3 Ways Niching Down Will Grow Your Business

I am so glad you are here. Today, we are going to talk about how do you really get clear on what you do? Who do you serve? And what do you sell? When I recently did a poll of people that I’ve either worked with, or I’ve helped coach, or people in some of my communities, I asked them, What is the one of their biggest struggles? And one of the things that they came up with was that they are still not clear or crystal clear on what is their really specific niche? And then how do they go after and really serve the people that they’re trying to help? So we’re going to dig into that. Today, we’re going to give you a couple of tips on how you can get really clear here. And then we’re going to talk about some of the reasons why we’re not seeing the consistent results we want to beautiful friend.

Let’s jump right into talking about how we get clear how we niched down, and how we stay focused on how we’re going to help people and how we’re going to grow consistent results in our business.

The first thing is, this is so near and dear to my heart, because this is an area that I’ve struggled in, on off over the years as I’ve stepped into changing my business, and then starting the podcast. And one of the things that I’ve gone through was when I started the podcast a year ago, I knew that I wanted to help people step into and grow their businesses on their terms, I knew that I wanted to help people make it profitable, so that they could have financial and time freedom, so that you can do more of what you love.

You can help and serve people, and that you can be available to the people you love. But in doing so I decided to go a little more broad with all of the content that we shared, and the guests we had on, which was great, and I loved every minute of it. But I didn’t get super clear to explain how I can always help people that are listening if they want to have a transition happen sooner or learn 20 years of knowledge that I’ve learned working in the online space and online marketing. So what I’ve been working on in the last month and a half is getting super clear, really niching down and becoming that specialist if you will, so that people know who I am and what I do and how I can really help them through the episodes what you’re going to learn what you’re going to hear. And then of course, you’re working with me directly in through programs that I’m going to offer you that are specific to what people are asking for. So this is so near and dear to my heart.

Because I’ve been there, I’ve been unclear. I’ve thrown up lots of different messaging and tried different offers. But as soon as I put one offer out and didn’t hear much, I was ready to move on and try the next thing. And I know a lot of you are in the same boat because I have talked to you I have done calls a few Hi have pulled you in a lot of you are in this space where you’re kind of throwing spaghetti up against the wall and wondering why you’re not having more consistent results or you’re not growing your business is profitable as a way of you as you want. So let’s talk about how do you get clear so you can get those consistent results. So we’re going to share three tips for the first things you can do to work on this.

The first is, let’s say that you are a coach and you’ve tried different types of coaching and you know, you’re just not really short you know that you are good at helping people through things. But you haven’t really decided what your specialty is. Maybe it’s because you think well I can help them with more than one thing. I 100% get it and you probably can. But if we’re going to have people refer us or I mean other people refer people to us if we’re gonna have people look at our online posts or our website and want to work with us. We have to be super clear about that one thing. So my first tip is, what’s the one thing that you can help people with the most? And the way we can find this out is two things.

One, write down what you’re good at, write down what your experience has been in, get real specific with that. And then write down how are you wanting to show up and serve people right now? Is that one on one? Is it through a program? Is it through some sort of training? You know, what is it? How do you like working with people, but write down all these things that will inform you, and then write down what you’ve tried? And then which of those things you’ve tried? So with the coaching example, let’s say you tried, clarity, coaching, empowerment, coaching, maybe business coaching, so write all those down.

And as you start looking at all of these pieces of your puzzle, if you will, you’ll start to see, you know, what is the part that really comes together? Where’s that intersection of your skills and abilities, some expertise you have, and then your desire to work with people now. But often, we think, oh, I want to have more impact, I really want to coach people. But sometimes we ignore what our past expertise or experiences. But I will tell you two things, if you start with the end in mind, meaning, what is your goal? Is it make this into a profitable business, then often we have to decide what’s the thing that we’ve done in the past that other people don’t have that knowledge and that skill set or that ability that we can help them with, so that they have the transformation, or they can learn the knowledge quicker, so that they can get where they’re trying to go. So the first thing is, write down all these clues about yourself.

And then where’s that intersection, that sweet spot, and then start with the end in mind. So if you want to coach but you’re sort of like, well, I just know that I like the positivity side of it. So do I the encouragement. But what I found was, when I just do that, I’m just this general broad, you know, person saying I can help them.

But it wasn’t until I said, Hold on, I have 20 years of online marketing, and Tech experience with training people mentoring them with growing a brand that my mom and I started in 2008, called ziggity zoom, to reach over 10 million people over those years, to have more than 40 million pageviews. And to have a huge 50 or 60,000 email list.

But I did all of that, because I have experience in this space, and I have knowledge. But that is the knowledge that not everyone has. So it’s when I tie that together with my mentoring and my coaching, that all the sudden it clicks and people say, Oh my gosh, that’s what I need, if that’s what they need. So I think that’s where a lot of people get stuck, they want to create this future thing, but they don’t look backwards to see how the future thing can be informed by their past. So start with the end in mind, if yours is to have a profitable business, you have to be clear on how you can serve people and you do you have to pick one thing doesn’t mean you won’t help people in other ways.

