What to do when you pick the wrong niche...

Sam. Hello and good morning or afternoon, wherever you are in the world. Hi, David and hi. Hi, Nell. Hi, everyone. I'm going live, just some housekeeping, to the Facebooks, to LinkedIn, to YouTube, to Twitter and to Instagram. So I have my phone and my computer. So I'm going to be switching back and forth the topic today that I want to talk about because this is such a huge fear that I hear so, so often from new business owners and folks who are thinking about starting a business, like, haven't quite done it yet, but are thinking about it. And hi, Terry and hi Sandy. So the fear is what if you get your niche wrong? Like, and for those of you who aren't necessarily clear on what niche is, your niche is basically a descriptor of who your ideal client is. Okay. Good morning, Danielle. Hello. So, yeah, so a niche. There's a lot of misconceptions about niches. A niche is not what you do. Okay, so so often I'll talk to a new coach and they're like, well, my niche is I do coaching. It's not. That's not a niche. That's what you do. Your niche is a descriptor of the types of problems that you solve and the types of outcomes that you provide. Okay? So for instance, if you are a coach, the niche is not that you help people through transitions. That's not a niche. That is just what coaching is. Your niche may be, you know, women who have kids who have gotten divorced and who want to find their next partner but need to find someone who would be a good step parent. Okay, really specific and maybe, maybe even add. They like live on a boat. You can add on different and high. Hi, welcome. So, yeah, so your niche is, is a description of who you help. All right. And it's okay to get it wrong. Okay. I personally got my niche wrong four different times before I landed on what I do now. The beautiful thing about picking a niche is that the universe has a great way of either affirming that you made the right choice or of redirecting you. Right? So if you. And here's the thing to remember also is no one's really paying attention. You think everyone's paying attention to you and they're tracking all your mistakes and they're, you know, really judging hard, like what it is that's going on in your life. They're not. People are consumed with their own life, okay? Everything that's happening in your life, they're not fussed about. So if you pick the wrong niche, like they may Register it when you change it, but probably not. So I want to share my story in picking a niche, and I want to make some, some points about why it's so important for you to pick a niche. Ultimately, if you don't have a niche, you're not going to have a business. Like, you're just not. You have to pick a niche because it's really hard to refer clients to you if you don't have one, right? So say you're like, you're a life coach. It's really hard. If you go around saying, hi, I'm a life coach. You know, the people you talk to, they might be like, oh, that's really cool for you, but who are they going to refer to you and how are they going to like, really sort for who's a good client for you? You know, if you go around saying, I'm a life coach, I help people do life better. Great. Like, your brain immediately goes to, well, who do I know who sucks at life, right? And then, okay, great, they suck at life. How do I tell them that they suck at life and that they need to work with this life coach? You know, the conversation there is really, really hard. Danielle. I assist executive women with multiple hats needing personal executive assistance. Just received my llc. Awesome. Yes. And I would even say, like, executive women, that's a very broad statement. You could even niche down further into maybe the industry that they work in or what level of executive leadership they're in. You know, are they in a male dominated industry or a female dominated industry? You know, is there an age, Are they also moms, are they single women? You know, do, do they really enjoy traveling? Are they nomadic? You know, executive women? There are so many ways that you can niche down and be more specific. Right? Because, you know, for instance, let's say you work with executive moms who also are digital nomads, and you help them, like, they be better at managing the boundaries of their work with taking care of their family on the road. That's really super fucking specific. And it's so specific. Like, you might not actually even know someone who fits that descriptor right now. However, I guarantee that the next time you meet someone who describes their life at all like that, you're gonna say, oh my God, I have a coach for you. Or I have, I have an assistant for you. Or I have someone who specializes in exactly what you do. And let me introduce you. It's just, it's so clear. It's so immediately clear. Okay, so it's. And here's the other thing is that when you specialize so specifically, you also get to charge more. Right. Because there aren't a lot of you out there. And because you specialize, you know, their problems and their desires inside and out, frontwards, backwards, sideways, whichever ways. So you will be able to command a higher rate for the work that you do. All right? And that's worth it. That's worth its weight in gold. So I want to share the story about how I picked the wrong niche and how I ended up doing what I do now. Yes. And, Danielle, I did do a questionnaire to make sure it's a need. Yes. My clients are teaching me, and I can contract other people for them. Glad I'm here to learn. Yes. Yes. And of course, like, picking a niche is a journey. All right? Some people get it right right off the bat, but there are people like me who had to, like, try a few different things and screw it up and be redirected by the universe. And it's all good. It's all good. Because here's the thing. You're never going to get to where you're meant to do, where you're meant to be until you try something now. Okay? You just have to try something. You have to put yourself out there and do it. So when I started my business, when I first got trained as a. Got certified, I. I was going to be a dating