Fun Business Fun Money Podcast
EP 061 – The truth about your niche
Are you sharing your awesome content and offers everywhere… but nobody is buying?
Even worse, the people you would LOVE to have as clients are sharing on social media about working with someone else who does similar work to you.
Ugh!
The good news is you may just need a few tweaks in your positioning to make it clear who you work with and what you do – and that’s a relatively easy fix.
In this coaching episode we’re doing a deep dive into your niche, expertise and what makes you easily referable.
TRANSCRIPT
Hey there, and welcome to the Fun Business Fun Money podcast!
In case you didn’t know, I’m Deirdre Amies, the FUN business and money coach and host of this podcast. It always helps to hear someone’s name so you know how to pronounce it, doesn’t it??
I love bringing you these little insights, tips, tools and tactics every week, so if you’re loving listening to them, send me a DM and tell me where you’re listening from in the world.
I’m @funbusinessfunmoney on Facebook and Instagram. You can connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a DM there, just search for Deirdre Amies and you’ll find me, or pop an email through to hello@deirdreamies.com
Today is a coaching episode and we’re going to dive a little deeper into this topic of niche, to help you identify whether you’re a generalist or a specialist, and what you can do to stand out from the online crowd so you become easily referable.
How nice would THAT be??
Some people say neesh, others say nitch, I legit don’t care as long as we all understand we’re talking about the same thing. Personally I prefer neesh because it sounds way less itchy!
What is a niche?
According to Dictionary.com its “a specialised segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service.”
Which is accurate. But still… what does that MEAN???
Theres a reason why people struggle with their niche, and a lot of it is lack of clarity.
When you first launched your business you probably did a LOT of different types of work for a lot of different kinds of people, which is a great way to start.
It gives you a good idea of what you do and don’t enjoy, who you do and don’t like working with – really important stuff!
I used to be a general life coach with a focus on happiness. I attracted mainly women as clients because thats the bulk of my audience, but some men as well. They were from all walks of life, all ages, all personalities.
I would do a happiness assessment at the start and end of our time together. For me it was a tool to see where they felt most out of alignment and what we needed to work on as a priority. It ranged from finances to relationships to knowledge to self worth and confidence.
Thats a LOT of different paths and options we could take under the broad goal of ‘happiness’. I’m not a relationship coach but thats what I ended up working on with one client!
But over time I realised I had a generalist focus in my business.
You know you’re a generalist when you’re talking about your services and it sounds like…
🤔 I help women rediscover their inner glow and feel more confident.
🤔 I help business owners streamline their operations and reduce overheads.
🤔 I help teachers look after themselves so they can look after the next generation.
That’s just 3 examples that are all a bit vague. If someone introduced themselves to me with this I’d have to ask a LOT more questions to get to the heart of who they help, what their expertise actually is and HOW it helps others.
Here’s the reality check when you’re being a generalist… Nobody is going to pay you money because you have a good idea, or you’re a nice person, or because it sounds like fun.
SOME people might, those would be your raving fans who love everything about you, but the majority of people won’t. Humans just aren’t built like that, dammit!
Humans are pretty much hard wired to think “Whats in it for me?”
So when you’re sharing your stuff on social media and nobody is buying, but then you see the very people you would LOVE to have as a client talking about how they’ve started working with someone ELSE who does similar work to you, its time to recognise you have a problem with your positioning.
You’re not being clear enough about your expertise, who you work with and what you do for or with them. You have a positioning problem.
Its as simple as that.
There are 3 things your offer needs to have:
1 – identify a problem your ideal client has
2 – a sense of urgency for them to take action and want to solve that problem right now
3 – show how you provide a return on the investment they’re making
And that’s actually what you need to convey in EVERYTHING you do – social media posts, emails, website copy, conversations with real people.
If you’re not clear on it, you can’t expect anyone else to be clear about it either.
You may as well be throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks – but its all so samey same as that pot of spaghetti, how are you going to know what the magic stickability factor is in that particular piece?? Its hard to tell.