You have to become the girl or the guy, you have to be known for just one thing, especially if you’re just getting established, or you’re not getting the consistent results you want. So the first goal is pick one thing, not more than one thing, and then you have to commit to sticking with the one thing for some time. Tip two is that you haven’t really gotten feedback from your prospect from your ideal customer. Some people call it an avatar, you have to get actual specific information from people that you might serve.

This can be done in so many ways, and you might have already done it. The challenges did you capture in a way that you asked enough people, you know, which of these things is what they really need? You know, and how do they talk about it? Because for instance, I’ve worked in online marketing, I’ve worked, you know, with helping people optimize websites, and how to build email lists and all of these things for so long that I might use terminology that they might not use, much like a doctor talking to a patient, put it in real terms, not in doctor speak. It’s the same with us.

If you know a lot about a topic, you might use those words that language instead of the words they’re using. So you have to understand what is it that you’re trying to help them with? So what’s their challenge? What’s their problem? And then what do they most want in their business? So or I’m sorry doesn’t have to business, you might be helping people on a personal front or, you know, at home, it might be, you know, you might be a health coach, or you might write books about marriage.

Any of those things are amazing. But once again, why would they pay you money to help them have this change or have a change sooner?

So what do you do with this? How do you actually get that feedback from people? Well, I have gotten feedback from people before. In the business, I talked about ziggity zoom, we used to send polls via email to people we had done Facebook posts. And then I used to have a feedback widget on our website that would ask for people to give us suggestions and feedback. And so we would track that information. And then see what do people really want the most? What are they looking for? We’d ask those questions. But I have to be honest, in this last year, when I started the podcast, and started doing coaching, and mentoring, again, consulting, I wasn’t doing as much of that now I was doing calls, I was doing pro bono calls, and I was doing different things like that.

I was just helping them based on where they were at and what they needed today. I wasn’t necessarily asking them based on my skill set and how it could help them. But now I am rebranding, and I’m niching down my podcast. And so I am going through that process all over again, with getting feedback from people. And then as I get more feedback, and ask them questions about their needs and where they’re at in their business, then I was able to see where can I help them and then ask them which of these things is what you most want in your business right now, or which thing is your biggest challenge or your biggest roadblock? So I was getting more and more specific, as I asked questions.

And as I got direct feedback, and then I asked my groups. So right now I’m going through program myself, I’m going through Stephanie gases, p2p, which is podcast to profit. But we are doing that. And here’s the thing, it always starts with the most elementary steps. And those elementary steps are, you actually have to regularly talk to your customers, your listeners, your readers, or your prospects. And don’t assume because six months or a year ago, they wanted something that that’s what they still want, we have to do this regularly. And we have to keep coming back to it. So for instance, if you were running a business, pre COVID, but the world has changed, our work lives look different, where we work looks different for so many of us. What I need, if I was working with you before might be different.

So we can’t use super old data unless we get new data. So that’s what you need to do next, is you need to ask questions, and you need to get direct feedback feedback from the people you’re working with, or the people you’re trying to work with. All right. And as you do that, you’ll also get more information about who your ideal customer is, who’s your ideal client? Maybe right now, you know, you work with female entrepreneurs, or women over 40 who want to lose weight. But you if you question them, if you pull them if you do cause with them, you can learn more about them so you can drill down.

One thing I’ve learned is you have to drill down about four layers. Not just it’s a woman, and here’s her age, but you need to know her wants her likes her interests, you know, is she time crunched? Does she have a full time job? Is she stretched too thin, but you need to know more about your ideal person.

So that’s the second thing. And then when you get that information from your, you know, your prospects and your current customers or clients, then you need to understand what is it they need? And can you offer that to them, and then come up with an offer in that messaging that really aligns with what they’ve told you and how you help them. That one way you can help them that’s different from me, in different from the person beside you, even if you’re the same type of author or coach or expert, because we are all different. We all have a different skill set a different perspective, different personalities and energy and we have different intersections of experience. So you have to keep all that in mind. But once you come up with how you work with people, you have to stick to it. And so commit to you know for a couple of months at a minimum, putting out your offer consistently, you know So however you try to work with people and reach them so of course on your website, emailing your you know your email list.

And then if you use social, focusing on one or two social platforms where your person is and where you’re comfortable with that format of content, and just keep pushing, a lot of people try throwing something out one time. And if they don’t see a big response, they think, Oh, maybe I need to tweak this or move on. But if you posted it one time, or three times, the algorithms barely anyone saw it to begin with, you have to keep posting.