coach for men. I lived in San Francisco Bay Area. Dating was miserable, like, and I was like, you know, for the good of all women, all straight, you know, women in the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm going to go out, I'm going to solve this problem, right? I'm going, and I'm going to help these guys who genuinely want a relationship and are just going about it the wrong way. And I just went for it. I got business cards, I built a website, I went and networked. I market did the crap out of myself. And I did all this, you know, I don't know if you guys ever use that app Shaper. It was kind of like the Tinder of LinkedIn. So you would basically just, like, swipe through and find people who network with. And I would set up coffee chats. And I basically just introduced myself to absolutely everyone. Hi, Melanie. Absolutely everyone telling them, hey, I'm a dating coach for men. And, you know, just announced this to the whole world. And an really interesting thing happened. So I would announce I'd be at, like, a happy hour or something, and I'd announce I'm a dating coach for men when People would ask me what I'm doing, and I would get this reaction from women where they would literally put their hands on their hips and they'd get like, this, like, annoyed look on their face, and they'd be like, well, what about me? I want a dating coach. And I'd be so taken aback that I'd be like, oh, well, yeah, sure, if you want a dating coach, I'm happy to talk to you to see if we're a fit. And we'd set up a call and we'd, you know, talk through what they were wanting, and I'd really like them. And so they ended up being my clients. And I ultimately got, like, eight female clients and only one dude. So the universe had this beautiful way of kind of redirecting me that, like, dating coach. Dating coaching for men was not going to be my thing, right? I was going to, you know, it evolved me further. And the interesting thing that happened was that of the eight women that I signed as clients, only one of them actually stuck with the dating coaching topic. Okay? Everyone else evolved into needing executive coaching, right? Because how they were showing up at work, how they had shitty boundaries, how they were struggling to manage up and manage down, manage sideways, and all the ways was actually getting in the way of how they could even have a personal life, okay? So we ended up talking more and more about how they were being a leader at work and how they could really handle everything around them and how they could set boundaries and how they could really specialize in certain things. And through all this, like, I went back and I got some leadership coaching training, and, you know, it kind of evolved to liking that better, right? Because talking about dating all the time, that's a conversation that you really have to be psyched about and really interested in constantly to want to stick with. And to be honest, I got bored of it after a while, so. So then my business changed. It went from dating coaching for men to dating coaching for women to leadership coaching. And. Hi, Steven. Welcome. And so now I'm an executive leadership coach. And here's where I got a little vague, right? Because executive leadership coach and Danielle, I told you, like, you know, what you're doing right now could be seen as vague. This. I fell into this too. So I figured, okay, well, I don't want to turn anyone away, so I will just be a leadership coach. I won't niche down further. You know, there was a great need at the time for executive leadership coaches, so, I mean, I didn't struggle to get clients, but I didn't get to charge as much as I wanted to. I didn't get to charge as much as other leadership coaches who had a more defined niche. And that made a huge difference. Now in the background, I also had all my friends from coaching school reach out to me. I didn't have them. They just naturally did it. They reach out to me and they're like, wait a minute, how did you get clients? How are you getting people signing up with you? How are you making this much money? Like, you seem to be doing really well. You seem to have this pretty much like, you know, locked and loaded. How are you doing that? And I took for granted the fact that I'd had this whole career in sales and marketing before I got into coaching, right? And if you know anything about the coaching world, the advice that they give to new coaches is awful. To get clients, their advice is just go out and give free sessions to everyone and just like hope that they want to be your client afterwards. No, no, that does not work. If you want to be a coach, giving free sessions is not the way. If you like, that is the best way to attract a crap ton of freebie chasers into your life and some really low paying clients. Because what you're basically doing is announcing to the world, hi, everyone, I'm a coach. By the way, coaching is for free or cheap. So you've just trained everyone in your world that what you do for work is for free or for cheap, so why would they then pay for it? Right? It's not, not the way to start a business. Okay, So I saw this fairly early on and I was like, well, this doesn't work. Why isn't this working? And like, I got into this mind fuck of like, oh God, well, am I a bad coach? You know, because that's what happens. If you're told that it's so easy to go and get clients just by going out and giving away free sessions. And then you do that and you don't get any clients. Like, the only data you have is, well, it must be the quality of my coaching. And it breaks my heart when I hear new coaches come to me after they've been trying this forever and ever and ever because they're like, they're starting to really question if they have what it takes to be a coach, you know, and that's the last thing. That's, that's true. What's true is that what they were recommended to do to get clients sucks. It just, it's not effective. So when I realized that I was following bad Advice. I was like, wait a minute, I used to do sales for my living. Why don't I look back on what worked for me in those industries, all