[Transcript starts at 1:22]
Hello, hello, hello my podcast people and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. Today is Thursday, September 28th, if you're listening to it when it drops, and we are talking about whether or not you need to be more niched down. This is the final episode of September, not just final in general, final episode of September, so let's finish the month out with a bang, shall we?
As it relates to this discussion about niching down. This, this episode is inspired by some Voxers that I recently received from, from some of my clients. It's a question that I get asked, honestly, quite often. Um, and something I work with people on when I do kind of the, when I do their branding audits. Uh, but this is also inspired by the first call of the IG Intensive, which is going amazing. Round 14.
Woot woot. Uh, the first call where we go over bios and I discuss the value or the importance of niching down. So we all know, and if you don't, you're about to learn right now, when it comes to online business, and I think business in general, the riches are in the niches.
If you're just trying to solve every problem and any problem for every person and any person, you will struggle mainly because there are a zillion options out there and it is very tough for people to believe that something is for them and that something, that something will help them if it doesn't have their specific quote unquote name on it.
This I know can be exceptionally difficult to swallow for, for business owners who just want to help people, especially those of you coming from the, the service industry, meaning physical therapy is service, right? And you just want to help people and help them get better. When I ask people to niche down on social media, they're just like, but I could help that person and I could help that person.
And I'm like, I get it. But when you market like that, neither of those people believe that you can help them. They don't know it, right? So after coaching literally hundreds of people on this and through it, I know this to be true, this statement, that phrase, that rhyme of the riches are in the niches. I'm gonna loosely quote my girl, Laura Jean.
I'm gonna loosely quote it because I didn't write it in the outline because I just thought about it right now as I'm speaking to you. But she has a really good reframe of niching down. Something along the lines of don't look at niching or try not to look at niching down as saying no to something that is a part of you.
But rather, consider it to be, or look at it as giving your people something to say yes to. You niche down, you say, I solve this specific problem for this specific group of people. They will come to you, you will help them, and then they will go tell other people. And the folks that are really good at listening around the edges, they will come and ask you, and they'll be like, you know what, I know this was for, says it's for this kind of person, but I think that it would help me, what do you think?
Or, they'll ask that person. I have an example of that right now in the intensive. We have a woman who does, uh, she's just like a, she's like a florist and her, her business is very cool. I'm, I'm really excited to see how this plays out. But she came in from, uh, Dr. Leada from Instagram and Dr. L took my Intensive, I don't know how many rounds ago.
She's on the actual sales page for the Intensive. She's friends with this woman. She told, the woman was like, you know, I'm looking for Instagram help. Doc was like, Hey, check out the Intensive. Chick was like is it also, is it just for, you know, physical therapists? And she was like, no, this will still help you. And that person signed up.
I didn't even have to have a conversation with them. So don't look at it as saying no to parts of you or saying no to people you can help. Look at it as giving your people something to say yes to. And then the ones that are really good at listening on the edges, they will still find you. I promise. So the question of do you need to be more niched down?
To answer it, it's going to be very specific to you, namely where you're at in your journey, your online business journey, and what you've been doing thus far. If we back it up a second and we kind of zoom out, niching to me, I just looked at myself and I got my headphones on today. This, you know what, I'm not going back.
We're keeping them on. I did the intro thing and I left them on and so today we're having them on. Uh, but if we zoom out, take a step back, niching to me is the problem that you solve and then secondarily who you solve it for. I say it in this order because I want you to focus on solving a problem as opposed to getting in the weeds of identifying the demographic you work with.
Mainly, you know, I'm thinking about my favorite example here was my girl Joy and how amazing it is when you niche down and you get specific with the problem you solve and then secondarily who you solve it for. Joy is a climbing coach for pregnant and postpartum climbers. Like what? What a niche, what a niche.
And there's so much value in being that specific. Okay. So as you're going through this, as you're thinking about this, niche, problem you solve, and then secondarily, who you solve it for. I'm going to go ahead and plug my free nicheing down workbook called the FT3. FT3 stands for first this, then that. I named it that because oftentimes when we're looking to niche down, looking to, you know, jump into the online business space, we have experience and some people are like, yeah, I want to double down on that experience that I have and some people are like, but I kind of want to go in a new direction.
