Should You Niche Based On Passion or Expertise? Interview With Becca Tracey

Becca Tracy founded her site the uncaged life over 10 years ago. And since then, she's helped thousands of solopreneurs take their business from a side hustle to full time. One of the main things that she's known for is niching, so helping coaches clarify their positioning, their pricing, their packaging. And she started her business from a van, I think rock climbing and adventuring from a camper van. And I know freedom, Becca, is like a big value for you and a big reason you've built your business. So I can't wait to dive in. Thank you for being here.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Maybe we could start with what are some of the mistakes that you see newer coaches making when it comes to their niche?

Oh, boy. I mean, not having one. Not having one. And I get it. Like, there's so much mindset drama that comes around. And also I say niche. I come from a bit of a French background, so I might. I'm gonna go with niche. You can say nich represent both sides. Yeah, I think I get all the mindset stuff that comes along with having trouble picking a niche because I went through it when I started. So I think just the resistance to choosing one is one of the biggest mistakes, if we want to call it that. I think that eventually coaches get there. It's just unfortunate. Sometimes it takes them too long to get there. And I see many coaches quitting before they kind of get to see the power of what niching really does. And so, yeah, it's just unfortunate. I've seen a lot of people quit because they've tried to have these really broad, broad niches, and it's not working. And they're like, I'm just not cut out for this. And really, it's nothing to do with them or how good they are at coaching or how cut out they are for business. It's just kind of this detail that needs to happen to keep them moving forward.

Yeah, just a small detail. Like, people don't know what you're talking about.

Small detail.

Why even have this conversation around niche? Because I think some people see coaches who are broader or coaches who have been in the game a while. So at this point, they're. They're. They serve a broader audience. They're like, well, that person doesn't seem niche in the way that I'm hearing to niche. So why is it important when you're starting to even do this work?

Yeah, there's always the examples of coaches that have, you know, just sort of do general coaching and have huge audiences. But it's like, not everybody is Tony Robbins not right. It's like, there's other factors. Sometimes those people come from an entrepreneur, entrepreneurial background, and they just know how to market themselves. Sometimes they actually started small and then expanded. Sometimes they just threw a ton of money at, like, a huge marketing agency. Like, you're like, you actually have no idea kind of where they came from, but they are few and far between. My question for people who come to me when they've been like, I'm trying. You know, I've been trying for a few years, and I really don't want a niche. I'm just like, well, how's that working out for you? You know, like, if that's not. If having this really, really broad niche is not working because no one really knows what you do, then, like, why don't we just try this new thing and see if it works? And, you know, people stress about choosing the niche, and I'm always like, you know, what's. You know, they're like, oh, I don't want to. Like, it's not going to be fun for me. I'm going to feel narrowed in. I'm like, you know, what is fun is making money in your business and, like, not feeling like a failure all the time. That's fun. And you're still getting to coach people that you love working with, getting paid, and sort of once they can kind of flip that switch for people, I think, you know, they come around to trying it out, at least.

I. I do think it's easier in a way when nothing's working, because it's like, well, failure is sort of the default. Like, I'm not getting clients. So in my mind, it might feel like I'm eliminating potential clients, but I'm not getting clients. You can't go down from here. I think it can be harder when folks are like, all right, I've worked with these 12 clients. I'm trying to find what they all have in common.

Oh, yeah, no. Bad approach. Bad approach. Don't do that. No. Because then what you're trying to do is, like, you find that common thing. And, like, I've seen. You've probably seen this too. Seen. So many coaches think they found the common thread, and they're like, it's all about connection. And then they're, like, zooming. They have to, like, zoom out to incorporate the language of, like, six different people, and then they're still talking about something that nobody understands. So I totally get wanting to find the common thread, and it doesn't Usually work.

Yeah. It might be that 20% of your clients, you want to multiply and you're looking for more of them and you're looking for what they have in common.

