The REAL Truth About Picking A Niche - (6 Years In) | 162

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Hey! I'm Clee, the founder/CVO of Build Your Vision LLC, a media & coaching company that trains busy, growth-minded visionaries in self-leadership and personal growth.

My mission is to eradicate internal confusion in my generation and to build the "Vision Economy". A balanced supply and demand ecosystem in which each individual's accomplished vision is the platform for another vision to be actualized.

I post content like skits, videos, interviews, and blog articles to accomplish the goal of creating a world of more visionaries taking action and less dreamers sitting on the sidelines.

Transcript

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I have been fully immersed into the content creation and coaching space for the past six years. And one thing that I have heard over and over and over and over and over and over again, and you probably heard it as well, is that you have to pick A niche. Yes, this is one of the most common obstacles for many coaches and creators, because for some reason, everything in us rejects this principle. And yes, I called it a principle and I'll address why later. So, I have talked about niching, uh, or niching on the podcast before, in the previous episode about Purpose that I released, last week, Go listen to episode 1 61. I talked about the fact that you are getting clear on your purpose, right? And I teased that you have to get clear on who your work serves, And if you haven't listened to that episode, I suggest you do. It's called, uh, three Levels of Purpose Epi, visionary Must Master. But I tease that because even though if you get clear on what your purpose is, you have to get clear on who your purpose is for. So I wanna address this, but first I want to address. What makes picking a niche so difficult? Why is it so hard? Here are a few reasons why I believe it is so challenging for us, and it might not be challenging for you, but for anybody else that's listening to this is probably challenging for them. Here are a few reasons why I believe so. Folo number one thing is folo. FO. You heard of FOMO? Fear of missing out? This is FOLO. Fear of leaving out. You are afraid. You are fearful. You are scared that if you niche down, if you have a niche, you will be leaving out somebody who needs your help. You're like, ah, like I, I could target this, but what about these people? They need me, my help too. And, and this person needs my help. And I know that they won't be able to get what they need if I don't do this. And we had this fear that if we get narrow with who we are serving, other people will be deprived of the value that we could provide for them. That's the first one. FOLO. Number two, multi passions, or you are multi passionate. You have multiple areas that you are either passionate about or you Or skilled in passionate about or skilled. And so therefore it's a number of things that you could focus on. It's a number of people that you could probably help. And you probably want to help all of them to some degree, or you might feel like doing this one, this season and this one, the next or whatever it is, but you are multi passionate. You have the gift of having multiple talents, multiple skills, multiple areas of expertise, and sometimes it's hard to choose. So, first one to follow, number two, multi passionate, number three, a lack of self discovery. You aren't fully clear on who you are yet. And therefore you can't expand to understand who you are for. If you don't know who you are yet, then you cannot expand to who you are for this. I cannot cover in this episode, but there's all, if you're not in vision for newer school, and you're listening to this, You just got to get in Vision Panura School. It is our community for coaches and consultants who want to become podcast creators and want to make more impact and income with their ideas, insights, and influence. We have a whole course in there called Build Your Vision and it goes through self discovery, but you have to get clear on this. You have to get clear on who you are before you can discover who you are for. Number four. This is the last one. And this is just plain ignorance. And I don't mean this in a negative way. You just don't know what you don't know. Unconscious incompetence. You never even considered picking a niche before. And you don't know how. these are the four reasons why it's so difficult. FOLO. Fear of leaving out. You're multi passionate. A lack of self discovery. Or just Just ignorance. You just didn't know. have I stepped on anyone's toes yet? I hope I have, because I know that I probably dealt with all of these in the past, but I want to share with you. In this, a three sentence formula, a three sentence formula that can make picking a niche and knowing who you are to serve simple and clear, such you can make more impact, have more influence and make more income in the space God has presently positioned you in. I want to kind of share a little bit of my story the title of this that I made, was the real truth about picking a niche six years in, I am six years in to this coaching thing. I discovered. well, really like podcasting and coaching. I started coaching in 2019 and I started podcasting in 2017 slash 2018. And when I first became a podcaster, when I first started out, I had no idea what a niche even was. I had no idea what niching down was. I would make episodes that I thought were cool. That was it. I had something to say and I would hit record. If I had someone that I wanted to interview, I would do it. My podcast was simply a portfolio of me