And you I mean, don’t get me wrong, don’t just post an offer and never provide valuable content to people, you need to give them value throughout the week, throughout the month, with stuff you post. But mixed in with it, you do need to have a consistent offer you’re pushing out to them. It can have different messaging, it can have a different photo, but it needs to be related to the same thing. So the biggest roadblocks I see people making is one, they don’t stay consistent. And they think, Oh, but I already posted this. But how many people saw it, if you post something, and we’re friends on one of these social platforms, it doesn’t mean I saw it right, I’m only seeing probably half a percent of anyone, I’m friends with content in a given day, maybe not even that much.

So keep posting it, tag people and make a commitment to yourself to get clear to niche down and stay committed to pushing this, the way you’re going to work with people out there. You know, tell a friend look for three months or six months, I’m going to commit to this because this is how people say they want to work with me and what they need. So I’m going to go for it. Because like I said, the biggest roadblock is people keep trying new things out. And they only posted a few times. So you’re not being consistent.

You’re throwing spaghetti or all different things out there. None of it looks consistent, right? Because you’re trying, trying trying. But in doing so you’re diluting the message, you’re diluting who you are. And what it is you do that magic intersection, that sweet spot that you can help people with. And the other roadblock or thing that I mentioned already was, you need to get that feedback from people you need to pull people in, that’s probably the other thing that people don’t do enough of is they just try to intuitively put offers out in to intuitively come up with their messaging instead of drilling down and keep asking people. Now listen, you can ask people and you don’t want to, yeah, I get it. You don’t want to irritate anybody.

But you offer them little things like hey, I have this, this guide, I’ll send over to you, if you help me or else, you know, I’ll do a 15 minute review of something for you or you know, a little mini coaching call or something. But if you’re going to ask them for of course more of their time, you can give them you know, a benefit, you can give them something or even a gift card. But you do have to get this information. So that’s the other roadblock is people think because they asked a couple people that that’s the answer, but they really didn’t get deep enough into the process. Okay. And so that is my big takeaway from you today is one, your past should inform your present, work your present offer, because that is something that you have that other people don’t that expertise, that experience.

So how do you marry your current desire to how you want to show up and work in the world? How you want to step into your purpose, with what you’ve done before? I think a lot of us are leaving that on the table, we’re forgetting all the value that has, we’re also forgetting where have we been that someone else is currently at that place where we can help hold their hand and pull them up to where we’re at a lot quicker than we got there. So that’s the first takeaway for you. The next one is, what is your top goal. And start with the end in mind, if your top goal is you need to make money every month in this venture, you know, with the podcast or with your coaching, or with a ebook or something, then the goal in mind, of course, is working with people and being fulfilled, that’s kind of almost a given.

But it’s that you want to make money. And if that’s the goal, it can’t be broad, because no one will send people to you, no one will be read and they won’t resonate with what you’re saying. Because they won’t be clear on if you’re the person to work with for what they need. Alright, so that’s the second thing. And then you’ve got to number three is you’ve got to get feedback. And then you have to consistently keep getting feedback and go way deeper than you think. So once you do an initial, you know, get feedback from people, a handful of people, then create another shorter list of things that you want to know what people really need and want.

All right, and then do it quarterly do it, you know, at least a couple times a year, put it on your calendar and then don’t be inconsistent, just put it on your calendar a couple times a week that you’re going to off offer value with content related to this, you know what people want and what your niche down area of focus is.

And then post your offer regularly, multiple times a week, everywhere you’re at, but commit to it and put these things on your calendar, put it at the beginning of each quarter to do feedback, and polling, you know, do a couple calls with people. But you have to get the more you do this, the more you’re going to get clear on where your connection point is, with what they need, where you’ve been, and where they’re at, and what they need. All right. And then the last thing is, just don’t keep throwing the spaghetti, pick the dish, you know, instead of throwing spaghetti and all different things all over the place, pick your favorite dish, and keep making that dish until you’re an expert at making that dish, whatever it is that you love.

And in this case, it’s going to be if you’re a coach or an author, like focus in on the content you provide on the transformation, you can give people, you can’t just be broad, you know, you can’t just say I’m a life coach, or I’m a business coach. So is everyone else, what makes you different from the rest of them, and you are different and you have so many gifts and talents and you know your background that’s going to inform what type of business coach or life coach or writer you are. But you’ve got to decide. And it’s not to say you can’t change it later, or help them in different areas. But in order to pull people in, do you become active, right engaged with you. And then eventually, you know, to either join your community, or become you know, get on your email list.

Then eventually, some of those people will become customers. But it’s by you getting super clear. And then making commitment to providing content, adding value in that specific area, you can always then help them with other things, build other things. But first, you have to build the first thing. And you have to stick with it until you’ve mastered it, and that you’re helping lots of people and making a profit from it. All right. So that is it for today.

Podcast Episode by Kristin Fitch released May 19, 2022