Author: Out The Box Presents

Let me paint you a picture. One that probably looks familiar, even if you can’t place the artist.

You start your working life from the bottom, learning as you go. The doing gets easier, and the underlying principles start to take shape. Bigger picture thinking follows and, with it, critical judgment. Somewhere along the way, all of that compounds into something worth calling a skill set.

All that effort to turn someone else’s dream into reality. So, you decide to start something for yourself. Call it what you want, a small business, a new project, a career pivot, but it’s something just for you.

No sweat. You’ve got this. Your skills are totally transferable, right?

My particular brand of overconfidence

My background is medical communications, or MedComms for those in the know. And yes, I can already hear you: “med-what now?”

Fair response. It’s a niche world. Consider us the alchemists of the healthcare world, sitting at the intersection of science, storytelling, and strategy. We know the clinical landscape inside out, understand who we’re talking to, and have mastered the art of persuasion. Put them together and we transform complex ideas into meaning for the people who need to hear it.

So, when I started Out The Box Presents I was quietly confident that these transferable skills would see me though. Especially when it came to marketing. But, what followed was a fairly thorough dismantling of my perceived value.

The gap between knowing and doing

Now, I’m not saying all those transferable skills you’ve been banking have been a waste of time. Let’s not get too dramatic! Those abilities don’t mysteriously evaporate the moment you step outside your professional context. 

But, having a skill and being capable of deploying it in an unfamiliar environment shouldn’t be taken for granted. I understood how to communicate in a world where the audience and the rules of engagement were already defined. For my new business, these rules were mine to define. 

Instinct pushed me to reach for what I knew. And that’s exactly where the trouble started. Here are three moments where the wheels came off: 

Leading with the brand and not the customer 

My professional instinct was to build a compelling narrative around what we do and why it matters. In MedComms, or in any B2B context, that’s often the right move. Decision-makers want to understand the rationale. 

News to me, consumer audiences don’t work that way. Your brand story isn’t their primary search driver; they want solutions to their problems. I had built a beautifully coherent brand narrative that nobody was looking for. 

Knowing the theory but missing the application 

I knew search engine optimisation, or SEO, was important. So I did the research, followed the guidance, identified relevant keywords, and applied them diligently.

A beautiful philosophy that is completely ineffective in real life because everyone else was doing exactly the same thing. In my case, it was less about following best practice and more about finding the gap nobody else had spotted. Which, in a saturated market is a pretty mean feat.

Replacing context with shortcuts 

I needed direct customer insights to find my gap in the market. So, with my zero budget, I turned to AI tools to help. It all started well and search patterns began to surface. But, what was missing was the ability to contexualise those behaviours to my brand and my customers. That judgment, the thing I’d spent years developing professionally, wasn’t transferable through a shortcut. It needed to be rebuilt from scratch — I’m still figuring out the best way forward with this one. 

Feeling like a beginner again 

Professional confidence is a skill in its own right and it gives you the nerve to follow your instincts. But, in new territory it has a habit of filling in the blanks before you’ve checked what’s actually there. 

Keep asking the obvious questions. Be honest about what you don’t know. And don’t be afraid to try something that looks nothing like what got you here.  

Before you leap 

If you’re making a significant professional transition, learn from my mistakes and ask yourself: 

Have I questioned the things I didn’t think to question?

Transferable skills are built on assumptions about how things work, what good looks like, what the obvious move is. Those assumptions were formed in a specific context. In a new one, they might not hold. And that’s where the danger lies: in the things you were so confident in that you never thought to check. 

Do I understand this in theory, or do I know how to make it work in practice? 

There’s a gap between grasping a particular strategy and knowing how to implement it. Be honest about which side of that gap you’re on. 

Am I filling knowledge gaps with shortcuts, or with genuine learning?

Shortcuts have their place. But, they can create a false sense of security. Misplaced confidence is exactly what stops you from asking the question that would have actually helped.