Yeah. I also want people to look at who has paid them, because you and I probably both work with newer coaches where often they've been like, practice coaching or beta coaching or just kind of coaching anyone they can on anything. And so whenever I have a client come in, they're like, well, I've coached 20 people, blah, blah. I'm like, who has paid you? And they're like, okay, well, two people paid me and they were both needed career coaching. And I'm like, okay, so great, let's look at that. Because there is a big difference. I love practice coaching. I think everyone should be just coaching as many people as possible when they're starting. But there's a big difference between who's paying you and who's just, like, coming along for the ride because it's some free coaching.

Yeah. Follow the money. To a certain extent.

I know, and I know it's hard for people to hear that because they feel like, well, I'm not in this for the money. And I'm like, good, because there's much easier ways to make money than starting a coaching business. But I think what's. What people need to get their head around a bit is that the. The people who paid you, you're still doing the same coaching work with them. You're still getting into all of the. The coaching stuff. There was just a really clear entry point for them. So it's not that you're coaching them on something that you, like, hate or never want to coach about. Like, you're still getting into all the deep stuff with them. It was just easier to get them in the door because you had a niche. So you still get to do all the same work, your same process. You use all your tools, coach people towards this transformation. You still get to do all of that within a niche. It's not like you're dropping all of that just because you've niched into something.

Yeah. Like, what's the right channel for you? That they can say, okay, this person's credible, and it's a problem that I want solved. How do you think about this idea of. Sometimes people will come to me, they'll say, I'm passionate about this thing, but then my expertise is here, and then I think I can charge the highest prices here. And those are three different things. You know, for example, there was a client recently who was like, should I do career coaching where executive coaching, I feel like I'm more credible and I could probably charge higher prices. So I think sometimes people feel torn between the passion and these other factors. How do you help people prioritize those?

I know it can definitely be tricky. A lot of people seem to want to throw out their expertise when they come, when they come to coaching. I don't know if you've found this because people are often coming from an old career that they like want to do away with and they're like starting, starting this new thing. And so they're like, well, I used to be in like corporate. I don't want anything to do with that anymore. Or like I used to be a, you know, a professor and I don't want anything to do with academia anymore. And they're like really discarding a whole lot of credibility and expertise that they could use that, you know, just because they're coaching people in corporate, they're not working in corporate. So it's a totally different thing. But you still have the knowledge, the language, you know, the know how of how that all works that you can really use to bring people in and build your credibility. So I say, like, don't throw out your past experience. Bring it in and know that like you're just working with it in a different way. You're helping those people who are maybe stuck in corporate like you were. You're helping them. You are not going back to corporate. So I always say expertise and then where people are paying you. Sometimes the passion has led people to niches that just don't. It's just not something that people are investing in. And so I think that's a hard one to follow because you're kind of, you can get stuck a little bit too much in it. I don't want anyone to choose a niche that they hate. Like, you know, you're not just going to choose something randomly because you're like, there's money there. But I think if your passion is coaching, you can really get behind the passion of like helping people shift their mindset and their beliefs and where they're going in their life. And you can do that in any niche. And it's hard to, it's hard to grasp. But once you start coaching people in a niche, you start to realize you're doing all of that work anyway. So I say follow the expertise and the problems that people are paying for and hopefully there's some, you know, ideally there's some passion in there too.

Yeah, it needs to be enjoyable. At least there's some minimum threshold. I agree. And passion is fickle because then you're going to constantly, as you evolve, you change, then you're changing the whole business. And that can be tricky.

Yeah. And you're going to change your passions many times in your life and you, you know, you're not going to throw away your whole business every time your passions change. And like, there's a whole lot of space for passion outside your business. That's sort of, you know, what I came to. I was trying to squish a whole bunch of things in at the beginning and just got to realize, you know, what if I can build myself a career that like, I like the people I work with, I generally like what I'm doing and I have a lot of free time and space for all the other things I want to do in my life. Like, that's, that's great. That's better than most people are doing in life. I think so, Yeah. I think we, we think that we need to fit the things into the business. And it's like, I really want to support people in building a business that gives them a life outside of business to do all the other things that don't make sense to squish into the business.

I like that because it's almost like saying, I'm going to have this partner that I'm married to. They must provide everything for me. Like they have to do all the same activities I do. That's a lot of pressure on one person. I think it can be easy to put that on our business too. Oh, this business has to bring me my joy, my energy, my creativity, all of it. And now that's a lot of targets to hit.

