The Coffee Date Q&A series started life on my blog a number of years ago, it was an idea that was born from real life coffee date conversations I had (and still love to have) with business owners – we’d meet up for a coffee and whilst talking about our work, conversation would turn to showing up online, social media for business or creating content, where they find inspiration …
I always leave a coffee date pretty energised and with fresh ideas and I wanted the Coffee Date series to be an extension of that. How can we bring some of this conversation into the world? How can I encourage collaboration and conversation, how can I inspire more business owners and how can I support them with their social media for business?
I’ve been talking about bringing back the blog series for about a year and a half now… so, here we are, the coffee date Q&A is back and running as an Instagram Live!
This one’s with Nicola Davidson from The Success Formula – business strategist, brainstormer, and hype human for women in business. We’ve worked together in various ways over the years (I’ve been her client, she’s been mine, we’ve collaborated and I’ve spoken at her events) and I already think she’s a legend. I also know that there is some real value to how she works with business owners helping them craft a business that is wholly “them” and how that work can really support someone in showing up online and using social media for business.
So, ladies and gentlemen, grab and coffee and enjoy this Q&A*.
*P.S this blog has been generated via Otter AI and repurposed from the original Instagram Live Q&A. I used the transcript from the full interview (generated from our conversation during the Interview) and then created a summary Q&A for this blog. Helping you get more out of your content, whilst maintaining authenticity and human-ness is a key part of my work. You can listen to the full unedited conversation on my Instagram.
Nic, tell us about your business and the work you do.
Nicola: I’m Nic, and I run The Success Formula. I usually describe myself as a business strategist, brainstormer, and hype human for established female founders. What that really means is: I help women who’ve already got a business stop editing themselves out of it.
I’m on a bit of a mission to change how we experience building businesses. It so often feels stressful, heavy, and full of “shoulds”. I’m like, this could actually be an incredible journey… if we built it around who we are now, not who we were five years ago, or who Instagram says we should be.
My work used to be very strategy and structure focused (and that’s still there), but I’ve noticed this sort of “you shaped-hole” in our businesses – a mismatch between how we’re told to build and how we actually want to live and work.
Why does being you in your business and on social even matter?
Suz: So many people come to me struggling with social or content, and when we dig into it, they’re basically trying to take out everything that makes them them. They want templates, they want everything batched and scheduled for months, they’re trying to sand down all the edges. And it just kills the spark.
Why does being you – in your values, in your business, and on social – actually matter?
Nicola: For your business to really work for you, you need to know who you are right now and what you actually want next. Not what you used to want. Not what the latest course told you to want. You now. The problem is, there’s so much noise online: “you should do this”, “you should be here”, “here’s how to hit 10k months” … it’s constant and it pulls you away from your own voice.
A big part of my job is stripping all that out and getting women really clear on themselves again:
- What do you actually care about?
- What kind of business do you actually want to run?
- How do you actually want to work and live?
Once that’s clear, everything gets easier – content, offers, how you show up. Because you’re not play-acting a version of yourself you think will sell better.
Suz: And it is wild how many of us are actively trying to not be ourselves in the business we created. No wonder it feels hard.
What happens when we tone ourselves down?
Suz: We all do this thing where we tone ourselves right down to look “professional” or “sensible”. What’s the cost of doing that, in your experience?
Nicola: Honestly? It’s exhausting. I came out of oil and gas, so I had all these stories about what “professional” had to look like. I thought I had to be super polished, super corporate, never say the wrong thing. But the truth is, I’m a bit messy, I swear a lot, I love a bit of self-deprecating humour, I can be really warm one minute and very direct the next …and when I finally stopped fighting that and just owned it, things got easier.
People either go, “Yes, she’s my person,” or “Nope, not for me.” And that’s great. That’s the point. When we smooth all of that out because we’re trying to be acceptable to everyone, we end up very beige. There are already hundreds of beige businesses out there. You just disappear into the mix.
Suz: And the funny thing is, when you tone it all down, it doesn’t just affect your business and marketing, it leaks into everything – you second-guess your offers, you overthink the client work, you stay up at night wondering what people think … it all starts with that one decision: “I’m not going to show up as me.”
How do you approach your social media and content?
Suz: We can talk about this in theory all day, but it doesn’t magically make posting feel easy. So how do you actually approach your content and social day-to-day?
Nicola: So at the start, I tried to do what I thought I “should” do. I tried to learn everything, tick every best-practice box, script and schedule all my content months in advance, batch like a machine… and it just turned content into this pressure-driven chore. It felt like homework and the rebel in me just went, “no thanks,” and didn’t show up at all.
