148: Mini Series: Teach What You Know Part 2 - Knowing Your Niche

Well, hello there.

Welcome back to the Professional Creative Podcast. Today I have an episode that is part of our teach what you know series. And so there is a lineup of episodes on topics that I really want to dive into, all based on this concept of teaching what you know. Now you can head over to the show notes@PropriationalCreative.com to get a link to all of the episodes in this series. Things that we've discussed so far are, first and foremost, kind of my teaching history, how I live as a creator and an educator, my path to becoming an educator, even though I never set out to teach, and five questions you can ask yourself if you're thinking about teaching something that you know. And then our most recent episode has really been on our thinking when it comes to adding education to our business. Why I think you should teach what you know. We do a little bit of a dive into historical figures and creators who have also held education important in their practice and 10 reasons why teaching what you know can be so profoundly impactful. Well, today I want to talk about how you can really land on an idea to teach. I think once you have decided that you want to teach in some capacity, you know, small, medium or large.

Right.

If you want to add teaching into your revenue streams and the way that you run your business, oftentimes that decision comes before you're quite certain on what exactly it is that you're going to teach. And then as soon as you decide and you get into teaching, you're going to love it. Trust me, you are going to love it so much.

I'm Bonnie Christine. And this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing the most creative and impactful work of my life.

But when I first set out to

become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast.

Sometimes you have to kind of come back to this, okay, now what am I going to teach next? And so I just recently had one of these big sessions, I call them A vision storming session where really I put, I, I, I walk. I'm gonna walk you through everything that I did for myself. And so I really pull into the ideas, what is at my fingertips, what are all of the possibilities, and then we kind of like work from there of what lights us up, what's needed, what are people asking us for, and that kind of thing. And so it's really, really fun to kind of ideate on what could be. And my hope with this episode is that I can pull you having a lot of ideas, but then refining those ideas to where you know with certainty what it is that you want to teach first or teach next by the end of this episode, or at least by the end of your own vision storming session. Okay, sound good? Let's dive in. I'm going to break this down into a couple of different segments so that we can kind of really wrap our minds around it. The first one is just to identify what is unique about what you want to teach. And so the first thing that you can do is think about unique aspects to your craft. You can identify which aspects of your work are different, what problems do they solve that others are struggling with. So what I would do is create a list of your skills and then note how often others are kind of struggling with different areas that just seem to come naturally to you. I think it's really easy for us to forget, especially the further along we move in our industry and our professionalism, that sometimes or oftentimes, the things that come really, really easy to us are the perfect thing to teach, because they didn't always come easy to us. They just are easy now.

So list kind of all of those

different aspects of your craft. What do you do? I know there are so many different industries represented here. What do you do? And is there any kind of unique angle to what you're doing? Again, you've got to make big space for this one. So have a vision storming session. Maybe sit down with the show notes where I'll, I'll walk you through everything that I'm, I'm going through here. And then with pen and paper, just kind of start listing and ideating. Then the next thing you can do is kind of reflect on some of your more informal teaching moments. You know, those times where you've just kind of naturally found yourself in a teaching role, and you probably didn't even realize it until you stopped to think about it. It could be a peer, it could be a friend, it could be your children. It could be someone at the gym. Or someone that you met at a conference. So just start thinking about these past teaching moments and what was it that they were asking? What was it that you were sharing and teaching? You know, was it work that you pulled out and were able to show them or open your laptop and show them, or was it something that you were just verbally explaining? The next thing I would have you do is really, really think about what questions you get asked the most. This is your gold mine for really understanding what knowledge and skills people are really looking after. And so if you share what you do, let's say you share it with a stranger, someone that you sit next to at a wedding or on the bus or on the AirPL, and they're like, wow, well tell me more. They're going to start asking very specific questions. Or if you have an online audience, what kind of questions do you get in your DMs? What kind of questions do you get in your inbox? What kind of questions do you get on social media posts? So just start really, really thinking about what are people curious about when it comes to my work, what are the top questions that get asked? And start writing them down so that you can really kind work through what it could look like to say, you know, I get that question all the time. And so you can find the answer over here in my class or my ebook or my workshop or whatever. Okay, so that's segment one. It's really all about ideating your unique approach and what kind of conversations and questions get brought up to you about your work most often.

Picture this. Your creative business thriving beyond your wildest dreams. More than just a business, an entire legacy.

It's not just possible. But I want you to feel how

close it is to within your reach. I want to unfold the map of success together with you. In fact, I want to invite you to join me on a journey unlike any other with my brand new professional creative business coaching program. If you're currently making in between 50 and $200,000 a year in your business,

it's time to think bigger.