the different industries that I worked in, and apply it in some way to getting clients. And so I created a very simple framework. I call it holistic selling. But it's really just a relationship building way of getting clients. Like a very natural conversation where you're learning about this person and you're vetting them to see if they're the right client for you. And it's not a coaching session. It's not a free sample of whatever work you do. It's a genuine conversation to see if, like, there's synergy here. And then I started, like, really applying things I learned from my past, you know, careers into building my coaching business. Like how I structured my offers and how I marketed myself and like, all the different aspects of what you have to do. And so it's funny, my friends were seeing this and they were like, wait a minute, she. She seems to have parts of this figured out. And they started asking me to show them, and I was like, sure, yeah, absolutely. So I'd show them how to run a sales call, and I'd show them how to design their offer, and I would show them how to market themselves and how to go out and introduce themselves in a way that people would be like, oh, I think I need that. Things that I just knew from all these years doing what I had done previously and completely took for granted right now. I started noticing that my friends who would, you know, hit me up for this information and then go and use it, started getting clients, you know, and not just like cheap freebie clients. They would start getting high paying clients and it would work for them. And it got to the point where they were both telling me that I needed to start charging for it. And I really realized, like, I like doing this better because, you know, leadership coaching, sure, it's great. Like, you help people be better at work and that's awesome. But like, teaching people how to make money just from talking, it's like magic. Like, I felt like I was teaching alchemy, and I just want to say hi to a few people. Shendra, I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. Hello. Welcome. And Chuck Hannon. Welcome. Yeah, if you're gonna do it, just do it 100%. Chastity. Good morning. Welcome. Shalandra. True freebies cause people to just start with some serious losses. A hundred percent. Oh, my gosh, let me see. I don't know what that means. Try taking on rail cars in the rail industry. Sure. I don't know what that means, but great. I hope that was a code for something weird. Anyway, where was I? I lost the point. Oh. Oh. So. So I started off as a dating coach for men, ended up a dating coach for women, but not really ended up a leadership coach for women, and then became a leader, like a very vague, fuzzy leadership coach, and then kind of tripped and fell into teaching people how to start their businesses. All right? But I wouldn't have gotten to that final step if I hadn't first picked the wrong niche, okay? It took me picking the wrong niche to land in my second wrongly niche to land in my third wrong niche to land wrong niche to finally land in the niche that worked for me, where I was in my zone of genius, where I could have my most impact and where I could also make my most money, okay? So if you are afraid of picking a niche because you are worried you're going to get it wrong, let me tell you, go get it wrong, okay? Because the only way for you to get it right sometimes is to get it wrong a bunch of different times first, okay? And you're never going to get to the right one unless you go through that now saying that, like, a lot of people have to go through this. There are some who are incredibly lucky and they pick the right niche right off the bat. That could be you. That could absolutely be you. You could pick the right niche and immediately have success, okay? And I want that for you, but guess what? You're never going to get there unless you pick the fucking niche, okay? So go and pick the niche. I want to also acknowledge, like, if you're. If you're worried about picking a niche because you're afraid that you are going to scare off all these potential clients who aren't going to be able to work with you. Like, let's consider two things, all right? So let's go back to how easy is it for people to understand if you're useful to them or if you're useful to someone else, okay? So if you're just a life coach who helps people be less shitty at life, you know, like, that's. I don't really know who that. Who qualifies as shitty at life? And also, how do I refer them to you? And also, people don't like feeling like they're shitty at life, right? Thank you, Danielle. I got the applause from her over on the other screen explaining that to Instagram. Anyway, people don't like that. And also, like, no one's going to want to talk to their best friend and be like, sandra, you suck at life, right? You suck. And I think you need to work with this life coach. No, no, no, no, no. However, if you are, say, a sales and marketing coach who specializes in, let's say realtors who work in the residential arena who are in their first two years, that that's something that I can understand. And it might not be me, but I'll think, okay, well, who are the realtors that I know? And already this is a made up niche that I've just put in here. Into this conversation, I can think of three people I know who recently started working in real estate, you know, who could potentially use a coach to show them what to do and to be a sounding board for them, all right? It's so much more easy for people to refer business to you when they understand exactly who it is that you're useful to. Okay? So the things that you need to know are like the industry, the age or gender, if it's relevant, the problems that people typically have and the outcomes that they want, all right? That is your niche, all right? So if you're afraid of scaring away people, I say scare people away, all right? But it makes it so much easier for people to refer to you and to become your client when they understand, oh, you're useful to me or useful to me, someone else. Now, let's also consider the vast amount of humans