If you are struggling to make sales all, it's probably not because your market
is too small. In fact, most of the time when this is happening,
I see it actually the other way around. You've chosen a market that's
too broad, and that's why you're struggling to make them sales. Welcome to
Imperfect Action. I'm Steph Taylor. For years, I read all the books,
downloaded all the freebies, and did all the courses, but it wasn't
until I started taking imperfect action that my business had its first million dollar year.
Imperfect action is about doing things before you're ready, prioritizing consistent action over
perfect action, and moving forward even when you're not sure you're doing it right.
On this show, you can expect mindset advice, actionable marketing tips,
and strategies to build a business that brings you more profit, more freedom,
and even more joy. Are you on the list to get my daily businesses?
Every day, I'll send you a bite sized prompt designed to help you'd
grow your business in a more intentional way. Sign up at Steph Taylor dot
Co, forward slash DBB, or at the link in the show notes.
Hey, welcome back to in Perfect Action. This is episode seven hundred and
eighty five. Today, I'm sharing some signs that you might be in the
wrong niche in your business. Now, niching is a pretty hot topic at
all times. I know it's one of the questions that I get asked over
and over and over again is how much should I niche? Am I in
the right niche? So today we're going to talk about a couple of those,
the signs that you might have chosen the wrong niche or that the niche
that you are in is no longer serving you, and maybe it's time to
think about making a change. Now, rewind a couple of years to when
I was working as a marketing consultant. This is before I fired all of
my clients, before I launched courses, and before I started prioritizing freedom in
my business. I was trying to grow my marketing consultancy into an agency,
and I niched my business because everyone told me I had to. And I
thought that niching meant you say, I only served these people, So I
niched down into wellness businesses. And even though I had niched down into wellness
businesses, I still offered pretty much every marketing service under the sun, Facebook
ads, Google ads, social media management, email, marketing, blog writing,
like you name it. I did it right, but I said no
to anyone who wasn't a wellness business because I wanted to become known as the
go to person for wellness marketing brands and well, even though I was in
a niche, it was a really vague niche because a wellness service business is
really different to an e commerce business, which is also different to a coaching
business, and so I never really made a name for myself as the go
to for anything. And in the hindsight, I now know I was in
the wrong niche, and I know that that niche that I was in wasn't
specific enough. And thinking back, if I think back, what would I've
done differently, Well, maybe I could have niched down to just wellness e
commerce brands or wellness coaches, or I could have just become known for doing
one thing, really really well marketing strategy for wellness brands. Hindsight is such
a beautiful thing, and I now know that I was in the wrong niche,
But when you're in it, it can be really hard to know and
really hard to tell. So this episode, I'm sharing a few of the
signs that the niche you are in might not be the right one for you.
Sign number one that your niche isn't the right one you've hit a growth
ceiling. Now, when you are starting out, it's a great idea to
start with a really specific niche, but as you start to serve more and
more people in the market, you might reach a ceiling where you've outgrown the
market. Now, if you are struggling to make sales all, it's probably
not because your market is too small. In fact, most of the time
when this is happening, I see it actually the other way around. You've
chosen a market that's too broad and that's why you're struggling to make those sales.
But on the other hand, if you have made sales and your business
has grown from when you first chose that niche, and you've found that you've
hit a ceiling in terms of people that you can serve, you know there
aren't enough people in the market for you to keep working with, then that's
a sign that your total addressable market is too small for your business. For
example, let's say that I'm a podcasting coach for podcasters in Brisbane. Now,
there's only so many of them that I can serve and maybe once I've
got forty of them on my client roster. There aren't really that many more
podcasters in Brisbane, and it might be a sign for me to expand to
Sydney as well. But when you're starting out, narrow is really good.
Seth Goden talks about this concept of making waves in a swimming pool versus making
waves in an ocean. It's really easy when you jump into that pool to
make a splash and make some ripples in the swimming pool. When you jump
into the ocean, it doesn't really do a whole lot. It's a lot
easier to become known as the go to person in that swimming pool in that
really narrow niche than it is to become known as the go to person to
stand out to make a splash in a larger, broader niche. The second
sign you might be in the wrong niche is if you are struggling to reach
people and stand out. Now, this can happen for a bunch of reasons,
but a really big one is niche selection. Generally speaking, the broader
the niche, the more saturated it's going to be, and the harder it's
going to be to stand out and reach the right people with your business.
And that's because the broader your niche, the bigger your messaging needs to be.
For example, social media marketer versus a social media marketer for podcasters.
If you're a social media marketer in general, your messaging is going to be
around growing your business. But when you're a social media marketer for podcasters,
now your messaging becomes growing your podcast. And you can be really specific in
the problems that podcasters are experiencing, and that's how you catch their attention.
For example, a podcaster is constantly creating audio content, they don't have time
to create social media content as well. That's a problem you could talk to.