Now it looks much more like this: I still like a bit of strategy. I like knowing what I’m trying to achieve, who I’m talking to, and roughly what I’d like content to lead to. But beyond that, I let myself ask, “What do I actually feel like sharing today?”. I treat it as, “I’m taking my community with me,” rather than “I must feed the algorithm.” I’ve also made the process fun for myself; I genuinely enjoy playing around in Canva, trying out ideas, throwing things out there and seeing how they land.
And to give you credit – one of the biggest things you’ve taught me is to play with it. If something doesn’t land, I don’t make it mean anything. I’ll just try a different angle next time.
Is it actually easier to “wing it” when your strategy is solid?
Suz: Listening to you, what stands out is: you’re not really winging it. You’ve done a lot of work on your business, your target audience and your messaging. So is it actually easier to be “rebellious” with your content because your strategy is in place?
Nicola: Yeah, 100%. You can only really get rebellious if you’ve done the thinking first. If you’re clear on:
- what you want to be known for
- who you want to help
- what you actually want from your business
- and you’ve got a sense of a few key themes or pillars you’re always circling back to, then you’ve got something to rebel from
It actually feels easier, because you’re not starting from a blank page every time. You’re just asking: “How do I want to say this today?”
Suz: Yes. That’s exactly it. When you’re clear on your strategy and target audience, you don’t need to sit and monitor every single post. You’re building an ecosystem, not gambling your entire business on one reel.
This isn’t just a “women in business online” thing, is it?
Suz: Worth saying that this doesn’t only apply to solo service businesses.This is just as relevant in a team or in a more corporate environment.
Nicola: Yeah, totally. If you’re a big organisation, a team, or a solo, the basics are the same stuff that we are talking about here:
- Know who you are as a business
- Know what you stand for
- Know who you’re talking to
- Be clear on the threads of your message
Where I see bigger organisations go wrong is they treat things like vision, values, and messaging as a form-filling exercise. They write it all once, stick it on a wall or in a slide deck and then forget about it. Or they just hand it over to the admin team to “deal with”. But that’s the work that actually shapes your brand awareness, authority, and positioning. It’s the bit that decides who leans in when they see you online.
Suz: Exactly. The only real difference between us and a Nike or a Pepsi is budget and implementation. The core work – the strategy and the audience – is the same process.
Tell us about your Mid Year Event and the Wild Hour.
Suz: You’ve taken all this – strategy, being yourself, a bit of rebellion – and baked it into your Mid Year Event. Tell us about that, especially the Wild Hour, because I love this.
Nicola: So the Mid Year Event has been running now for about four years. Originally, it was a really lovely lunch where women could take a breath mid-year, celebrate what they’d already done and refocus on what’s next. Over time it’s grown into bigger venues, more women, more collaborations, more ideas coming out of the room. We’ve had speakers (including you Suz), and it’s become this really powerful “reset day”.
This year I just kept seeing how much women still shrink themselves. Even on a day that’s meant to celebrate them, so I wanted to turn the dial up a bit … we still do the reflection and the strategy and all the good stuff. But then I’ve introduced a Wild Hour, a proper “let your hair down, feel totally free” part of the day.
Because yes, we do the work. But we also get to play, to shake off all the tension and remember what it feels like to be a bit wild and unapologetic. And honestly, I’ve gone bigger with the whole event this year. Bigger vision, bigger energy. I want as many women in that room as I can get!
Suz: I love it because it’s such a perfect example of you doing exactly what we’re talking about, taking something that already worked and injecting more you into it.
What’s it been like working together on the event?
Nicola: One thing you haven’t said is that you’ve been supporting me with this event behind the scenes with marketing and social media. My usual pattern was: launch the event, post once, then basically hide under a rock and hope for the best.
Having you there to help build a plan, remind me what we’re doing and why and give me permission to do it my way has made a huge difference. It’s still me. It still feels rebellious and a bit wild. But there’s also actually a structure behind it now, so I’m not just winging it and then hoping.
If anyone’s reading this and has an event they’re quietly ignoring because they don’t want to promote it… genuinely, get Suz involved.
One last thing from me, before your coffee gets cold.
If you’re reading this and thinking, “yeah …. I’ve absolutely edited myself out of my business,” you’re not alone. We all do it. Especially when we’re tired or overwhelmed or doomscrolling. The point isn’t to suddenly become anything that doesn’t feel like you. The point is to get comfortable with who you are now, understand the business you want and how to build it, know your target audience and build your strategy and plan around that.
And then let yourself show up as that person, not the beige version, that’s where the good content lives. That’s where the right clients find you. And that’s where your business stops feeling like a performance, and starts feeling like something you actually want to be inside of.
You can find out more about Nicola’s Mid Year Event and get your ticket here and you can contact me directly for support with your social media campaign for your next event. See you on Instagram for the next Coffee Date Q&A Live #BirdandEmmy
