Such a common misconception about niching is that by picking a narrow niche, you
are limiting the amount of people you can work with. But in reality,
when you're starting out, you are going to reach such a small number of
those people anyway, you're not even going to get close to tapping out that
entire niche. And once you have grown your business at that point where there
are no more potential customers in that market, then that is maybe when your
niche is limiting, and that's a sign that you can start to un niche.
But when you're starting out, the more specific your niche, the easier
it's going to be to become known as the go to person, to become
known as the expert in that particular area. 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 per 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 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 thirty six. Today I'm
talking all about target audience, ideal client, and niche. I've realized that
there's a lot of talking about these three different things and using those words interchangeably,
using those terms interchangeably. I recently had a conversation with a coach who
she was fairly new, and we were talking about how, you know,
she hadn't quite defined who her niche was, but she knew who her ideal
client was, and she had no idea what a target audience was, and
there was just so much confusion around you know, what is that target audience,
what is that ideal client? What is that niche? What are the
differences between those three things and why do they matter? Now? The three
of them do often get used interchangeably, but from my perspective as an online
business strategist, I don't see them as being the same thing. And they
are all very three very important things to know in your business, but they're
three very different things. And you know what, I've realized that so many
people think that niching is simply defining your target audience, which it is not,
And we'll talk about that a little bit in a second. This episode,
I'm going to look at the difference between those three things, the difference
between your target audience, your niche, and your ideal client. And then
I'm going to answer a very common question that I get asked all the time,
which is do I need to niche down? So first of all,
let's look at niche. What is a niche or a niche if you're an
American Now, most people define their niche by who they work with. For
example, I'm a business coach for heart centered entrepreneurs or I'm a life coach
for spiritual women, and that can work, But more often than not,
when I see somebody niching, they are niching for the sake of niche,
the niching because somebody told them you have to pick a niche rather than because
it's going to serve their business. And then sometimes when you niche down and
you use terms like heart centered entrepreneurs, it can actually leave people scratching their
heads, wondering if you are for them, wondering if you can help their
business, wondering if they are the right person to be working with you,
because maybe they don't identify as a heart centered entrepreneur or they're not sure what
a heart centered entrepreneur actually is. Now, if you are an expert where
you're working with one particular category of people, for example, you're a business
coach for lawyers, or if what you offer can only help a particular category
of people because maybe you've developed a framework or a methodology that only works for
those people. For example, you're a life coach for CEOs, then it
makes sense to niche this way. Otherwise you might be better off niching In
a slightly different way. You might be better off niching by the problem that
you solve or the solution that you deliver. For example, you might be
a business coach that specializes in getting people to their first ten thousand dollars month,
or an online business strategist that helps you build an online business that's profitable
when you're offline. That's what I do, that's my business. Or maybe
you're a copywriter who helps somebody to make more online course sales through their emails.
Or maybe you help people to quit smoking through hypnotherapy, where hypnotherapy is
the solution and quitting smoking is the problem. Now I did dive all of
this a bit more in my free masterclass seven Secrets for Consistent Sales. DM
me on Instagram, send me the word masterclass. I'm They're at stephtaylor dot
co and I'll send you the direct link or head to stephtaylor dot co slash
masterclass and you'll be able to register for that one over there. Now,
what is a target audience? So your niche is essentially who you are helping
what you are doing as a business. What is your target audience? Then?
Now, often when I ask somebody who their ideal client is, the
answer they give me is something like, well, they are age twenty five
to forty five and live in Sydney and have kids, and they are either
in a corporate job or they run a business. That I hear that over
and over again. That's not an ideal client. That is an example of
a target audience. Okay, so your target audience is like the segment of
the population who within that segment, there is going to be people who are
like your ideal client. It is the life audience that you are targeting when
you are trying to get visible. So for example, if you were pitching
podcasts to be a guest on, then you would want to be a guest
on podcasts that have listeners who are in your target audience. Or if you
are running Facebook ads, you'd want to target an audience similar to your target
audience. Not everyone in your target audience is going to be your ideal client.
They're not all going to be right for what you sell. But the
idea is that within your target audience there will be quite a few people who
are the right fit. So then that brings me to the third one.
What is your ideal client. Now, this is often referred to as an
avatar, your ideal client avatar, and this is the one person made up
or real, who personifies your dream client. The idea with defining your avatar
isn't that you are limiting who you work with. It's about creating focus.
It's about knowing whenever you're creating a piece of content, whenever you are writing
copy, whenever you are creating a new offer, whenever you're writing out messaging
for your offers, you're focusing it in on this one dream person. But
you're not saying no to everybody who isn't this dream person. But it's about
creating focus, right Whereas niching, you would potentially be saying no to people
who do not fit within that niche. So if you were the business coach
who specializes in getting people to ten k months, you would most likely say
no to a client who is looking to get from fifty thousand dollar months two
hundred thousand dollar months because you can't help them with that, Whereas somebody who
is not your ideal client, you can still potentially help them, they're just
not that dream client that you are focusing the content and the messaging and your
offers towards. Now, the idea with the focus is that you don't then
have to try and talk to one hundred different people with one hundred different problems
at once. You're speaking to the one person with the one problem, knowing
that there are going to be other people within your target audience who have that
same problem who are also going to resonate with that messaging, But you're not
trying to talk to everybody in one go, and you're making it less By
trying to talk to everybody in one go. It becomes really confusing, It
can become really overwhelming. It can lead to people asking is this for me?