The biggest problem with being a generalist is its very difficult to differentiate yourself from everyone else in your niche. You’re going to end up competing on your price instead of your expertise or quality of work.
This is even more so when you start to reach beyond your initial network. People that don’t really know you will want to justify your price and wonder why you’re a better option than someone else.
When you’re trying to grow and scale, having a generalist approach to your business makes everything so much harder. We want it to be easy, simple and clear. And for people to say “I want what you’ve got, shut up and take my money!”
If this is resonating with you right now, don’t stress. Theres an easy fix, but it will take a bit of mindset work to get you comfortable enough to actually do it.
That’s where your specialty comes in.
Your niche is the people or industry that you work with or do work for, your ideal clients.
Your specialty is your expertise, the work you do, the skills and knowledge you use to create the results or outcomes people pay you for.
I used to lump it all together but at the same time keep it separate, if that makes ANY sense at all!
I would focus on my niche – who are my ideal clients? Who are the people who really need and want what I offer?
And I would refine my expertise, upskilling and learning new things that can help those ideal clients even more.
But where it felt really hard was putting it all together.
🤔 HOW does your expertise help those particular people?
🤔 Are they in fact looking for what you offer?
🤔 Do they want it enough to pay for it?
These are the things we need to know!
When your message is a bit vague or you’re trying not to exclude anyone in case you offend them, you’re holding yourself back.
How often do you hear someone, or maybe even yourself, say “I can help everyone!” Or “I can do that!”
Of course you can, thats not even a question. You’re amazing, I’m amazing, we’re all amazing and we can all help everyone! Basically we can fix the world if everyone would just shut and listen for a hot minute haha!
Its natural to want to argue for the status quo on this, for all the ‘reasons’ your inner voice will come up with…
😅 You like variety, you NEED variety
😅 You don’t want to get bored doing the same kind of thing over and over
😅 Or you don’t want to get bored working with the same kind of clients
😅 Why would you want to reduce the number of people who might hire you??
😅 Shouldn’t you keep your options open?
But the reality is you CAN’T. I can’t. WE can’t help everyone with everything. We really need to let go of that and focus on doing our small part in the slightly bigger picture instead of trying to paint the entire sky and keep up with the changing colours and all the environmental factors to maintain everything.
This is where we need to hit pause and get really really REALLY clear about who we’re talking to and about what.
We can focus on a niche, a particular type of person or industry.
Your niche could be online entrepreneurs, product based businesses, the end consumer. It could be photographers, musicians, marketers, virtual assistants, bookkeepers, healers, health professionals.
The list is endless and those are just a couple off the top of my head.
We can focus on a specialty, a particular type of expertise or skill we have.
Your specialty could be social media marketing, spiritual guidance, mindset insights, business strategy, human performance, data analytics, website design, software programming on the front end OR the back end.
My son assures me theres a big difference in skills depending on which end you work in, hes a back end software engineer. Again, those are just a few examples from a potentially endless list.
Or we can do BOTH.
We can serve a particular type of person or industry WITH a particular type of expertise or skill.
You could be a copywriter for holistic health professionals.
You could be a web designer for stylists and fashion consultants.
You could be a bookkeeper for wedding and event planners.
And thats where the magic really is. Specialising AND niching.
When you specialise and niche, your network knows EXACTLY what you do and who you do it for or with.
Even if its not something they need, who do you think is going to be front of mind when they’re talking to a kinesiologist who mentions they need help with their emails, website copy and social media content?
They’re not thinking of ALL the copywriters they know. They’re thinking of YOU, the copywriter for holistic health professionals.
You’ve just become easily referable.
What I want you to be thinking about right now is where does your business land in all of this. Do YOU stand out from the online crowd?
Because as we all know, its a VERY noisy online crowd. It can seem like everyone has an online business these days, it can seem like there are 1000 other people offering the same or very similar things to you.
Thats what we call a red ocean, as in its full of blood from everyone fighting each other for the limited pool of clients, customers and money.
If you want to compete there and beat them on price, because thats what you’re going to have to do, thats cool, do that!
