What is your niche?
“Creating demand is hard. Filling demand is much easier. Don’t create a product, then seek someone to sell it to. Find a market—define your customers—then find or develop a product for them.”
– Tim Ferris, The 4 Hour Work Week
I’ve been struggling to balance the two ideas:
– Don’t ‘niche down’
– You are the niche (meaning all of you, your interests, hobbies, passions, etc.)
Particularly from Dan Koe (who made the videos above).
And it’s clear that my style of video which popped off mixing a tonne of different things was, in a way, a display of me not ‘niche-ing down’. Because my own unique style is the niche.
But, from my clarity calls, which I’ll explore more in the next section, it appears that the ‘niche of me’ has a WIDE spectrum of individuals…
While I’m familiar with all of these areas, since all make up part of the niche of ‘me’, it’s very hard to come up with an offer which will resonate with all these different areas.
It reminds me of the movie ‘The Founder’ when Ray Croc comes to find that one of the franchises decided to add a lot of random things to the menu, like
– Corn on the cob
– Dinner with a biscuit
– Country fried chicken
And Ray Croc got annoyed and told off the franchisees who were responsible for this.
“But people love Fried Chicken.”- Jack
“Well if they love Fried Chicken, they can go to KFC down the road.”
– Ray Croc
In a similar way, I feel as though there’s a lesson here for me to learn.
Ray Croc wants to stick to hamburgers. It’s a rifle approach, as opposed to the shotgun approach.
McDonalds is successful for the systems they built around making burgers, not fried chicken. They were specific on the system they built. McDonalds can sell burgers, fried chicken and pizza if they want to reach a larger audience, but they don’t. They just sell burgers. If they focused on all the other stuff, they will be spread thin, and they won’t be able to be one of the best at serving burgers.
So, I guess in a way I must not try to serve burgers, fried chicken and pizza all at the same time.
It makes targeting the audience more difficult.
It makes selling more difficult.
Dan Koe says he himself is the niche (into entrepreneurship, spirituality, and bodybuilding). But you don’t see Dan Koe selling fitness programs or doing full videos talking about how to properly diet or how to program your training. Elements of his passion for fitness seep into his content but it doesn’t influence his entrepreneurial strategy.
Ultimately, I don’t need to ‘niche down’. I just need to focus more on who I want to serve to. Will it be burgers, fried chicken or pizza?
Whatever it is I decide to serve, it is important I gain clarity as so what it is so I can best serve my customer.
“It is more profitable to be a big fish in a small pond than a small undefined fish in a big pond.”
– Tim Ferris, The 4 Hour Work Week
Clarity Calls
What I’ve learnt from Clarity Calls…
There are a lot of lessons which I’ve learnt from hosting clarity calls with my audience;
Shotgun Approach = wide net = wide variety
I implemented a shotgun approach to my clarity calls where I just cast the widest net possible to see who would be interested in a call.
It was great interacting with my audience, I really resonated with all of them and it was awesome to make those connections.
What I realised is that in having a shotgun approach, casting a large ‘net, led to the widest spectrum of differing individuals with relation to my niche, as shown in the diagram which we’ve shared before;
Uncertain Strategy = Uncertain Stephen
One of my goals is to sign a client. But I was very up in the air and not very intentional with my ‘clarity call offer’.
Like, I did want to just have a chat with my audience and understand them, but at the same time, if I could genuinely help them, or if they wanted my service, then I would’ve been happy to ‘pitch’ them my Higher Self Coaching service.
But… I didn’t know how to. I was not confident. I had no idea where to begin.
The reason for this is that uncertain strategy = AN UNCERTAIN STEPHEN.
I had ABSOLUTELY NO STRATEGY. In all honesty, I don’t think I should have even had the slightest thought of selling if I was this downright disorganised and unintentional about the service.
I feel like sometimes I go into things, unprepared, and cross my fingers for a Hail Mary success.
But that’s not how entrepreneurship works.
If I did have the courage to ‘pitch’, and they started to ask a tonne of questions about my service – then how on earth would’ve I answered them?
Truth of it is…
I was unsure of how to ‘sell’ someone…
The bigger the net, the bigger the uncertainty, the greater the chaos and less order.
The power of intention
‘Our intention creates reality’
Wayne Dyer
In my “Property Post #17 – Investment Property #2”, I talk about the power of specificity;
In a similar way, I need to be MORE specific on the type of person I want to help. Understanding what you want helps the universe deliver it to you.
“The world shifts itself around your aim”
· Jordan Peterson
Customer Avatar
After setting up a few polls on Youtube, it seems that Self-limiting beliefs + Self-discipline are the biggest culprits stopping people from having a transformation.
Also, let’s look at the demographic of my audience;
So perhaps who I am trying to serve;
For…
Young Adults aged 18-30:
Who… (transformation)
Wants clarity and to transform in the next 90 days.
But have… (pain points)
Self-Limiting Beliefs
No Self Discipline
Procrastination/ Lack of Clarity towards goals
Has tried themselves but hasn’t worked.