that live on planet Earth. Okay? I looked it up this morning. We are currently at 7.888 billion humans. Okay? 7.888 billion. That is a lot of humans, okay? There's no way in hell you're gonna be able to serve them all. Okay? I actually did the math here. Let me find it. So, okay, so let's assume, let's assume that you got 500 clients each year, okay? You were able to have that capacity, and you're just charging them like $500 each to work with you or to be in your program. Now, and imagine you work for 30 years, all right? So 500 times 30 is 15,000 people, okay? By the way, you'd be making $250,000 per year, and I'm sure you could raise that with inflation. You know, let's not get nitty in the nitty gritty about that. But that's only 15,000 people, okay? And when I calculated this out, do you know what percentage that is of the whole world's population? It is 0.00019. Okay. It is a sliver. It is a tiny, tiny sliver of the amount of people that live on planet Earth. And by the way, I don't know a whole lot of coaches who could handle working with 500 people. Okay. Often a coach can build a very successful multi six figure business where he was only 30 people, all right. Paying a lot more than $500 a year. All right? So if you're worried about scaring away people who, you know could potentially be your client because you're worried that, you know you're not going to have enough clients, dude, like, you can't. Are you a vampire? Are you going to live forever? Like, let's just acknowledge that even if you were to live forever, there are only so many people are going to be alive right now. Right? We're going to be alive within this lifespan. For you to be able to serve, you're not going to be able to serve all 7.888 billion humans on this earth. So I want to take a deep breath and just let that go. Okay? What's going to be most helpful for you to find those people is to have a very clear defined niche so that they can find you. So they're like, oh my God. I have this sense that this person who's talking about these problems and these outcomes, she or he can help me or they, they can help me. Like that's, that's what you need to do. I talking about this because one of the programs that I, I mean this is something that I do with all my one on one clients. I help them get really, really detailed about who it is that they work with, how they help and figure out how they can go out in the world and start saying this, they attract clients. Last year I put out this program called build your own business. And in that program I break it down even further for, you know, people going through my group program. One of the things that I've been struggling with, with my own impact with my business is that even though I have this group, it's still a little too expensive for people who are just getting started. So I'm actually rolling out in a couple weeks. Byob build your own business beginner, which is going to be a much more approachable price point and it covers all the basics for new business owners to get started. So if you're in this realm of being afraid of picking a niche, not knowing how to pick the niche, like picking a niche and like not sure how to get out there and actually get clients with it, this is the program for you. So I have a wait list to get the first notification of when I open the doors. If you want to get on that wait list, then I want you to DM me. I will also put some of the links in the comments of these and you can just register for that list. You'll get email reminders coming up to the date. You'll also get some more details about the program. But here's what I want. I don't want you not knowing the next step and the next step and the next step preventing you from starting a business. Because I'm not going to be one of those coaches who's like, the only way to happiness and to freedom is to start your own business. No, no, no, no. Fuck that. You, you get to do you, you. Whatever. Whatever blend of income you choose to create in your life is best. But I am a firm believer that you have more safety and security the more income you have coming from different places. All right. If you're wanting to start even a side hustle that brings in more income in addition to your full time job, you should do it. Okay. In times of turmoil, which we're kind of in right now, it is safer to have more income streams than less. All right. If you're also wanting to build a business to full time, you know you have to start somewhere. And oftentimes, you know, new business owners or people who are just thinking about it, they don't have the confidence to go and spend a crap ton of money on a massive program that does all the things. They also don't need all the things right off the bat. They need the basics. They need to learn how to pick their niche, they need to learn how to market, they need to learn how to sell and a few other things like, you know, creating an offer and the back end stuff and that's it. And I've broken them all down into really simple steps. And of course there are in person or not in person, there are live group coaching calls. I wish they were in person, but that would be a little inconvenient for people all over the world. Be hard to fly to one specific spot two times a month. Anyway, if you're curious about this, please DM me. I'm happy to share more information and give you that link so that you can be the first. First to know when I open the doors. Otherwise, if you have any questions about picking a niche, if you have picked a niche and gotten it wrong, I'd love to hear about it in the comments. And with that, I have to go. I have a meeting in about eight minutes I need to prepare for. I want to say thank you to everyone who joined. So David Fryman, Nell Raiser, Terry, Sandy, Melanie, and then transformational psychologist. I'm not sure what your name is, but I love your username. And then over on LinkedIn, Danielle, Shalandra, Steven, Chuck, Chastity, Big Da and I think that's it. All right for everyone. Thank you for joining. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. I will talk to you soon and have a lovely Monday.