Kirsty Franks
You know that saying about doctors being the worst patients? I think it applies to marketers too.
For years, I’ve told estate agents that if they want to stand out and grow, they need an outside perspective. Someone who can see what they can’t, challenge their thinking, and tell them the frank truth, kindly but clearly. I must have said it a hundred times… you can’t see the label from inside the jar.
And earlier this year, I realised I’d stopped taking my own advice.
Like many of the agents I work with, I’d got a bit stuck. My brand had grown quickly, but I was far too close to it. Too critical. Too busy trying desperately to get it right. I’d write my marketing content, delete it, rewrite it, overthink it. I knew what I stood for, I just couldn’t always find the words or the confidence to show it.
So I did what I tell other people to do all the time. I asked for help.
I brought in a personal brand expert. Someone with an outside lens who could help me look at myself and my business from a different angle. It wasn’t about reinvention. It was about clarity.
The process was uncomfortable at times, in a good way. I was challenged, questioned, and nudged to be braver. They spotted things I’d stopped seeing. They simplified what I’d made complicated. And they helped me reconnect the dots between who I am, what I believe, and how that comes through in my marketing.
It’s been one of the most valuable things I’ve ever done.
Since doing it, I’ve found a new level of clarity in my messaging. I know exactly what I want to say, how I want to say it, and who I’m speaking to. It’s given me confidence I didn’t realise I’d lost, both in how I show up and how I lead my agency.
It’s also had a knock-on effect I wasn’t expecting. Lead generation has spiked. I’m getting more inbound enquiries than ever before, not because I’m doing more necessarily, but because my message is sharper, smarter, and more consistent. And my team now has a crystal clear direction to execute against. We’re all rowing in the same direction.
All of that came from one simple decision, to ask for help and show up authentically, relentlessly.
The irony isn’t lost on me. This is exactly what I do for estate agents every day, help them step back, find their voice, and communicate with more purpose. But being on the other side of the process reminded me just how hard that really is when it’s your own business.
When you care deeply about what you do, you can’t always be objective. You see every flaw. You pick holes in things nobody else notices. You tweak, you overthink, and you talk yourself out of your own brilliance.
An outsider doesn’t carry that baggage. They can see your strengths clearly. They can spot the gaps, the inconsistencies, the opportunities. They can hold up a mirror and show you what others already see in you, often the bit you’ve forgotten.
And that’s the bit that changes everything.
Because when you’re clear on your story, confidence follows. Your marketing becomes simpler, more consistent, more effective. You stop trying to sound like everyone else. You start sounding like you.
So if you’re reading this and thinking, “I should be able to do this myself,” I get it. I said the same thing. But sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself and your business is to let someone else help you see it more clearly.
It’s not about losing control. It’s about gaining perspective.
And if this year has taught me anything, it’s that the most powerful shift often comes from the smallest decision to stop doing it all alone.
I guess sometimes, getting a dose of your own medicine really is the best cure.
Kirsty Franks is founder of Frank Marketing Agency.