It's a lot and it's not. Your business isn't fun a lot of the time. Like a lot of the time you're just doing bullshit work, behind the scenes stuff, tech stuff that you really don't want to be getting into. You know, there's a lot of, like, it's work still. And so you don't want all your passions to be in this thing because if it doesn't work well, then, like, what are you left with? You know, I think it's like, it's, it's fun to get into the business side of things and it's fun to have lots of stuff outside of that.

Mm, agreed. I, I remember reading one of your posts and it was about two different approaches to niching. One, the person kind of did a lot of journaling and it's like They're a year in and like, all right, I'll try this. And then another person was iterating much more quickly. So can you talk about kind of the importance of this? 70%. I love this idea. Like, 70% good on the niche and then take action.

Why is that even I'm 50% these days. I'm like, if it feels like sort of okay, then like, go, go for it, I think. And you probably see this too with your clients, but I see so many people come in who are like, I've been trying to figure out the niche for years. I've done like every ideal client avatar exercise and I, you know, have like done meditations on it. And like, my journal is full of notes and I'm like, great. How many people have you worked with? And they're like, none, because I can't figure it out. And I'm like, okay, wrong approach. Because you can't think. You can't. You just can't think your way into the right niche. You really have to be working with people to see. See how it feels. Sometimes you can journal for a year and be like, okay, I've got it. And then you go and work with someone in that niche and you're like, oh, my God, this is all wrong. This is not. This is not what I thought it was going to be. So the faster you can just get working with different people in different niches, the faster you're going to figure out what actually feels good, where people are the most engaged, who stays on the longest and wants to keep working with you. You know how long it takes to get them results. You just get answers to that so much faster when you're actually doing it. So if you have a niche idea that you're sort of like, maybe on, then I say go and grab three people and coach them. And you'll know sooner than if you think on it for the next six months or a year.

That's so good. Yeah. Because so much of the niching work, the high quality niche work, is done in hindsight. Looking at who, like, who paid you that you enjoyed working with, that got a lot of value. So you need to have that bank of data to work with.

Yeah. Yep.

Yeah. So one of the things that I see is folks who have a more intangible niche and they look at business coaches like you and me and say, well, that's easy to quantify the value because you're a business coach. But that's not what I want to be. I want to work on the mindset and the inner work. And I'm curious how you. How you work with that. Like, do you nudge people to be a little more tangible, realizing that there's going to be inner work along the way, or do you have a way where they can show the value of something that's intangible?

Yeah. I really love to bust this myth that you need to, like, coach other coaches or coach businesses to be successful, because it's just not true. I think a lot of people when they're starting their coaching businesses, they're searching for business help. And so they see other coaches who are coaching coaches. And so it's like this confirmation bias where you're like, see, these are the only people who are successful, but you're not Googling relationship coaches and you're not Googling career coaches. So, like, you're just not seeing. Seeing the other niches out there. I definitely say I push towards more tangible, but tangible isn't just like, you're gonna make more money. Like, to me, what's tangible is whatever your clients are saying they want. So if your clients are like, I'm just feeling, whatever disillusioned in life. I'm, like, not sure what I want. I'm, like, looking for direction that's tangible. That's something that they're looking for. So it's not that it has to be, you know, we've got these boxes of, like, career coaching, relationship coaching, health coaching, and business coaching. Right. It's not that it has to be, like, in this box, but it has to be that the way that you're talking about your. What you're going to give people is what they are actually saying they want. And that's usually where things go awry with the intangible niches. It's like, coaches kind of stay in this area of, like, coach speak, basically, like, authenticity, and we're going to bring you more passion or, like, they've got this language, but the clients are over here saying something different. And even though they want the same thing, they're not aligning when you're marketing this other thing. So I feel like as long as you're using the words that your clients are actually using, it's tangible enough. So I've definitely worked with people in more mindset niches. I think the interesting thing about niches like that, like, the mindset niches are if you really start, like, interviewing people or coaching people, you start to find that the mindset help they need is in a specific context. It's like something that's going on that continues to happen in their relationship or in their work. And so it's not just that they're like, I have mindset issues. It's like, it's always showing up in an area with context. So that's why I think the practice coaching we're talking about is so important, because you start to see when people come into you where they're having those mindset issues and, like, where people are the most drawn to actually get coaching for those things.