You might also say, well, you're really struggling to keep growing your
show. That's going to resonate really well with a podcaster better than somebody who
is trying to just speak to everybody. Now, the question that always comes
up here is well, won't I limit my business by niching down. Yeah,
you might one day when you outgrow your market, but you can worry
about that. You can expand once you've built a reputation, once you've built
an audience, once you've built a profitable business, then you can worry about
outgrowing your market. But when you're starting out, you don't need to worry
about going too narrow because chances are you are not limiting yourself and you will
have more than enough people you can serve, all right. The third sign
that you have chosen the wrong niche is that it doesn't genuinely interest you.
Now, this is different to the dip, another Seth Golden concept. I'm
a big fan. This is different to the dip where you start to lose
a bit of motivation and excitement when you get to the middle of a project,
or you get a few years into your business and it's no longer shiny
and exciting. Rather, when I'm saying it doesn't interest you, I'm saying
that you maybe chose the niche because it was a good opportunity or because it
was a trend, and now you're starting to realize that you're not actually that
interested in it. And it doesn't mean that you need to be one hundred
percent excited about your business one hundred percent of the time, and that if
you're not, you're in the wrong niche or the wrong business. And it
doesn't mean that you need to feel like your business is your life's purpose all
of the time. But you do want to find your niche somewhat interesting.
You do want to enjoy talking about it, You do really want to enjoy
working with clients, And if you don't, then that's a sign that you're
in the wrong space, because if you're not interested in it, it's going
to be really hard to stay motivated in the long run. You're not going
to want to keep learning and growing and expanding because you're not genuinely curious about
it. The only way that I've been able to share six hundred and forty
two episodes of this podcast is because I find the things that I am talking
about genuinely really interesting, and I really enjoy teaching my students in my courses.
I enjoy the few clients that I work with one on one because I
find it's so interesting. But if I had chosen, for example, I
don't know real estate businesses as my niche, I'd probably run out of things
to talk about because I'm just not that curious about that niche and I don't
really want to go and consume content and learn about it, so I'd run
out of things to say. The fourth sign that you are in the wrong
niche is that it's a niche in name only. Now, there is nothing
wrong with being a marketing strategist for spiritual brands, only that this isn't a
niche. It's brand messaging, and it's quite broad. There are a lot
of marketing agencies out there, and yeah, you might make your messaging slightly
targeted towards a particular audience, but it's still very, very broad and very
vague. So niching this further would then either look like niching by what you
do, who you serve, or the outcome you deliver. So if we
take the example marketing strategist for spiritual brands, well you could niche by what
you do by a bigcause becoming a Google Ads strategist for spiritual brands, or
by who you serve becoming a marketing strategist for spiritual coaches, or by the
outcome a marketing strategist that takes spiritual brands from ten thousand dollar months to one
hundred thousand dollar months. Notice how suddenly we've gone from an ocean to a
swimming pool. It's much easier to become known as the Google Ads person or
the spiritual coaches person or the person that takes spiritual brands from ten thousand dollar
months to one hundred thousand dollar months. Then it is to become known as
this much broader marketing consultant or marketing agency for spiritual brands. And then the
fifth sign that you are in the wrong niche is if your niche can't actually
afford to pay you. I'm assuming for this one, I'm assuming you are
running a for profit business. This is a huge sign that you are in
the wrong niche because your business needs to make money to keep the lights on,
and you can't help anybody with your business. If your business isn't making
any money, your free content that can be great for helping the people who
can't afford to work with you, but you also do need to have people
can afford to work with you. Now, there are two scenarios that come
up here, right, So the first one is people who tell you they
can't afford to work with you, but they actually genuinely do have money to
spend, but they're just spending it elsewhere. This is not a sign that
you're in the wrong niche. This is not a sign that your niche can't
afford you or that you're charging too much. It's a sign that they don't
prioritize what you are selling, which might mean that your marketing and your messaging
is off, or that they are not your ideal client who you are currently
selling to, or that your ideal client needs a bit more educating before they'll
be ready to buy from you. The other scenario is the one that I'm
talking about, which is where your niche truly doesn't have any money to spend.
Maybe you're trying to sell to struggling students or broke musicians. I have
a friend who actually tried to start a business around that and then realize,
oh, you need to be selling to people who actually have money to spend.
You can still serve these people pro bono or with your free content,
but you can only do that if your business is making enough money to stay
afloat, and for that to happen, you need to find a niche that
can afford to pay you. So there you have it. Five signs that
you might be in the wrong niche. Sign Number one, you've hit a
growth ceiling. Number two, you are struggling to reach people and stand out.
Number three, it doesn't genuinely interest you number four it's a niche in
name only, and number five your niche can't actually afford to pay you.
Now, as a podcaster, I am constantly talking into my microphone and I
feel like sometimes I don't even know if people are listening until I meet somebody
at an event and they say, oh, I've been listening to a podcast
for so many years now. I know that you guys are out there,
but I don't hear from you enough. So please, I really would appreciate
it if you took thirty seconds to leave a quick rating and a review in
Apple Podcasts. It means a lot to me. It reminds me that I
have actual listeners out there who this is making a difference too. So if
this podcast has helped you any way at all in your business, that is
my one little ask for you today is please take the time. It makes
a difference to me, and it also can be the difference between somebody choosing
to listen to the show or another one, so it really does help.
So thank you so much for listening today, and I will catch you next time.