We caught up with the brilliant and insightful N. Chloé Nwangwu a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, N. Chloé thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

“What got you here, won’t get you there.” Literally EVERY everyone in my corner of the online business world says this. And it’s *frustrating*

It’s also true (and I admit this with great bitterness haha).

I’m the sort of person who’s first, second and third response is to grind. I’m smart, and I’ve almost always been able to solve a puzzle if I really put my mind to it.

So I thought, “Oh cool, let’s just do what you’re doing now but more and maybe with some assistance from a VA.”

That approach almost killed me.

And I mean that quite literally, According to my primary care physician, I was so anemic, I wouldn’t have lived another two weeks.

That was my wake up call.

You see, doing the same thing–just more–means constant grinding once you get up to a certain size. And constant grinding means, ignoring how exhausted you’ve been getting (I mean that’s what happens when you grind after all, right? You get tired) and putting off that casual seeming request to get some bloodwork done from your doctor.

If you are a woman, a person of color or both (likely any historically underestimated person), breaking six figures and beyond is exceedingly rare. I think the percentage is something absurdly small like 12% of women owned businesses make six figures and up). There’s a reason for that.

(Well many reasons)

It’s largely systemic. And that means for more than any other group of people, doing more of the same is a recipe for disaster.

Instead, I needed to change.

First thing I did was reassess my offerings. Anything that didn’t lean into my zone of genius (if you don’t know what yours is, I definitely suggest doing something like a Gallup test) was edited.

Next, I got more intentional with the kind of support I accepted. At this point, you need implementers. Folks who you can give a goal and leave to handle the how of achieving it. I couldn’t afford to hire a full time employee, so I hired a part time operations team and worked with them to assess where they could take over client delivery and marketing + demand gen goals.

I surrounded myself with and sought the council of folks who were making the same kinds of moves I was–or had.

Finally, I tracked, *everything* It’s really the only way to know what’s working. And you’ll find that some of ‘what works’ will actually surprise you.

I’m not going to pretend that this was easy, or straightforward or that I didn’t have nights when I was literally in anguish, ready to throw in the towel.

For a long time, it felt like nothing I did was working or would work.

But this was a puzzle.

The most important thing was to give myself the time to solve it.

That’s why the first thing was reassessing my offers. Editing them *gave* me that time.

Measuring everything also kept me grounded–whenever my feelings overwhelmed me. I could always point to the data when I didn’t trust my instincts (which by the way, try to trust your instincts as much as possible. Even if they “lead you astray” all that really means it that they led you to a lesson you needed learn to grow)

I’m also pretty lucky that consulting brands on how to get noticed is LITERALLY my job. Because I got to apply some of the science + magic I use with my clients to myself.

N. Chloé, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Oh yeah! Hey, I’m N. Chloé, the director of NobiWorks, a brand visibility consultancy for underrecognized social impact brands. My peers call me “the Brand Scientist.” I see my job as making these brands impossible to ignore so their particular brands of change are well resourced, get more love on bigger stages and get more respect and influence in the rooms that matter.

The story of how I got into science backed brand consulting is pretty interesting actually! I’m an international mediator–that’s what I went to grad school for. What that means is I’ve been trained to facilitate peace negotiations between warring nations or factions (yup, social psychology in super high stakes situations). I got into this work because I LOVED it’s potential for leveling the playing field. At the table it was my job to even out the power dynamics, to keep them equitable so that everyone was heard. It was when I was brought in to support a group consulting on a civil war in the middle east that I realized a huge problem:

There were folks who were being excluded from the table–who couldn’t even get into the room. Folks who really *should* have been there if the peace settlements were going to be equitable and sustainable.

I realized that the only folks who got into those rooms were groups those rooms couldn’t afford to ignore. And that rarely included everyone who should have been there. So I decided I would help make those overlooked folks impossible to ignore.

And the lever I found I had the perfect skillset to push on was brands.

I had the philosophy, psychology and tech background. I had the design and strategy background. I had the equity background.

And once I realized I’d been trained to facilitate really tricky negotiations between brands (that’s right. Countries have brands. Just about everything does) the rest wrote itself.

My approach leverages a science backed and equity informed diagnostic tool I developed called an Impact Dial™, that allows me to evaluate brands across 3 key indicators of a brand’s visibility impact and then to develop a personalized blueprint for navigating something called the Invisibility Tax, which as you guessed disproportionately affects the brands I work with.

That playbook can involve anything from how to articulate what they do in a way that’s attractive to or clicks with all the folks they need and want in their corner to integrating the science of social change into their decisions around how they show up (and anything in between).

I have been privileged in my clients. I’ve worked with small, black family owned mom and pop shops and I’ve worked with delegations to the UN.

Many of those clients have gone on to be better seen, heard, respected and resourced. That’s looked like celebrity endorsements, seats at previously inaccessible tables and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

As a brand expert, it’s really easy to stick to what people know. When they hear brands or branding, they hear logos and websites. For a while, I did all of that intensely execution heavy work. And I was excellent at it.

But then I almost died trying to scale that as a business model. And I had to rethink things.

So I pivoted. Anything remotely execution heavy I removed from my offerings.

And this was terrifying because I was basically creating a new business with a new model and tighter positioning. It meant a lot of research and awkward fumbling through how to describe what I was doing now and updating my contacts and former clients.

It’s probably not a change I would have made if I’d had a choice.

But my health demanded it.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Referrals actually! As a consultant, I’m running a relationship based business–not a traffic based one. So that means referrals from industry colleagues and former clients are a great source of clients. Don’t knock them! Lean into them and systematize your process for getting them. Make sure you’re meeting new people often, getting to know them and offering support where you can and genuinely want to. You can start with me!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.nobiworks.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/nobiworks
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/nwangwu
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ncnwangwu