Yeah. Very few people are working on mindset for the sake of working on mindset.

Yeah. Right. Unless you're a coach, you're like, okay, I'm aware of all these mindsets. Mindset issues I have, that's a little bit different. But most people who aren't coaches sort of aren't that aren't on that trajectory.

What would you say to someone who is wanting to pivot the business or the niche, work with different types of people on different things? How can they do that in a graceful way, if at all? What would you recommend?

Yeah, I just. I think looking at why they're getting restless is important because sometimes it's people who are, like, you know, just getting bored, like, genuinely just not interested in coaching their niche anymore. Like, I'm sick of coaching these people. I don't want to be doing this. I have this new idea, like, fine, move on. But I think it's easy to get restless when your business is kind of just, like, rolling along. I feel like we. I don't know, I see this a lot. And being in the industry and kind of following other people, it's like you see other people constantly growing and growing and growing and growing, and then you feel like you have to constantly be going this. And if. When your business is just kind of, like, stable, I think that's a great place to be. When your business is just rolling along, clients are coming in. It doesn't feel like too much work. There's not like this big buzz of, like, this new thing that you're doing all the time. People can take that as, like, I'm getting bored. I need a new niche. Which it doesn't always mean. Right. Sometimes it's like, maybe I just need, like, a new way of coaching these people. Or maybe like, my programs need a bit of a shakeup. Or I need, like, you know, to evolve my niche a little bit. Like, I'm getting people more experienced. I need to shift into that so it doesn't always have to be like, a whole niche flip. So I think doing some work for yourself and figuring out why you want to make the shift is important. But if you do genuinely are like, I'm over this niche. I don't want to do it anymore. I think if you've been in the game for five years and it's working, you probably have enough of a sense about, like, how would I market this new niche. But I'd say, before you go and blow up your whole business, test it out. Do go back to beta testing, Put some feelers out and say, I'm like, you know, exploring, coaching a new audience, looking for three or four people to coach in this area and like, try it out, see, see how it feels. You might have this renewed energy for it, or you might be like, it's kind of just the same as the. It's kind of just feels the same as coaching the other people. So test it out. And if you do want to make that shift, I mean, you probably have the skills to start shifting your marketing, shifting who you're talking to, and kind of building up that audience as you transition out of the other one.

That makes sense. I. I feel like, to use the relationship analogy before, I think something can happen in business where there's like that passionate love. Like in a new relationship you have the first year where you're just so excited, and that's a different type of love than someone you've been with for 10 years. It sort of settles down. It's a different type of partnership, but it's less exciting. And so I think sometimes we make changes in our business just because we're, like, we feel bored or create a problem, but there may not be a problem to solve, which goes back to your idea of, like, if you have another life outside of the business, you just have to make sure the business serves these roles for you.

Yeah. And one thing that I see, this might happen more with newer coaches, but one reason that I see a lot of people shifting is that it's feeling hard. It's like, oh, like these clients aren't coming in. The marketing's feeling hard, and it's not going to be any easier with a new niche. Like, it's gonna. You're gonna have to do the same marketing, the same kind of, you know, once you get that initial influx and then things usually kind of level out. It's like, that's gonna happen and no matter. No matter what niche you're in. And so you're probably just gonna get to the same place maybe in another five years, maybe sooner, with a new niche. And so feeling having it feeling hard is not necessarily a reason to shift niches. It's going to be harder to switch than it is to just keep rolling. Because as you niche in, you start to fine tune and really understand your audience way more. Especially when you coach people, you start to really get a sense of what's going on for them, the language they're using. And so starting fresh, it's like you have to do all of that background foundational work. Again, just not necessarily going to make it easier.

This is putting you on the spot a little bit. But are there people who you've seen successfully pivot or broaden out their business after they had something that was working?