solving my own problems. Broadcasting those solutions and hoping there were other people like me that wanted to hear the same things. That was my strategy. If you even want to call it a strategy. And this actually, it was a strategy. I just didn't know it was a strategy, but this is actually a common and praised form of communication. Nitching called you are the niche. This is actually trending like on YouTube I've seen many people talk about this Especially a gentleman named Dan Coe. He's a really big advocate of this and he has a really big following Essentially what this strategy is is you solve your own problems. I'm not prescribing this. I'm just I'm just describing it Essentially you solve your own problems And then you share or sell those solutions with others. That's it. And even though I was doing this on accident, this was actually a great way for me to get started. Um, and if you're making a podcast or content. Purely for, like, your own enjoyment or hobby. You can stay with this method and be completely fine. It is actually very fulfilling to do. Like, it's very fun. But if you want to serve others and change lives, you might want to take a more intentional approach. you will continue to have a small audience of people. Who probably just like you as a person and they will follow you. If you go with this method, uh, or you're just a one trick pony. In that case, you might be niche because you only know how to do one thing. You only talk about that one problem, then it might work for you. But if you want to serve others and change lives, you might want to take a more intentional approach. So when I discovered the coaching industry in 2019, I had to come face to face with my lack of a niche because, because you can't coach everybody. Can't coach everyone, uh, you had to choose who you were going to help. And this led to me choosing terribly, terribly vague and uninformed niches. Because I just, I just didn't know any better. Um, I would say things like, I coach visionaries. What the heck is a visionary? No one even knows what, what does that even mean? How does it, I mean like, somebody might say that they are that. Does it make them that? Who knows? Because what is it? Like, very vague. Um, then I would go from that to like, Oh, I coach young visionaries, you know, trying to make it a demographic. Uh, and then I remember I had one, one preteen like break down on a call with me. And I said, that's it, I can't do, I can't do these youth, like, crying on calls and stuff. That's not, not me. And then, and then like teenagers and college students gotta get motivated by their parents. I'm like, It's not, it's not for me. So moving on, uh, I coach visionary creators. I think that was the next one and it was like talking to people who are like painters and fashion designers. I'm like, I know nothing about this. Like this is not it either. And then I went from that to I coach visionary content creators. Right. But then if you want to make videos about pranks, I'm not really the person that you want to be talking to either. So then I moved from that to, I coach educational content creators. But if you never plan on being entrepreneurial, then I'm probably not the best fit for you either. Well, my point is, I kept trying to get more and more narrow with these random acts of psychographics, and it might sound like I was getting more clear and narrow over time, and it's because I was strict strictly from trial and error. And again, I was unknow knowingly using a strategy that is actually really common. I about half a stance just trying things out. I was actually doing things that are actually prescribed in lots of areas. But this, uh, strategy was called a psychographic filter. Or at least that's what I call it, a psychographic filter. And this means I was no longer identifying audiences by their demographics, meaning what they were born into. Demographic is simply what someone was born into, basically, you know, their social economic status, uh, their age, their race, their gender, things like that. Uh, but then I shifted from that to psychographics, which is basically what people choose to identify as, their attitudes and their interests. Religion is a psychographic, area of expertise is a psychographic, right? Education is a psychographic. Hobbies are a psychographic. So this is a step above you are the niche method because you have taken time to articulate the attitudes and interests of your audience. This is great if you want to better please those you are trying to serve because you will address topics and issues that they identify with consistently. Keyword is consistently. See with the, You are the niche method. You might hit on something here and there, which is why you see all these, you, a lot of YouTube channels where somebody will get a video that sparks in it and it blows up. And then they continue making content with the same strategy that they had before and their engagement drops off a cliff because the people that came for that video were there for that type of thing. And then they realize, Oh, this person is making stuff about that. Things about stuff I don't care about, because they're just basing it off of their interests, not mine. So this is a step above that. With this method, you are actually identifying and articulating the type of person, their psychographics, their attitudes, and their interests. So therefore you will be able to address the topics and issues that they identify with more consistently. But, this is good. This is on the right track. But if you want to serve people, like Jesus, If you are in this community, this is a kingdom based community. We