Okay? So it also means you can dive deeper into your ideal client's
pain points, frustrations, their struggles. You can get into their heads,
you can uncover what they believe, and that makes it so much easier than
to create content that meets them where they are at, and that moves them
towards buying from you, rather than trying to meet your entire target audience where
they're at. Now, do you have to niche? Do you have to
niche? A lot of people out there will tell you that, yes,
you absolutely have to niche if you want to have a successful online business.
I don't believe you have to do anything you don't want to in your business.
It is your business, after all, you get to make the rules.
If you do not want to niche down, you don't have to niche
down. But the great thing about niching down is that. Firstly, it's
not permanent, and I'll talk about that in a second. But the other
great thing about niching down is it doesn't have to be what you think niching
down is. Right. So I talked about this a bit earlier in this
episode, where it's not about saying, well, I only work with these
people. You can niche down by the problem that you solve or the solution
that you deliver. And when I say that it's not permanent, very few
decisions in your business are actually permanent. And the niche that you pick for
now doesn't have to be forever. If you are that business coach helping people
get to ten k months, maybe that's something that you'll do for the first
couple of years in your business. And then maybe once you've grown your own
business and you've learned how to scale to fifty k months, maybe your niche
becomes helping people get from twenty k to fifty k months. Right, So
you can change all of these things. And in my own business, I
have niched and pivoted and unniched a few times, and sometimes these have been
really so shifts in messaging. Other times they've been completely big pivots where a
fired clients and started from scratch and retired all of my offers and started again.
Back in episode six forty two, six hundred and forty two, I
shared some signs that you might be in the wrong niche and how to choose
the right niche for you. So, if you want the direct link to
listen to that, send me a DM on Instagram. I'm there at Steph
Taylor dot co. Send me six four to two, six hundred and forty
two, just that number and I will send you the direct link to listen.
Otherwise, you'll find the link to that episode in the show notes for
this as well. When you are niching, I think it's really useful,
especially when you are starting out and you ye you're yet to establish your expertise,
you're yet to become known as the go to for something. It becomes
a lot easier to make waves in a swimming pool than an ocean. This
is Seth Godin's analogy, and I love it. If you think about jumping
into a swimming pool, there's gonna be waves, You're gonna make ripples,
Whereas if you dive into the ocean, it's not going to really make much
of a ripple impact anybody at all. So if you pick a really well
defined niche, it's a lot easier to become the go to person to create
those ripples in that smaller swimming pool than it is to try and go out
there and compete with everybody else who is in that larger category, right,
the unniched category. And once you have made waves in the swimming pool,
you can look at expanding to more swimming pools or to a bigger pool.
But it's much easier when you're a brand new because there is so much less
competition in those smaller, smaller niches. And no, it's not limiting your
business. I know this is such a common misconception about niching, is that
by picking a narrow niche, you are limiting the amount of people you can
work with. But in reality, when you're starting out, you are going
to reach such a small number of those people anyway, you're not even going
to get close to tapping out that entire niche. And once you have grown
your business to that point where there are no more potential customers in that market,
then that is maybe when your niche is limiting, and that's a sign
that you can start to un niche. But when you're starting out, the
more specific your niche, the easier it's going to be to become known as
the go to person. To become known as the expert in that particular area
and specificity it sells, right. So I think about, for example,
hairdressers. Somebody who is a hairdresser versus being a colorist that specializes in blondes.
It's going to be a lot bit easier to become known as a colorist
that specializes in blonde hair than as a hairdresser because there's so much less competition
and you can do one thing really really well and become known as the go
to for that one thing. Or a business coach versus a business coach that
will help you to launch your first course. There are so many thousands of
business coaches out there, but there probably aren't as many that specialize in just
launching that first course. So you'll become known as that person who is helping
them to launch that first course. It means that you can speak so much
more clearly to your ideal client, to the problem that you sol and to
the specific solution that you offer, and that means that you can become that
go to person, you can build up that reputation as that go to person,
and then it becomes a lot easier to grow your business from there.
So there you have it. There is the difference between your ideal client,
your niche, and your target audience, as well as a couple of little
tips about niching down. But if you really want to know how to identify
your niche, head on back to episodes six hundred and forty two. Send
me a DM on Instagram at Stephtaylor dot co six four two, six hundred
and forty two. Just that number and I will send you the direct link
to listen to that. And if you're looking to increase the sales you're making
in your business, make them more consistently. I have a free training for
you seven secrets to consistent Sales. Send me a DM on Instagram, send
me the word masterclass and I'll send you the link or head to stephtaylor dot
co slash Masterclass and you can register for that one over there. If you
have learned anything from this show so far, please take thirty seconds to leave
a quick rating and review. It means a lot to me. I read
every single one of them, and yeah, it just reminds me that there
is humans on the other side of the microphone that I spend so much time
talking into. Thank you so much for listening. Catch you next time.