And so I want to ask questions about both of those parts or both of those facets. Which is what is your current experience? What are you currently doing? What are people currently coming to you for? And if you do want to pivot or shift, what is that direction? Where do you want to go? And then from there, we can think about how we want to niche down.
All right. So if you are looking for help with, with niching down, start there, it's free. We will link it in the notes. Thank you, Courtney, thank you, Joe, uh. And it's a pretty comprehensive workbook as always, you know, that I believe if you want better answers, ask better questions in this case, I mean more questions.
So it is comprehensive, it's free, check it out. So to answer specifically that it depends portion of should you, or do you need to be more niched down? If we think about the first part here, which is where you're at in your online business journey, kind of two, for, two parts here, number or two different demographics here.
Number one, if you're just starting out, then yes, I want you to have a clear direction, but I'm not gonna, I don't want you to beat yourself over the head, trying to figure out that niche. Learning your niche typically requires time. And I specifically use that word learning because you're going to learn your no as you go.
So if you're just starting out, yes, I do want you to be going in a direction and a singular direction. So I want you to start off by asking yourself, what problem, singular, what problem do I want to solve? And who do I want to solve it for? You may struggle with this. Again, resort, resort, resort, refer back, wow, refer back to that FT3.
There's a lot of questions around that, largely speaking about who you have been working with. Uh, let's say if you're coming from an in person space, what do you have experience with? And that'll give you some guidance and some direction on that. All right, but ask yourself, what problem singular do you want to solve and who you want to solve it for?
Then we create content that solves that problem for that demographic and we see who it attracts because sometimes we think we're going to solve this problem for that demographic and that's not who comes to us because that's not actually what we're doing. I want you to think about content as bait, you're going to put bait out there for 18 months, minimum, right?
Given a minimum of 18 months of consistent concerted effort. See what fish you're catching and then decide if you need or want to use different bait. For me, initially, my direction was I thought I was going to do, you know, help with pain and mobility issues for CrossFitters. I put content out there and you know, who chose me?
Providers. I saw them, you know, that's who came to me. They asked questions and things like that. And I was like, actually, I like this demographic. I like working with them. This is easy for me. This is, this is who I'm going to keep marketing to and keep speaking to. So I don't have to change my content at all. If I was like, no, I want to go and help actual CrossFitters, then I would change that.
I also did have, I did go B to C, but it wasn't CrossFitters namely that came to me. And I'm, I'm not surprised, right? I don't look like a CrossFitter, right? I'm not built like one. And so we're going to get into that, but we're going to get into it, but suffice to say, people buy you, right?
When it comes to first having a personal brand, people buy you. And if you look a certain way, you look one way, but you're marketing, you know, a different way, there can be a disconnect there. All right, and because people are buying you, oftentimes they're going to just see a certain story, whether you're telling that story explicitly or not, and that's what's going to have them decide whether or not they want to buy from you.
All right, so. I was initially in that direction, those people didn't choose me and I was actually very happy that they didn't choose me. For you, I want you to create that content, be prolific, see who it attracts, and then decide, do I want to go in a different direction or do I want to niche down even more?
But we see that first part is I need you to go in a direction and get consistency with that. Big thing here is give yourself time to learn your no. Again, this is why I encourage being prolific with that content creation. Right? When you're prolific you may not attract a lot of fish. That's okay if you're being prolific, because you can just look back in the type of content you've been creating and say, Hey, based on this, I'm not necessarily attracting a lot of people but I can see what type of content keeps coming up and then if you're like, hey, I want to get more more specific I want to niche down more then you know What direction to go into because you're just gonna lean to the content that you've, that's been coming naturally anyway.
I'm thinking of a specific example right now and she's a physical therapist as well, moved to the online space and was kind of in that just like general orthopedics, but all of her posts about feet. All of them. And I would DM her and be like, so are we going to move to like a foot based account yet or what?
