.stephrubio.com/small-business-consulting
Find Out Where You're Blocked w/ The Biz Blocker Quiz: https://www.tryinteract.com/share/quiz/6810432a8fa23ab768307116
Follow (& DM me - really, I love DM chats) on IG: https://www.instagram.com/virtually_stephrubio
Listen. You have to be careful in your business when you're working on your positioning and messaging and who you are, what you do, and how you help that you don't try so hard to differentiate yourself that you differentiate yourself right off the map, and you just fall off completely. Here's what I mean by that, and I'll give you a real personal example because like I said, I'm keeping it real and raw around here. Hey. I'm Steph Rubio, your go to for no nonsense chitchat on growing a business and life that you actually love.
Steph Rubio:Around here, we're rooted in who we are, even if we're still learning to love her, getting clear on where we wanna go, and we're relentless in our pursuit to get there. We're clawing our way out of survival mode and learning to bet on ourselves. We get into the nitty gritty of growth in life and in business, money, identity, boundaries, healing, leadership, parenting, partners, and all the messy bits in between. If you're ready to grow on your own terms, laugh a lot, possibly cry a little, maybe laugh until we cry if we're lucky, then hit subscribe and let's get into it. This is Rooted and Relentless.
Steph Rubio:Grab your notepad and hold on to your tits. This one's for you. Not only do I help other people dig through this or avoid this or fix it when they do it, I did it myself. We're all human here, and especially if you're a solopreneur and you're wearing most, if not all of the hats yourself, like it's natural. You do have to differentiate yourself in the market somehow.
Steph Rubio:Right? Like, that's how you get people to buy from you instead of a competitor. And And I don't say competitor and like you're a mean girl in your competition, but if you're a business coach and there's another business coach and you guys do similar things, like, you're in competition. That's just reality. And that's part of marketing, right, is figuring out how you differentiate yourself from others.
Steph Rubio:But you can't do that so far that it actually becomes more muddy instead of more clear. Clarity is key. You have to start from a place of clarity in nearly everything that you do. If not, how do you know that what you're doing matches the why and will actually get you there? You don't, unless you're very clear on what you're doing and why.
Steph Rubio:So when I went from offering operational services moving into coaching and consulting, I got really called up in folks who were in my space online who came up as VAs and OBMs and folks in that virtual service provider space who also had started doing some coaching and such. I got so called up in being different than them because I am, and I needed to capture that. And business coach just doesn't cover it because a lot of times when you see business coach in our space and especially what I'm describing, someone did something once and a lot of times they learned it from another person and maybe they iterated on it and it worked well for them and then they teach that. And that's okay if it works for the demographic, but I was terrified of being lumped into that. What I bring to the table is so much more, so much more depth, more business knowledge.
Steph Rubio:I don't know how to do one or two things really well. I understand all functions of a business. That got really muddy when really what I was trying to do was get clear and differentiate myself. You truly have to be careful that you don't go so far off the rails trying to be different that it actually gets confusing of what you do. I work with online business managers frequently.
Steph Rubio:And when they realize like, oh shoot, I'll offer a lot more like strategy components and operations than just a VA does. And here's the name convention I'm thinking about. And they give me something like business guru game changer. Nobody's gonna know what the hell that is. Nobody's gonna know what that is.
Steph Rubio:You can't do it. You can't go so far left field that you lack clarity. You're gonna miss people because of that. And it needs to be ultra clear today more than ever. We're all moving so fast.
Steph Rubio:You got like point two five six seven eight three four seconds to capture us before we're scrolling on to the next person. You need to make it ultra, ultra, ultra clear right from the beginnings. It's okay if you want to be different than other people, and it's okay to recognize that you might bring more to the table than those folks that you're being lumped in who do something similar as you but quite different. That's your differentiator, but it can be in your messaging and your positioning and how you show up and the social proof that you do and the type of people you support. But if you get more muddy, people aren't gonna understand what you do.
Steph Rubio:That's exactly what I did last year. I tried so hard that I developed three or four offers to help three or four people, and I had to explain away what I did. And so my elevator pitch was a page long, which, by the way, I'm okay with. I talk a lot. Hello.
Steph Rubio:I'm on a podcast. The point is that you need to be clear. You need to be honest with yourself about who you serve, why you serve them, how you will serve them, where you will go. Do that first. Stop thinking about other people.
Steph Rubio:Do all of that first. And when you're extra clear, you can do some competitor analysis and you can look at what's happening in the market and you can refine that component a little bit. But at the end of the day, clarity is going to be your best friend. Be honest with yourself. If you need support with something like this, lean into your support groups.
Steph Rubio:Ask other people in business. Hit me on the Instagram DMs and let me know. I'm happy to chat through this kind of stuff. Like, where are you getting stuck and distracted when you're trying to differentiate yourself and feel like you're missing that component? It really will make or break the quality of leads coming to you, how you show up and talk about them.
Steph Rubio:If you find that you're having to overexplain because they're not getting it, that's a sign for you that you need to dig in and pay attention. And coming up with cool new names and frameworks and things like that, it's all well and good, but you're recreating a will that already exists, and you need to actually use stuff that people resonate with and understand, that initial pull in. When they're pulled in because they're clear on on your what and those kind of components, then you can give all the extra information and have those really deep relational conversations. But if you're not clear to start with, they're not gonna be clear, and you might not even get the chance to speak with them. Cool?
Steph Rubio:Cool. Okay. Bye. Well, that's a wrap on this episode of Rooted and Relentless. If it made you laugh, nod along, or grab that cute little notebook of yours and scribble something down, please hit me with the SSR.
Steph Rubio:Subscribe, share, and review, as in leave a review. Don't forget to tag me on Instagram at virtually underscore Steph Rubio and tell me what you're reading this week. Seriously, a live for a good book moment. Thanks for hanging. Bye.