The REAL secret to finding your niche as an entrepreneur.

I have talked a lot about finding your niche and choosing the best niche for you over the years, but I’ve never talked about it like this. When I shared my journey last week of how I built my business and how I’ve really figured out my lane, there were a few comments about the fact that it took me five years to get here. And I would argue and say that it’s taken my entire life to get here, and it’s constantly evolving. Your niche is never going to be a perfect box. It’s never going to be something that you can just check off and move on. When I talk about the idea of niching down to blow up, which I do think is really important for any business, it’s a constant process and journey of continuously tweaking and narrowing down your focus. So it’s taking the pressure off of it from being absolutely dead on the spot or right off the bat. But there is something that so many people miss when they’re figuring out what niche they want to hone in on. And a really great example of this is Apple.

Apple did an incredible job, not just being another computer brand, but being a brand that tapped into the intrinsic thing that their ideal client wanted to achieve and who they wanted to be. They wanted to be disruptors, they wanted to be rebels, they wanted to be different, they wanted to be unique, and they wanted to be able to create on their own terms and live a life on their own terms.

Now, love it or hate it, Apple is an aspirational brand. A lot of people want to have Apple products. And the reason is it isn’t because they make the best computers, it’s because they know who they’re targeting. And at the end of the day, working with a lot of different people and going through the process myself on a continuous basis, your niche really comes down to three things. What is the transformation that you’re providing, what is the thing you’re taking people from and to, and who are you providing it to specifically? And more importantly than that, where is that person on their journey that they would actually need to invest in whatever it is that you’re selling? So business is very simple. It’s solution plus demand. So you have to solve a problem, and that problem has to be in demand. But it may not be in demand by everybody, it may just be in demand by a very small group of people, and that is how you niche down to blow up.

So how do you figure out what the transformation is that you’re actually providing? Because I know that that sounds like a lofty question. Well, the reason I wanted to take you to one of my favorite places in Vancouver and get a little space and silence is because subtracting is such a massive part of this journey. And one of the biggest problems when you’re an entrepreneur is the comparison game and you’re constantly being fed what other people are doing, you’re constantly seeing success stories from other people. And so it’s really easy to get subconsciously influenced by that and feel like, “Well, I should do what they do.” But this is the thing. There are a lot of computer brands out there, Apple has stood the test of time and become this aspirational brand because they figured out personally what has happened too. And the only way to figure that out is to look at yourself and to truly tune in. And you can’t tune in when there’s a bunch of noise around you.

If you look at Steve Jobs, that dude was a disruptor. And he was amazing for his company and for his clients, and you ultimately are as well. Whatever makes you the most unique, whatever your unique experience is in your life or in your business, it’s going to influence the business you create if you want that business to stand out and to stand the test of time.

So for me, my niche has evolved because I’ve evolved, because I never stopped moving forward. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who recently started a business. I said, “There are so many moments along this journey where I’ve looked back and I really truly questioned how in the world I was going to keep going, how I was going to be able to make this business work.” And when you look at hindsight 2020, and when you look back, you realize you made it through because you didn’t stop. You just kept moving forward and you kept testing. And yes, I’ve had failures along the way, and yes, I’ve made a ton of mistakes, but every single one of those failures and mistakes has ultimately informed how to better serve my clients, who my clients are, and exactly where I need to meet them to know that they’re actually going to want to invest in what I have to offer, and subtracting in the sense that I don’t need to be serving everyone.

Being a generalist and trying to attract every person on the planet is not what makes a great business. Knowing the exact one person you’re trying to attract, who they are, how they think, and how they operate in the world, and ultimately the transformation that they desire who they want to become or what they want to become, that is your niche, and that is the most overlooked thing when you’re starting your business. And it’s okay to start from a place of, “Okay. I just want to start a marketing business,” or, “I just want to start a social media business.” That’s what I did. But through my own experience, I realized that there was so much more to it. I really wanted to create freedom for myself. I wanted to create a business where it didn’t work against me, it worked for me.

So after going through burnout, I really had to figure out how I would do that and reverse engineer the process. And once I was able to do it, I realized it was very in demand by a lot of other people, and I created the methodology that we have today and have helped a lot of people achieve that as you saw in last week’s video. And that has become my mission because I know exactly who I’m trying to serve. That is a niche, transformation is a niche. Something external outside of you, tactics, teaching, a skillset, that is not a niche. That is just something you do. I niche is a transformation, and ultimately you are your niche because there’s nothing that you can do or teach better than something that you’ve actually experienced for yourself or overcome for yourself.

So ask yourself a couple of questions. First of all, if you could talk about one thing for the rest of your life and get excited about it, and feel pumped up about it every time you talk about it, or when you go to a dinner party, what’s the thing that you get so excited to have conversation around? What is that thing? Because you never want to build a business on a short-term interest because you’re going to have to invest all of your time, money, and attention.

Warren Buffet always says, invest in things you actually care about. Well, there’s no bigger investment of your time, money, sanity, energy than a business. So what is it that you’re interested in? What do you spend hours researching? What do you get so excited and lit up when you talk about? That’s the thing. What’s a problem you’ve overcome for yourself? What is a lesson you’ve had to learn for yourself and you can teach others? What is the impact that you want to have on other people? What is the thing internally for you, this is a biggie, that you desire most? Who do you want to become, or who have you become that you’re really, really proud of? Because that is a thing that you can ultimately share and create an impact on others with.

So your niche is not out there, your niche is not what somebody else is doing, your niche is going to come from constantly moving forward, constantly testing, constantly learning, and constantly evolving. That is where your niche lies. It’s never going to come from trying to be perfect, it’s never going to become from trying to tick off a box, it’s never going to come from anything external. And that’s truthfully one of the biggest mistakes that I see on a regular basis. I wanted to share a quick story with you because I was having this conversation with a client of mine today actually, and she’s a videographer. And she said, “I just don’t know how to niche down. I feel like all I want to do is help videographers get more clients, make more money.” And that’s a really easy default for people to create a business around because making money is something everybody wants to do, but that’s an easy thing to teach ultimately. What’s deeper than that?

So I said, “Let’s take a step back. Who are you, and what brought you here?” She said, “Well, I’m a really big introvert, and I built my business completely by word of mouth. And then the pandemic hit and I had to bring my business online. I had to figure out how to create content online that was going to get attention where I can help people with editing services because I couldn’t shoot in person anymore. And I said, “Okay. Stop right there.” I said, “You said a keyword there that really stood out for me. You said introvert. That makes you, you. That makes you different. So a creative introvert, that is a really great niche. Creative introverts who need to market themselves and need grow their business, but aren’t sure how. That’s a niche, and that makes you different and allows you to stand out from anybody else. And another example of this is this woman who grew up very awkward and felt super uncomfortable in social settings, particularly when it came to dancing.

If you’ve ever been to a wedding or whatever, and you hate getting on of the dance floor, that was this woman. Grew up a teenager, super uncomfortable, hated going to dances, hated going to social functions, felt like she was missing out all the time, and she ended up becoming a pro dancer. And in the last eight months has built an entire business teaching adults who feel uncomfortable dancing in social settings, how to dance. And she’s grown it to nearly $100,000 in revenue from absolute zero over the last eight months.

So your niche is you. It has to come from here and it has to come from the transformation that your ideal client who is a mirror for you is ultimately desiring. If you can figure that out, you will build it like a superstar.

Are you with me?