And that's not because she was having a ton of people coming four feet, right? She wasn't necessarily getting a ton of traction in general and I was like, cool, that's all right. But you have this, this many posts about this thing, it clearly comes very interesting, very naturally to you, you're very interested in it.
Let's double down on that.
Okay, so that's going to tie us into the second category of folks that are asking themselves do I need to be more niched down. The first category is people that are just starting out and I'm going to say let's go in a specific direction, let's get prolific, let's get consistent, and then we can decide from there.
That takes us to the second category of folks that they have gotten consistent and they've been in the game for a bit. So if I kind of break that demographic apart, this kind of more experienced demographic, number one, if you haven't been consistent, then you need to get consistent, right? That's the caveat there.
So you can be experienced, but if you're not consistent, that's kind of like being in the very beginning, right? So if you've been in the game for a bit, I need you to ask yourself have you been going in a consistent direction? Have you been showing up consistently for at least 18 months, right? Moving in the same direction, solving the same problem for the same group of people and being prolific with that content creation.
If you haven't, then start there. If you have been consistent, if you have been prolific with content creation and you're like, you know what? I'm not seeing the traction I want. I'm not seeing the sales that I want, I'm not really seeing the engagement I want, then I want you to ask yourself, how can I niche down?
Typically when we're thinking about how to niche down, it starts with looking at your own life experience. And when I'm working with someone and we're doing a brand audit or a branding audit, I like to call it a brand audit, and we're looking at their marketing, their messaging, I want to learn about them.
Because that is where you should be, I'll say it, should be marketing from, and that is who is going to resonate with your message, right? We attract what we are, not what we want. That's a quote, my friend, Dr. Sarah Sudds, and that recent post that I did, I'll share it. Um, I'll have Courtney share it. Thank you.
It was very simple post, right? It says people buy what you do, and it's crossed out. And underneath it it says people buy why you do it, and it's crossed out. And then it says people buy you. And that's not crossed out. And you know, think about the Simon Sinek, I think it's him, who says that about like people buy what you, why you do it.
Yeah, maybe, but only if they like you. Right. They're looking at you. It's interesting. You know, Instagram is such a visual platform. Like people are buying you. When it comes to a personal brand, they're buying you. Two people could be selling the exact same thing, but it's very, it's viewed as very different by the consumer.
Right? People typically want to go to people who look like them because there's this belief, there's this trust that, hey, that person gets it. They get me. They've been in my shoes before. They've had the same experiences as me. Therefore they can help me. So when I'm doing a brand audit, I am looking to see, are people marketing to folks with a shared experience?
For me, that would be health and fitness pros. Yes, my content, I can help anyone. And I'd love to kind of move into like more of this kind of like general life and life approach and building your best life, for sure. But it starts out with the health and fitness pros because I, that's who I am. That's who I was.
And then those people know, and they, or they strongly believe that I can help them because I've been there. I had a, an awesome, awesome coaching call last week and that's literally what she said. She was like, I'm working with you because. I know that you've been there. I know that you've been a PT. I know that you've been a PT student.
I know that you've walked this less traditional path. I've seen you do it. So I believe that you can help me. When I see people that are trying to market to a demographic that they don't necessarily have experience with, that's tough. Or, if I see people who are marketing towards a demographic that may not think that they have experience, that can be tough. Or, when I see people that aren't just leaning into their current life experience, their current how, how people are currently going to view them, they're not leaning into it, I'm like, you're missing the boat here. People are seeing you in this way, which is how you are. And if you're not marketing to them, that's a problem.
Right? I'm thinking about, as uh, some of the people I'm working with that have niched down into, you know, fitness for women over 50. Fuck yeah! Instead of trying to be like, women over 35, I'm like, dude, you're 52! That's fucking awesome! I imagine that people that are in that demographic want to hear from someone that looks like them and is their age, not some fucking 20 year old that hasn't had any life experience and things haven't changed for that person yet.
So the first thing, if you have been consistent, you've been prolific with content creation and you're not getting the traction that you think you want, ask yourself, how can I niche down? The first thing is ask yourself, am I selling to folks with a shared experience.
