Do you ever wonder why you’re not getting clients?
It could be that you’re missing out on people because your niche is too broad.
In other words, you’re trying to help too many people, and you’re missing everyone.
It’s the old “If you chase two rabbits, both will escape” Chinese proverb at play…
Meaning, if you put your efforts into trying to fulfill two goals at the same time, you likely won’t succeed in either one.
Are you scared to go too ‘specific’ in your niche, because you might miss out on helping people?
You’re not alone. I’ve talked to a lot of people recently who are really struggling to choose their niche.
They either don’t know where to start…
Or they have chosen a niche, but now they don’t know if they’ve made the right decision.
They’re doubting themselves.
They’re struggling to know whether this person even will pay their money or whether this person even exists…
I also struggled with this for years and tried to be ‘all things to all people’ before realising… It just doesn’t work.
There are two things you can have when it comes to your ideal client – either a broad niche or a micro niche.
It’s very rare to go too micro, or too specific. Most people are going way too broad.
So we want to look at how can we get a micro niche – a smaller group of people who you really going to target and help make the most difference for, as opposed to trying to be everything to everyone.
Saying that our niche is women from 30 to 40 living in Sydney- that’s not a micro niche, that is a massive group of people.
So, why is it important to have a really clear ideal client?
And how do you decide and make it work?
5 Reasons Why It’s Important To Choose A Micro Niche:
I’ve packaged it up into the ‘NICHE’ acronym, just for fun! 😉
N – Narrower focus
When we’re too broad with our niche – meaning we try and help people with lots of different types of problems to get lots of different types of results, we don’t get very good at helping a specific group of people.
We get a ‘little bit good’ at helping lots of different types of people.
But people pay for mastery. People don’t pay good money for generalists, they pay good money for specialists.
For example, if you had a problem with your shoulder for a long time, you can’t figure it out and it’s really causing a lot of pain, you’re probably not going to go to a GP. You would probably want to go to a shoulder specialist – someone who’s expertise is shoulders.
I was talking to a lady today who is looking for a coach and asked me if I do career coaching. Even though I could help her, it’s not the main thing I’m good at so I referred her to someone else.
We don’t want to just take on everyone. You want to think “I’m really good at this specific thing” and stick with it. And get really, really good at it.
You’ll get better testimonials, you’ll get lots of results for people in that area and then you become that ‘go-to’ person in that result or solution.
Having a narrower focus also really helps you when you sit down to write a piece of content or create a video.
If for example, I was thinking “Okay, I just want to help people be awesome. I want to help people to have an awesome life.”
I’m going to sit down with a blank piece of paper and probably think “What am I going to write about?” It’s really hard.
You dilute your message by writing about all sorts of different things and confuse your market.
I used to do this and it really didn’t work!
It was so much easier for me when I chose a micro niche. I narrowed my focus to Coaches, Trainers and Service-Based Entrepreneurs.
I stick with what I’ve done and I teach what I’ve done myself.
So having that narrow focus means that I’m attracting more people who I can know that I can really help.
If you do too many things, you confuse people. Plus, they assume that you’re not a master in any of them.
If you stick to one niche, will become masterful in a specific area (This is better than being ‘kinda’ good in lots of areas).
I – More Ideas
The second reason is for more ideas.
As soon as I choose a micro niche, I had more ideas.
When I was trying to do too much – I was trying to do mindset and business at the same time, it didn’t work.
As soon as I narrowed down more. I could really allow all my ideas to flow and I’ve never had so many ideas constantly downloading.
I’m very specific about the content I consume – it’s all content to help my ideal client because of the narrow focus.
You actually get MORE clarity when you narrow, which kind of sounds weird, but if I was trying to create a piece of content on, for example, how to be empowered. I wouldn’t really have a lot of clarity about where to start.
Or, if I just call myself a life coach – where do you start? There’s no clarity, it’s quite confusing.
If you are more niched, people will know what to expect and be more engaged.
You’ll likely be more consistent with creating content that helps to solve one problem, so you’ll gain momentum.
You know exactly what to create content about. It means that your content will be really, really specific and helpful for that specific type of person.
H – Help more people
People think that if you narrow in, you’re going to help less people.
It’s actually not true. When you speak purely to your ideal client, it’s like a dog whistle that only a dog can hear.
So on Facebook, if people are scrolling, and you’re trying to you’re talking about empowerment, or how to up-level your life or how to fulfill your potential or how to improve your mindset, it’s too vague.
You can miss everyone.
But when you get specific, people think “Oh, she really understands me. My problem, my language”
So, you actually end up helping more people.
When you’re trying to be everything to everyone you can miss them all.
So if you just call yourself a life coach or a mindset coach, and you don’t have a specific problem or a specific solution that you offer, you’re actually going to help fewer people, which is kind of sad, because I’m sure that you’re really good at what you do and can help a lot of people.
E – Expert and Authority
When you choose a micro niche, you position yourself as an expert and authority in that area. You can’t be an authority on how to have an awesome life. Unless you’re Tony Robbins maybe. Or how to fulfill your potential, how to live your best life, how to step into your power. What does that even mean?