Yeah, I have. Definitely. They got really good at marketing, though, in their first business. So the people who I've seen do that successfully, like, they really grew something that worked and so they, like, understood. I feel like everyone who has a successful business, like, could be a business coach because you just learn how to do it right. And so they had an advantage because when they expanded, they already had an audience who loved them. They. The person I'm thinking of specifically, she had a copywriting agency. So she came in as a coach. She ended up doing copywriting, but kind of with a coaching angle to it. Like a lot of experience, exploratory work to help develop people's copies. She built a whole agency with other writers, and then she blew it all up and she went to sort of more general. I think she was doing business coaching, but like, with a really spiritual, intuitive approach, kind of very broad. So it wasn't a totally different niche. It was still working with business owners, but just in a totally different way. And, you know, she had an audience of people who knew her and loved her and were kind of just like interested in whatever she was doing. And she knew how to market because she'd been doing the copywriting thing for like eight years or something. So it does. It does happen. It can happen. You know, I don't think there's. I think if someone wants to switch to their niche, go for it. As long as you know what you're getting, as long as you know what you're in for, which you should be if you've already done. But if the other thing is, if you've done it once, it's. It is faster because you understand the things that you need to learn, you understand the steps in the process to getting to clarity.

That makes sense. So, okay, so the other thing I wanted to chat with you about was this idea of identifying with your business or like putting your self worth into your business. And I think this shows up in a few different ways for people. It can be like you have a good month, you feel successful, you have a bad month, you feel like a failure. Especially achievement oriented people. This happens to me and I think it can show up in other ways of like, well, I don't want to niche because that's not authentic to who I am because I'm all these things things. And so if you feel that you are the business, it's going to be very hard to choose one person to serve with one problem. How do you think about this idea of detaching your identity from the business that you run?

So I actually keep like my business and my personal side pretty separate. Like I find like I'm not talking a lot about my business in my day to day life. I don't like post business things on like my personal Facebook or my personal Instagram. Um, like it's all pretty separate. I find it's like I have this like online business Persona and then like just me in regular life and like they're not really that connected. And I think that's helped because it's like my business isn't the only thing that I do. It's not the only thing that I get joy from and feel accomplished in. And so I sort of like have these other things outside of it. But a big one for me for sure is not. I try not to follow a lot of what other people are doing. Like in terms of my competition. I shut that down pretty early on because every time I would see, see people like growing and launching a new thing and like hitting these successes, I would feel like I had to be doing that also. But in reality I was really happy with this like steady thing. I've been running the same program for, since 2014, so that's like almost 10 years. Like one program. Been selling it since then and I'll see people like, you know, launching these whole new things and I'll be like I should, oh, I should do a membership also. I should do this, I should do a mastermind. And so I've had to just shut down following along because it just fucks with my head to be honest. So I think that's a really big one. Is just not not getting obsessed with other people are doing and really getting clear for yourself on what is important. Because I don't want to create a new program. Program I have works very well. I like running it. It's, you know, it's evolved a little bit. But I. I get to run my business in a way that gives me all of these other things outside of the business. And so I have to really look at, like, what's important to me. For some other people, it's like these huge jumps and milestones. And for me, it's actually like, just having something that's stable, that I, like, can rely on, that will make me enough money and give me enough freedom in the rest of my life.

I like this idea of the more balance you have or the more you have your identity outside of the business, the easier it is to detach. And the comparison, I agree, is such a killer.

Yeah. Yeah, it's really hard, especially when you're new, because you're just seeing everyone successful and you're not seeing that everyone else is, you know, all the other new people who are struggling. The other thing that was helpful for me and a coach I was working with kind of told me to do this, was really looking at the numbers versus, like, how you feel about things. Because I've been in business 12 years now. We have been consistently growing. And, you know, there's just years, sometimes months, sometimes years where I feel like we're just not doing well, where I'm like, I don't know, like, the launch didn't seem like it went that well, and, like, I'm just kind of in, like, a down place in my business. And she's like, well, what's your revenue been? And I look and I'm like, same as last year. Like, things are fine. Things are fine, but I have a feeling that it's not going well. So, like, being able to really look objectively at what's going on and realize, like, it's my energy that's not in it. It's not, like, a thing that's happening in the business. And so, like, I can shift my energy and it'll feel great again.

