Episode Transcript

Hey, I am really excited that you joined me today because I have things to say about this topic. I actually want to come right out of the gates today and bust one of the biggest myths that I see when it comes to niching. And that is this idea that it means choosing a smaller range of any kind of demographic data in the population.

Is that what you have believed to, or has someone told you that you need to get narrower by being specific about the kind of person that you work with? Well, today I want to spill the tea on why focusing on the specific problem you solve is the real key to defining your niche. Now this misconception that your niche is who and a very, you know, specific demographic of the who in the population is really common.

It seems that much of the advice out there around niching centers on who. Who is this for? Who are you serving? Who specifically? And this legend of niching down has been passed through the online entrepreneurial grapevine without the clarification of what a niche is, and that your niche is the same as your target market or your audience.

A quick Google search shows the terms being used interchangeably. So, and by big companies. So this confusion is rampant. For this reason, what I see in many entrepreneurship spaces is this idea that niching means choosing a narrower demographic quality of a target market. And that is just fundamentally the incorrect orientation from which to build a business.

It’s like being in San Francisco and wanting to go to New York and somebody’s selling you a boat. Like, sure, yeah, you can get there that way, kinda, but my goodness, is that the long way around? Demographics aren’t where you start when it comes to niching. Businesses are fundamentally about solving problems, and in my model, to grow a business, you start with the problem you solve, and niching means getting specific about the problem.

Once you do that, then the who The demographics, the kind of people that you serve that have this problem becomes obvious. Often when I see people sharing their niche online, it goes something like this. I want to help overworked professional women in midlife who have lost their passion for life and are feeling unfulfilled, wondering, is this it?

Now, what they’ve described is a person with a set of circumstances who might be in kind of a problem space. And even if someone were to be in that scenario, it actually doesn’t mean that they have the problem that the offer is positioned to solve. So let me show you. If the entrepreneur helps people discover their purpose.

Because the person has lost their passion for life, feeling unfulfilled, but the overworked professional woman actually needs help scheduling her calendar and maintaining her inbox. This is obviously not a fit together, and that’s because the statement hasn’t been clear or specific enough, and the two individuals have a different interpretation.

Let me swing to the other side of the pendulum and show you how you can go very narrow in terms of demographics and even create a single avatar.

And this is still doesn’t create a really great niche. So here’s another example. Tina is a 25 year old African American woman who lives in San Francisco. She’s single. She bikes to her tech job. She went to MIT and makes 100K a year. And what does that have to do with your service? Unless Tina has the problem that your service solves, this is not a great niche.

It doesn’t help Tina or anyone else understand what problem you solve or what you do or who you help. There’s also this really fun marketing graphic that shows that if you look at the demographics, King Charles and Ozzy Osbourne look like the same person. So they’re both male. They were both born in 1948.

They were both raised in the UK. Both married twice, both live in a castle, and both wealthy and famous. But obviously you wouldn’t market and sell the same ideas, the same products, the same services to these vastly different individuals. However, when you focus on a specific problem that someone has, the demographics are either irrelevant.

Or they kind of work themselves out because of the specific problem. Let me give you this example. I heard this, the, uh, specific problem the other day that has almost no relationship to demographics. You ready? You know how you go to the grocery store and in the produce aisle, those little plastic bags that are frustratingly hard to open.

You have to like lick your fingers while you’re in this public space. And then they’re so flimsy and you break when you put like a pointy vegetable, like a carrot or a yam in them. Plus you kind of worry about the environmental impact of all this plastic. Well, I have a new blah, blah that solves that.

Now you might not think that this is a niche problem or that, you know, this is, uh, this is something that everybody deals with is definitely not the case. Only some people have this problem and will want to solve it. And it really won’t matter one iota about their demographics, you know, whether they’re 21 or older.

81, whether they’re a professional or a student or, uh, you know, any number of any kind of the demographic identities that any one of us hold, because it’s a problem and who has that problem? Well, it’s probably people who go to traditional grocery stores, um, and buy vegetables. But let’s take a think about who doesn’t have this problem.

People who don’t cook at home or people who order co op boxes. Or people who get meal boxes delivered, those people don’t have this problem. And, on top of that, not everybody feels like this is a problem worth solving, which means that you will have this kind of polarizing effect where it is for some people and not for other, and not for others, really quite clearly.

And that’s one of the factors that makes a really great niche. So, where to from here? My suggestion is to reorient yourself from niching is who to niching is what. And specifically, niching is what problem? One really great exercise is to pay attention to different problems that different people have and how only some people can have a particular problem.

And then go ahead and see how specific you can get. So for instance, you know, most humans have trouble with communication, but not everyone has trouble communicating what they do. That’s a little bit of a unique problem for some entrepreneurs. Some people are challenged with communicating in their relationship, but you would have to be in a relationship to have a problem communicating.

With communication in a relationship, right? That could only be applicable to a certain portion of the population. So you can see how getting a little bit more specific about the problem automatically changes the demographic without you having to focus on who. Similarly, communicating your boundaries at work is also only applicable to a certain portion of the population.

Probably people who have traditional 9 to 5 jobs. And if you wanted to try to go even narrower, it might be people who have trouble communicating their boundaries at work because they’re being bullied. That becomes an even more specific problem that only certain people are experiencing and want solved.

So while many people believe that niching means targeting a specific demographic group, I’m emphasizing that true niching focuses on solving specific problems or addressing particular needs. rather than these demographic characteristics. And niching based on the problem you solve helps you stand out and be seen as an expert in your field.

And the approach leads to more meaningful connections with your audience and more effective marketing, which means you have to do it less. All right. I hope that today I’ve effectively busted the myth that niching means a smaller demographic. And instead you’re now clear on the power of focusing on the specific problem that you solve.

Demographics don’t determine your niche, the unique problem you address does. And shifting your orientation from who to what problem can make all the difference in attracting soulmate clients that you love working with. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, stay courageous.