And need…
Tools, accountability, mindset shift/”ah-ha moment”
Selling
When I listened to Alex Hormozi, he said something along the lines of ‘selling is energy exchange’ and the ‘transfer of belief’. Something like the client is uncertain and the art of selling is ‘transferring your belief’ over to the client.
This exposes a lot about the selling process;
A pre-requisite to selling then is you have to genuinely believe in the product that you are selling.
You will have trouble selling if you don’t believe in your product. You won’t believe in your product if you don’t actually know what your product is.
As mentioned, defining who exactly it is I’m serving will help me better create my service around serving this particular avatar. And everything else will follow from that beacon of clarity.
So understanding my customer avatar and building the container specifically for them will make me much more confident and believe in my service more and that’s how I will show up to my discovery/sales calls.
Content Strategy
As I mentioned above, everything flows from the beacon of clarity.
And another component which flows from that is the content.
I’m still trying to figure it out, but I think that I should start to try integrate my understanding of the perfect customer avatar with the content I am creating so I can create more resonance with my content.
So, an example is Alex Hormozi. He’s a business guru who started off in the gym/fitness space – which is his main area of expertise. He was called to do a presentation to a bunch of real estate people about sales. Alex has never sold a house in his life.
So how does this work?
He has to TAILOR his message to match more of who the target audience is, which in this case are real estate agents.
So, it’s the same thing for me too;
Why do I feel stuck in the 'business' side of things???
Sometimes I feel like I enter a place where I’m “too business-y” that I tend to forget my WHY.
The ‘why’ of what I’m doing in the first place.
When I’m just solely on ‘business mode’, and enter the space with the client on a call FROM the place of just solely being a ‘business owner’, then that is the energy I will EMINATE, and they will feel that.
Sure, money is a part of my ‘why’… But… I could also get a lot of money doing other things other than what I’m doing right now. I know I could have also pursued real estate if I really wanted to and succeeded in that (built an agency or help someone else build theirs…)
Or other things like making faceless Youtube channels and leveraging systems and AI to make it a cash cow.
Or try e-commerce too.
But that’s not what I’ve chosen.
I’ve chosen the path I’m on right now because it feels fulfilling. It feels like there is meaning behind the work that I am doing.
Jordan Peterson advises that we should strive for the highest possible thing that we can conceptualise.
And after a lot of deliberation, this path what I’ve come to, which is to ‘synthesise’ the knowledge from psychology, philosophy, spirituality, and all these other different and unique sources and give people a refreshing new lens through which they are able to improve their lives.
I recall two diagrams which properly illustrate my point;
As it appears that at the CENTRE of your being is the spiritual side, or your unique purpose, your identity…
And the way I interpret this is that your WHY, your PURPOSE is the sole driver of all the other things in your life.
So the lesson I learnt was this:
INTEGRATE YOUR ‘WHY’ INTO WHAT YOU’RE DOING
Your ‘why’ is your source of energy and authenticity.
If I enter my discovery/sales calls from the place and energy from my ‘WHY’, from the energy that I want to SERVE and provide value from the place of my PURPOSE, then that is the ENERGY TRANSFER which will be occurring during the interaction.
Psychoanalysing myself
I recently purchased a 1:1 one day business coaching service.
Usually I feel like I’d be nervous about a big purchase… sceptical… unsure…
But… for some odd reason, I’m not. I’m excited?
I have full trust that Nicole will be able to help me out.
Why is this?
Here are the reasons why I think I was happy to pay;
· I know her STORY and what she went through from listening to her podcasts.
· I listened to a few hours of her podcast so I felt like I really knew who she was as a person (see quote below)
· A lot of the free value she offered RESONATED with me… when she started talking about energy and weird niche stuff which I’m into it caught me by surprise but increased the RESONANCE even more
· RESONANCE also from knowing she’s from the same area as me and done the same thing haha.
“To know you is to love you! When potential customers have at least seven hours of interaction with you and your brand, they feel like they recognise you and can buy from you with confidence. The moment of truth is also the moment of trust.”
– Source: Brevity.Marketing
Hmm…
I’m thinking about the resonance part.
How I’ve heard some creators say instead of trying to please everyone by having ‘filters’ on who you are, be open to not pleasing everyone and having less ‘filters’ on who you are…. Sure, more people may not resonate with you, but the ones who do will resonate with you a lot more, and these are the people who your content is truly for.
I think there’s also some case study along the lines of “1000” true fans
I think this is Nicole’s approach.
She doesn’t want to sell hamburgers, fried chicken and pizza.
She just sells hamburgers.
She knows her ‘niche’, she knows her target audience, and really aligning with that helps the ‘true fans’ (which I found myself to be) to be ready to purchase with full trust and excitement.
Conclusion
I’ve got a long way to go in my learning journey of business & entrepreneurship. But I’m excited for it.
It has been a difficult journey so far but looking back, overall, it’s been great.
Because with each failure there is a learning and an opportunity for growth.
If I continue on this trajectory, who knows where I’ll end up in the next 5 years!