Do you feel like your motivation and feelings around the business fluctuate a lot, or is it pretty much just solid?

No, they fluctuate a lot. Yeah. My business is run sort of seasonally, so, like, I do two big launches a year, and then the rest is sort of running on Evergreen. And so in launch time, I'm, like, super in it. Love it. Get all inspired to have these new ideas. I'm like, we're gonna create all these things we're gonna, like. I get really, really into the business. And then, you know, summer comes, and I'm outside in the mountains more. And it's like, sometimes I. I'm not working that much during the summer. I have a team now, obviously that's doing things for me because I've been doing this for a long time. But even when I was starting I would kind of have these cycles of like really intense periods and then periods where I felt like I didn't even have a business and then really intense periods. And I like that, that really works for me. I never was some, I couldn't be consistently the same. That's why I could never do a 9 to 5 job. Like I wanted something where I could be like all in and then sort of all out and then all in again. But it definitely fluctuates and when I am in kind of a lull, it tends to be when I'm not in the business that much. And so I know the launch is coming up and so I know there's going to be something to reconnect me to like everything that I'm doing.

I like how you set it up that way because it matches just your natural energy with the cycles of the business. I think that's probably one reason I've struggled is like wanting, having this expectation that I will be consistent but having seasonal energy with a non seasonal, non launch based business. And so I like that.

Yeah. And I think it's okay that I always get the question from my students and when I do a webinar and things like that, people are like, you know, what is, how do you schedule your days? Like what does your calendar look like? And I'm like, you do not want to see my calendar. It's like not, I'm not a, it's not organized stuff is not super far planned in advance. It's not like I'm like, I get up at 8 and I meditate and then I do three hours of team meetings and then I have Wednesday where I write my posts. Like it is not like that. It's very much still like fly by the seat of my pants. Like, oh shit, I gotta get this thing done for one day kind of, you know, I have to plan a little bit more now because I have a team that's relying on me to send them stuff. But I think it's, you have to understand your own way of working and your own energy and just be okay with it. Because it's really hard to force yourself into a box of like setting a consistent schedule. If that's not how you typically operate, if that's not how you operate in your, the rest of your life, you're not going to operate like that in business. So Better to just not force yourself into that box and figure out what your cycles look like and then design your business around those cycles.

Yeah. I think that one of the challenges I've had, maybe someone listening will have a similar thing that I'm finally starting to figure out is the problem is not the seasonal motivation fluctuations. The problem is the story that you should 100% of the time be ultra passionate about your business. And if you're not feeling motivated, something's wrong with the business and needs to change. And I think whenever I'm in that place of like, oh, I should change my business, I should change my niche, because if I had the right one, then I would be more motivated all the time is potentially a red herring.

Absolutely. Yeah. Same with being consistent, right? There's this sort of like, you need to be consistent. You need to publish a blog post every Tuesday at 9am and so everyone knows when it's coming. I'm like, what? Like, no, it's, it's not. First of all, that doesn't work for everybody. I have a lot of students who have chronic illness, who have five kids. Like, it's just lots and lots of different life things, working full time jobs and so like you don't need this like week by week consistency in that way. I've had periods. I actually had someone call me out on it. They're like, I can't remember if they emailed me. They might have been one of my students. They're like, I noticed you only wrote four blog posts last year. And I was like, hmm, okay, good to know. Thank you. Better get writing right. But it didn't matter. It didn't matter. I just think. Yeah, I think exactly what you said. I think the, one of the reasons people quit, like we were talking about earlier or think they need to change is because they've lost motivation. And there's so many reasons for that. Outside of like that you chose the wrong niche. It's probably not that. When you find that that's the case for you, how do you get the motivation back?

I think you just have to wait it out and pour into yourself outside of the business. And like I said, I've had an evernote on this for years because predictably for years I would have maybe two times a year for two or three where I'd go through these dips and it would be like something's wrong. Obviously because I, I'm usually a productive person. I can't get shit done. And so I would finally started documenting it and really it's Just trusting like, oh, I'm not motivated right now. Later I will be. This has happened for 10 years.

Yeah.