Imagine expanding your team, honing your leadership and overcoming the challenges most businesses face. You know, what got you to where you are today isn't going to be the same thing that gets you to where you're going. If you're nodding along, I made this program for you. We'll have weekly live coaching calls, accountability

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a vault of resources and BON along with a community of fellow creative big thinkers. Because growing together is where all the magic happens. We've got the time management lab, my $5 million launch debrief, and a creative profits training, which you'll have as a launch pad for all your revenue streams. But if you're unsure if this is your next step, I would love to chat with you. So in order to do that, I need you to send me a DM on Instagram or fill out our short interest form over@bonniecristine.com so that I can personally follow up with you and just ask you a few questions because I

want to make sure that this is

the perfect fit for you and your journey right now. You have my word. If I don't think I can truly

move the needle for you, I'll tell you.

So if you're ready to elevate your creative business and step into your power and into a room of some really big thinkers, join me by filling out the interest form@bonniecristine.com coach or just DM me over on Instagram the word coach, and I'll respond with my first few questions for you. Together, let's make your passion your legacy.

This next segment is about the market's needs, and I want to make sure that we match that to your personal passion. So I'd love for you to research market needs. Now, listen, you're probably not going to find something that's never been taught before. I think it's important that you teach something with your own perspective, your own spin on it, meaning you're not learning something from someone and then turning around and teaching it exactly how they did. You're doing it through your own lens. But it really has all been done before. And so I want to kind of squash that fear. Just because you find that other people are already doing something similar to you, it's okay for you to go ahead and lean into teaching as well.

Just make sure that you're doing it

with your own, you know, uniqueness, your own approach, your own voice and your own way about it. But you can still kind of research gaps, maybe in the current market that you're in. Are there any gaps? This could really take you into quite a few rabbit holes. So you're going to maybe be checking out online forums, you're going to be googling for classes or courses or workshops in your specific industry or this niche. You might look at existing courses, not to copy them. In fact, if anything, it's to make sure that you don't copy them, but be aware of what's out there and then get some direct feedback from your audience or your industry. Peers.

Another thing that I love to do

is research Google keywords. And so you can on Google and through a couple of different keyword websites, you can say, what are people searching about xyz? Google will return to you all of these topics, top asked questions or top search results for anything that's specific that you want to know. So if you are looking to, I don't know, teach people how to record a podcast, you could ask Google what are the most commonly asked search queries of how to record a podcast. And then it'll return all of these common questions that get asked. So maybe you're not in a position where you are getting asked a lot of questions or, well, you can kind of tap into in general, what are people asking most about this particular topic. And it can be a great way to ideate as well. So once you've kind of identified some market needs or some gaps or some things that you think that you could really, you know, speak to beautifully and teach, I also want you to just pause and assess your personal passion. I think that ideating is so incredibly fun. And I have some people in my life that are really, really good at slowing me down and just saying, you know, once you start this, I don't know that you can stop. So do you want to talk about this topic forever? And so for me, I teach surface pattern design. It is a topic that I can see myself like, I want to talk about it forever. I can absolutely see myself talking about it and still teaching it, and 10 years from now, 20 years from 30 years from now.

And so when you decide to start

thinking about teaching something, just check in with your own personal passion. Is this something that you can see yourself talking about and teaching for many, many, many years to come and make sure that it's something that you're excited about? Okay, now we're on segment three. And this is about your uniqueness. How are you going to make this truly you? I think that there's nothing in the world that you can't teach because no one is going to teach it just like you. So I want you to brainstorm what is the way that you go about your craft. And what I would love for you to do, I think that would be really impactful, is to basically mind map your process. So big piece of paper or however you want to do this, but you need big space to really map out your process from one tiny little thing to the next tiny little thing. That way you can pinpoint what kind of unconventional techniques do you use, how kind of unconventional approaches do you have? What tools do you use? And then pinpoint the things that make you and your process different and interesting and unique. Then you can kind of combine all of these steps and really define a unique teaching angle that sets you apart from any other educator. And I do think that this is important. You want a usp, right? A unique selling. What is that point? A unique selling position. So your USP will be how you are uniquely approaching this topic. The topic is not unique. Like, let's go back to my podcasting episode. Lots and lots of people are teaching how to podcast, but they're not doing it in exactly the same way that you would or that you would approach your craft. So pinpoint those unique, different points and places that really set you apart. Now, the last segment, number four, is your action plan. And we're not going to fully dive into this one because it has to

do with developing your curriculum.

Because now once you. You've really nailed the topic that you want to talk about, that you want to teach, that you could see yourself talking about for a long time, I'll want to walk you through really pulling your audience, your students, through a curriculum that builds on itself and that is focused on their transformation. And so that, my friends, is going to be the next episode in the teach what you know series. So that's coming up soon. For now, your biggest takeaway for this episode is to have a vision storming session where you truly kind of ideate. There's so much gold in your mind. You know so much. And I know that you have things popping up for you. Fears like, maybe you're not good enough, maybe you're not an expert enough, or so many other people are already doing this. But truly, you have everything that you need. You only need to be one step ahead of the person that you're helping to make a profound impact on their life. And really, you'll never arrive. There will always be people who know more than you. And so you've got to just be willing to start. It's such a beautiful thing, my friends. So with that, go into this vision storming session knowing that you are going to create the beauty that you want to see, come alive in the world, and remember the whole time, there's room for you.