But if you want to have that fun, profitable and sustainable business, where you’re not stressing about where your next client will come from or how you can possibly raise your prices in order to make the money you need, you need to specialise AND niche.
You want to be in a beautiful blue ocean full of possibilities, where there’s plenty of room to move around and way fewer direct competitors.
You may be familiar with the blue ocean / red ocean concept, its from the 2004 book by Renee Maubaugne (malborne) called Blue Ocean Strategy. The actual book is focused on product based businesses, but the concept is easily applied to service businesses as well.
Heres another example of specialising and niching – social media managers.
Way back when social media was brand new it was a big blue ocean, you could tell people you helped them with all the platforms – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube.
But over time its become an increasingly popular service to offer AND there’s a high demand from online business owners who need it.
Its no longer good enough to say you’re a social media manager who can take care of all your marketing needs. Thats about as clear as a bowl of porridge on a cold winter morning.
These days you can specialise by platform. You’re a Facebook expert, a Facebook ads expert, YouTube expert, Pinterest expert, LinkedIn trainer.
But within those its still a red ocean because social media marketing is a red hot thing.
You need to be a Facebook ads manager for business coaches. Even niche and specialise it further to women business coaches making a certain amount. A Pinterest growth expert for interior designers. A LinkedIn trainer for small law firms.
Those are all fairly blue oceans right there because you’ve narrowed your focus to a specific area of expertise for a specific type of person, business or industry.
You can even specialise further by geographical area – a LinkedIn trainer for law firms in Sydney, Australia.
Do you see how much easier this makes your own marketing? How you can be instantly referable because its so clear to everyone, what you do and who its for?
Thats the beauty of specialising and niching.
Like I said there are some mindset shifts required to let go of wanting to help everyone with everything you can do, but once you get past that and start to see whats available in that beautiful blue ocean, everything gets easier.
🔥 You attract more of the right clients.
🔥 You have far less objections, if any, about price.
🔥 Its easier to talk about what you do and who its for.
🔥 Referrals come in from unexpected sources because people KNOW what you do and who its for.
Heres what I’m hoping you take away from this today.
You can only go so far as a generalist serving a lot of different kinds of clients. Thats a simple fact.
If you want to scale and grow without burning yourself out, creating customised offers for each new client and negotiating on price, you have to become a specialist.
You’re going to feel scarcity creeping in. You’re going to feel resistance about not wanting to leave anyone behind.
But you also need to remember if you’re talking to everyone you end up being heard by no one. And thats an absolute travesty, because you’re amazing and the world NEEDS YOU!
And maybe you need me. I work with coaches, consultants and digital creatives – the fabulous copywriters, web designers and social media managers out there.
I help you simplify your business with a specialised niche so you’re talking to exactly the right people in exactly the right way to be heard.
I help you with your money mindset so you’re confidently charging what you’re worth AND getting it, no negotiations in sight.
I help you design your Goldilocks offer and pricing thats ‘just right’ both you AND your blue ocean clients.
All of that happens inside IGNITE, my business and money coaching program. Thats you and me working on your business, one on one for 6 months or more.
You’ll learn my framework for a simple, fun, profitable business, and you get the ongoing support to implement it.
If that sounds like your kinda thing, send me a DM and lets talk! I’m @funbusinessfunmoney, all one word, on Facebook and Instagram.
Connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a message there, I’m the only Deirdre Amies in the world.
Or you can email hello@deirdreamies.com if you prefer email.
You’ll find the links to all of those in the description of this episode and in the show notes.
Thats what I’ve got for you today! Are you a generalist or a specialist? Can you see how you can be even more specialised and create a beautiful blue ocean for you and your business? That sounds awesome to me!
Let go of the fear of running out of clients and embrace the freedom and enjoyment that a profitable, sustainable business (and niche) can bring you.
Take care, have fun swimming in the blue ocean, and I’ll catch you in the next episode!
Want to make a BIG SHIFT in your business?
IGNITE private coaching could be the answer you’re looking for! Click here to check out the details, or send me a message for a quick chat about which option is the best one for you right now.
0 Comments