And I can't really predict it except that I've noticed that just letting, usually it happens as a result of getting attached to something or getting in comparison and then getting frustrated. So letting go of excess expectations and just like forgiving, accepting whatever happened and then doing fun stuff outside of the business to get myself juiced back up usually will bring me back into a motivated.

And this is the problem with having like your business be your only passion and all the passions in there. It's like when that's not working and you're not feeling motivated, it feels like way bigger than it needs to be because you haven't left space for all those passions outside. So yeah, I also find having something like having this launch that I know is coming up helps because I'm like, it's okay that I'm in this dip because like I'm gonna have to get back into it in the fall and I get really motivated by like project based things like having a launch or doing, doing a flash sale, something like that. Like, I love having like a cash injection in the business. And so I do find it's helpful when I'm in that lull, knowing that there's something that's gonna force me to get back on the train.

That makes sense. That makes sense. Do you feel like it's harder for people with a personal brand to kind of detach from the business versus someone who's the brand? Is like you're the, I mean, you sort of are the brand, but it is the uncaged.

I'm still the brand even though it's not my name.

You think that creates like if we ran like a landscaping company, would it be easier to disidentify or is that, do you think, just a myth?

I think that we probably wrap a lot more self worth into it when we're the brand. Because like when people don't hire us, they're not hiring like me specifically. They don't like me. Whereas like if you have a friend in town who sells dry dried chiwi. Chiwi, her business, her company's called Chiwi. She sells dried kiwi chips and pineapple chips and she, you know, is working all the time. She's amazing. They're getting all their products into like Costco all over the US and Canada. She's killing it. And I see her working all the time, but you know, I feel like if chiwis aren't selling at a Certain grocery store, you know, she's not like, people hate me. It's like, okay, well, they didn't like the flavor of this new pineapple we're using. The, you know, something with the positioning in the store was off. Like, there's these, like, external things that she can objectively look for as, like, what the problem is. But when it's us, it's like, they just hate me. There's no. It's harder to kind of look, take ourselves out of it and be like, okay, the marketing was off. I didn't get visible enough. Like, there's still these external things, but, like, we kind of don't see those because we're just so focused on how we feel about it.

Any actions or suggestions for people listening to this? Maybe something that they could take away from the interview and go do?

Yeah, I mean, I think especially for anyone struggling with niching, the thing that's really helped me when I started and a lot of my students is this idea of just, like, picking a niche for now and thinking of your niching when you're starting as, like, I'm going to create one program for this one really particular audience, and I'm going to sell it so I can get some money coming in. And then, like, I have full permission to shift that or expand it or do whatever I want. But the faster that you can start making money, the more motivated you're gonna be. Right? Because if you're putting things out there and no money's coming in, you just feel like it's never gonna work. But as soon as you start getting paid for something, it's like, ah, okay. This isn't, like, all for nothing. And so choosing just, like, a niche for now and making it, like, really narrow, way more narrow than you want it to be, and just knowing that it's like, it's just for now. Becca said it's a niche for now. I'm gonna do this for six months. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna get paid by five people. Then you can make decisions about, you know, what to do as you move forward. You're probably not going to want to switch your niche if you start getting paid in it. But I like that, that mindset shift of, like, this is not this thing that we're developing for the rest of our business. It's just like, how can I create a program for an audience that's in front of me who I know is able and willing to pay for this so I can start to get paid and feel good about my business and learn how to market and learn how to sell. Like you have to develop all those skills and so you need to be working with people. So niche for now. I think if you can take away one thing is a good place to be put on a sticky note on your wall. It's like it's just for now.

It's not forever just for now. Yeah, I mean sometimes I'll say we're not even niching your whole business. Just create a niched offer, you know?

Exactly. Yeah. Get some paid people in the door. And sometimes I even tell my students like, they're like, oh, I have these two niches. I'm like, great. Pull both of them in. Coach both of them. Really narrow niches, totally different. Go out into your different audiences that you have or you know, groups you have in your world and like bring both of those people in and just coach both of them and see how it goes. Two niches for now if you need.

Love it. Awesome. Thanks, Becca.

Great. Thanks, Greg.