The second question that I want you to ask, and this is kind of a bit more marketing based, is am I solving a specific, that's a big part, am I solving a specific problem that people know they have and that they want solved? Many times what I see in the online space is people are kind of going after these kind of secondary problems or maybe we'll even call them secondary solutions where they want to go after like the mindset thing and like building confidence.
Meanwhile the people are coming in with very specific problems that they don't know yet is because of confidence. All right, they have a, they're runners and they want to run faster or they want to be, usually they want to run faster or they want to stop getting injured. Yes, the confidence, the mindset part of it plays into why they keep running and getting injured for sure, but they're not coming in knowing that that's a problem they have.
So we see how that's a little bit more kind of like marketing, advertising based, but it still makes sense, it's still worth asking ourselves or looking at when we're thinking about niching down and just saying, Hey, the thing that I'm speaking about, right, the problem that I'm saying I solve my niche, is it something, is it a specific problem that people know they have and that they actually want solved.
From here, if you do decide, okay, yeah, I got to make some changes. I got to niche down a little bit more, then give it time in this new direction. Again, I love that 18 months, 18 month mark. It's just, it is enough time to go through a full year and then some. We go through seasonality. It's enough time to really get a feel for, is this the right direction I want to be going in or not?
And you have to be consistent that whole time. I think it'll probably take a little bit less time if you are just niching down as opposed to completely switching your niche. But either way, give it time before you say this is working or this isn't working.
So to wrap this episode up, yes, the riches are in the niches, but to specifically answer the question, do you need to be more niched down, that's going to depend on where you're at in your online business journey and what you've been doing. Beginners, I want you to focus on having a specific direction and giving it 18 months. If you want help with that direction, download that FT3, it is free, right? FT3 workbook. Folks who have been in it for a minute, but have been inconsistent, I need you to focus on being consistent. Be consistent with the problem you solve, who you solve it for, and get prolific with your content creation. Folks who have been consistent and have been in it for a minute and are not getting the traction that they want I want you to ask yourself, how can I niche down more?
And that's going to be two parts. Number one, ask yourself, am I selling to folks with a shared experience? Am I leaning on that shared experience? Second question is to ask yourself is, am I solving a specific problem that people know they have and that they want solved? If you decide that, yeah, I had to change some stuff and you take action, then give it at least 18 months, 18 months minimum. And second part here, understand that yes, your new pool may be smaller, but the riches are in fact in the niches, especially if your niche is rich. I got to say it, especially if your niche is rich. Okay, so I'm looking at the time, we are doing so well. I'm going to read a little review here.
This one's going way, way back. This review is from five years ago. Five years. I decided to go into the archives and I was like, this is, this is fucking amazing. So this review is from Unstoppable R. C.
The positive light in the physical, I can't read the rest of the title cause it truncated it, but Unstoppable R. C. If you're still listening, amazing. Thank you. This person said, Dr. Shanté has been inspiring many with her Instagram account and now it has spread to podcasts. I simply cannot say enough things about this woman, but the one thing I will say, she is well worth your time. It's rare to have someone who is educational, positive, and entertaining.
Thank you. The first few podcasts have been awesome and I look forward to many more.
Well, you got 500 plus more, so if you've been tuning in, you're the real fucking MVP because it's been a long time, but as always, endlessly appreciative for all of the reviews. Just, if the spirit moves you, would love a little review, especially on Apple.
I don't know how to do it on Spodcast, Spodcast. Wow. Spotify. Um, but little announcement. Did it last time going to give it again today, next Monday is the first of our four part podcast episode series with me and my girl JillFit. Going to be the first four Mondays of October. Uh, we're calling it business and bullshit with my Bestie. Yes, it's a lead magnet or lead into legacy, but you already know you're going to laugh a ton. You're going to learn a ton. So why don't you listen a ton. It'll be on my podcast. This one, it'll be on Jill's FitBizU podcast, and it'll be on the YouTubes. You cannot escape us. So Monday, get ready.
All right. Officially wrapping it up. As always, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time, friends. Maestro out.
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