You can see what my pet peeves, right?? Only because I did it I tried to do it, and it didn’t work. I’ve used that language before. So if you use it, don’t worry you can still get some clients, but it would be small than if you position yourself as an expert and authority and choose a problem that you solve. And you just get really good at that.
I run a personal development event for women, it’s called Unleash Your Freedom, it’s a multi-speaker event.
When I invite guest speakers when I invite speakers to come and be a guest. I would never invite just a life coach, I will I get someone in who is a master in one area of life. For example, someone who’s a master at health coaching, a master at dating or relationships, a master at finances.
You’ll have more opportunities to speak, speaking, other people’s workshops other people’s events, other people’s stages, if you’ve really honed in one thing.
My one thing is influence, that’s the thing I want to be known for. that’s what I study, that’s what I’m passionate.
So what’s your one thing?
What’s your one topic?
There’s a great book on this, by the way, called the one thing by Gary Keller. It’s brilliant, I highly recommend it. He talks about this – people who are super successful they really focus on one thing.
And you might have a few things under that so under influence I have sales, marketing, packaging, presenting and the strategies that work for me to attract my ideal clients and influence others.
So you have an umbrella topic – it might be confidence, it might be addiction, it might be parenting and under that, you’ll have all your topics but you’re known for that one problem.
So just be clear on who you don’t work with because then you’ll really be able to better help your people and you will just have so much more fun!
The PEEPS Formula
So there’s a formula that I use as a checklist to help people decide “Who are my peeps?”
Once you have an idea of who you’d like to be your micro niche / ideal client, run them through this 5-step PEEPS checklist:
Rate each on a scale of 1 – 10 (10 being highest)
P – Passion (your passion about that type of person): Out of 10 –
E – Experience (your experience in helping solve their problem): Out of 10 –
E – Eagerness (their eagerness for the topic/subject/solution): Out of 10 –
P – Profitability (this is crucial): Out of 10 –
S – Skills (you are skilled to help these people): Out of 10 –
Does your ideal client meet each of these categories?
Perhaps you have a few different types of clients you want to work with. You can also use this checklist to help you pick one to start with. You can always add more later.
I was working with a guy recently and he had two different people that he wanted as his target market, both quite different.
So I said we’ve just got to just actually got to choose one to get started with. Because if you tried to do target markets at the same time, it’s very difficult.
I tried to do it, it didn’t work.
That’s why people don’t recommend it, because you split your focus too much.
So let’s say you decided you decided on your ideal client.
And you’re pretty sure that’s the one. You’ve run it through the PEEPS checklist.
Now here are 3 keys to really making this work:
1. Choose what problem you’re solving.
Something that I’ve noticed is that many people aren’t clear on the problem that they’re solving.
We need to lay that foundation first, because it becomes the bottleneck if you don’t get it right.
Nothing else will work in your business: your sales, your marketing, your branding – everything.
So you’ve got to get clear on the problem you solve.
People pay when there’s a cost. People pay when there’s a consequence for not doing something.
There’s only very small percentage of the population that pay to make their awesome life even awesome.
Most people pay because there’s a niggling frustration that’s annoying them, and they want to get out of that pain.
2. Be clear on who you don’t work with
A lot of people are really scared to do this because again, it’s excluding people.
I’ve really struggled with this personally, I didn’t want to exclude people I wanted to help everyone.
But I made a decision to stick with my ideal client – who is a service-based small business owner.
I don’t worth with product businesses. I don’t work with people that have a bricks and mortar store. I don’t work with people in corporate – all of those things I don’t understand as well as I do helping expert, knowledge-based small business owners.
I have a lot of people who contact me now, and I just tell them, I’m not the right coach for you. Let me help you find someone who is. I did it today.
Decide who you don’t want to work with. Kind of like your ‘anti’ avatar. The opposite of what you want.
Write it out. Make sure you include all the things you don’t want to attract.
For example:
I don’t want to attract time wasters
I don’t want to attract people who can’t afford my services
I don’t want to attract people who willing to invest in themselves
I don’t want to attract people who aren’t committed,
I don’t want to attract people who aren’t teachable and aren’t going to take actions and follow through.
3. Let everyone know who your ideal client is
So, put that out there and your marketing, who you’re not going to work with.
So don’t just say “I’m a health coach”.
Say, “I help this type of person to get this type of result and solve these kind of problems”.
Put it in your Facebook
Put it on Instagram
Put on your website
Put it on your LinkedIn
Put it everywhere. Let everyone know who your ideal client is.
Many people are afraid to do this. Maybe they’re scared of losing clients. Maybe they’re scared of losing money.
But I guarantee that if you stick to this, you will attract the right people and you will have a bigger impact.
You’ll also make more money and have more fun!
Are you happy with the number of clients you have?
Maybe you’re not sure who your ideal client is?
Or you have created a program but you’re not sure what to do with it?
Or you’re clear on your ideal clients, but now you need to know how to attract them?
Would you like some help?
This is what I help people just like you with… and I’ve opened up a small number of spaces for a FREE brainstorming session for you this week.
You can go here to claim a brainstorming session — if you’re having trouble getting clarity and knowing what to focus on, I suggest you take advantage of this before the spaces fill up.
This is available for first-time sessions only.
It really sux to feel like you’re wasting time and not getting the results you want… I can help you to change that if you’d like?
Kat 🙂
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