are here to push forward the kingdom. Yes, we want to make impact and income with our ideas, insights, and influence, but we also want to push forward the agenda. We want to make disciples. This is the main crux of what we're talking about. If that is true, if we are followers of Christ, we should probably address this area of our life the way Christ would as well. Oh, what are you talking about, Cleve? Jesus wasn't a coach. He wasn't? In fact, I will argue he's probably the best coach of all time. Oh, Jesus, Jesus wasn't marketing anything. He wasn't. I think he's probably the most, the best evangelist of all time. Jesus was a coach and a marketer. So what can we learn from him when it comes to finding a niche? Y'all, please get your pens out and listen to me when I, when I talk about this, please. It took me six years, six years to get what I'm about to share with you. This three sentence formula I'm going to share with you. It took me six years. Don't let it take you six years or six more years to understand this. But before I share the formula with you, I want to tell you first why it took me so long because it did not have to, it really didn't have to, it took me six years to understand who God had called me to serve because of this one thing. One word, selfishness, selfishness. I didn't want to serve the people who needed my help. And if I did want to serve them, I wanted to do it in a way that made me feel good, made me feel comfortable, or made me feel confident. In other words, my vision was self centered. And year after year, I would sacrifice my impact on the altar of my selfishness. Please listen to what I'm saying. Please, I'm begging you. I would say things like this and, and, and put it in the chat. If you, if you have ever said any of these things, just say me. I would say things like, um, they could find that information on the internet. Why would they want to hear it from me? I would say things like that sounds like a lot of work or I don't feel like doing that, or that's not quite my passion though. That's not my passion. Or I don't want to be pigeonholed into that. I feel like I'm putting myself in a box. I don't want to be pigeonholed into that. Or, but they actually need what I want to give them. They just don't realize it yet. Or, um, but I'm not an expert in that. Or, somebody else already made something about that. Why should I make it? All these different, I would say these things all the time. Do any of these phrases sound familiar y'all? And it wasn't until I realized the gospel of Jesus Christ was rebuking me. That I was able to see, for lack of better terms, the light, Jesus. Jesus had a niche. Jesus had a very narrow niche. In Mark chapter 4, Jesus shares the parable of the sower. You guys know that, that parable, the parable of the sower with the crowd that he was speaking with. he ends the parable with this phrase, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Have you ever heard that Jesus say that? He has these weird, like, sayings that he says a lot. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And then right after that, the disciples ask him, Why are you teaching in parables? Why are you not just saying you've told us about the kingdom of heaven? And he says this to them, he says, To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, All things come in parables, so that seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand, lest they should turn and their sins be forgiven them. So what is a modern day translation of this? And I love who's on with me right now. Cause I'm going to, I'm going to do a social experiment right now. I'm about to put something, I'm going to put something in the chat and I want you to see, I want you to, to, to see if you know what I'm talking about, what does that, what does that mean? If you know, you know, if you know, you know, and if you don't know that acronym, you don't know, I failed it. Exactly my point. Exactly my point, if you know, you know, and if you don't know, you don't know. That's essentially what Jesus is saying to his disciples, for those who can hear, they will hear, and for those who can see, they will see, but if you don't know, you don't know, and that is not my job right now to help you. No, this message was not meant for everyone. In Matthew 15, that was Mark 4, Matthew 15, the story, the Gentile woman, the Gentile woman comes to Jesus and asks him to heal her daughter who was possessed by a demon and Jesus says to her, I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Translation, I wasn't sent to help Gentiles. I was sent to help the Jews. And she continues to beg and please. And he says, it's not good for the dogs to eat from the master's table. And she responds in an act of faith. Yes, but Even the dogs, he eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table. And he said, your faith is going to be rewarded. Your daughter, your daughter's healed because she knew if you know, you know, if you have ears to hear, you'll hear. It wasn't for her though. The first thing that we talked about of why it's so hard for her to kneel down was pholo, fear of leaving out. The scriptures say, my, my sheep will know my voice. They will hear my voice. If you think of these outliers, like the gentile woman, he was speaking to the Jews. But not only was he speaking to the Jews, he was speaking to a certain type of Jew. Think of another outlier, Nicodemus. He wasn't talking to Pharisees. In fact, he was rebuking them. That was not his target audience. But Nicodemus could hear, and he could see, something. If you know, you know. No, Jesus served those who were outcasts, the overlooked, the forgotten in the Jewish community, the hungry. And not just physically hungry, if that at all, but spiritually hungry. Those who wanted what he could give them. If he went to the Pharisees, they would have rejected him. In fact, when he went to his own hometown, they rejected him. Two of the most major cities in Galilee are never ever recorded in the Gospels because there was a more affluent population in those communities. He didn't even go there. Tiberius isn't even in the Bible. He didn't even go there because he knew his audience wasn't there. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they should be filled. In that sermon, he was saying, Hey, I am for you. Are you identifying with this? If this is you, you're for me. He was not there to target the Pharisees. He did not target the Roman empire. He did not target the Gentiles. He did not even target the wealthy Jews. Another outlier, Joseph of Arimathea. He wasn't for him, but he could hear and he saw. Those outside the fold will come when you focus on who you're supposed to serve. If he spoke, he was specifically focused on a certain type. While Jesus's mission was to impact the entire world with his message, he first focused on serving a specific group of people during the three years of his earthly ministry. I'm not telling you to think small. I want you to think big. I want your vision to be grand. I want your vision to be a God dream. Only is possible with him. But we see from the example of Jesus, the biggest possible dream of salvation. It started with a specific group of people. You don't start a wildfire by just casting a whole bunch of little matches all over the place. You kindle a fire at one spot, and then it will spread. Not only did Jesus serve a small group of people, a small specific group of people, have you ever noticed? That Jesus never ever told anyone to be healed. They always asked. Always. Fact check me please if you can find it, but I have not found it. Where have you ever seen Jesus take it upon himself to fix somebody? They always asked. Even the man at the pool at Bethesda, Jesus knew he needed help. And what did he do? He still went to him and asked, Do you want to be made well? That's a coach. A coach always gonna ask a question. Stop trying to make people want what you have and make sure they have what they want. Now, in a rebuttal to that statement, right? Because I, I usually, I'm, I am the devil's advocate 90 percent of the time. In a rebuttal to that statement, the quote comes to my mind from Henry Ford. Uh, you know, the famous businessman and manufacturer of Ford Motors. Ford Motor Company. And he says the famous quote, which actually can as, there's no evidence that this quote actually came from him. If you actually look through the records, go to the Library of Congress, you won't find it. Anyway, that's a digression, but, um, it's attributed to him. if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. Right. But he designed the car. He designed it. He designed the automobile. But if you really think about that quote, if I asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for fast, faster horses. Henry Ford gave them exactly what they were asking for. To travel faster. He didn't say, oh, what do you want? And then decided to make a hula hoop club. He didn't, he didn't decide to build a, to, to, to build some type of machine that washes your clothes. If they say they want faster horses, you know that they want to travel faster and he made something that did that. He just changed the vehicle. They just didn't know what vehicle could get them there. You decide the vehicle. That's in your court, but you can't decide the desire. If you want to make the most impact, influence, and income as a culture consultant, you must solve someone's problem. We talk about this all the time in the church, that the church is meant for the community. How can we make an impact in the community? By solving people's problems. If they're hungry, feed them. If they don't have clothes, clothe them. Y'all, that's the only way. If you want it to be sustainable, if you want it to be fulfilling, if you want it to serve others, you want it to please God. If you want it to pay well over a long period of time, you must solve a specific problem for a specific person. And if Jesus did it, what makes you think you're exempt? This took a long, I'm, I am empathizing with you. It took me so long to understand this. Selfish ambition was in the way. Personal comfort was in the way. Fear of failure is in the way. It's a spiritual battle. Your life is not about you. It's about Serving others. You're this little teeny dot in this constellation of, of existence of the great story, history of the earth. Just little teeny piece cog in the wheel. Everything that happens in your life is most likely 99. 9 percent of the time not even about you. Especially once you're saved. Now it's all about helping others. You gone got saved now. You don't know what could be on the other side of you surrendering your will, your vision, to gods. I'm sure it's going to be even better than what you could have asked or imagined. I went to the store today to get some, some ingredients, some um, some groceries. And there was a lady there. And to make a long story short, I'm not going to go into details, but I helped her. I helped her get her groceries. I ended up not finding anything that I needed in the store. They didn't have anything. It was a waste of time. Except, that lady, when we were at the cash register today, she said, Before I came here, I prayed that somebody would help me. I've been having so much opposition going into stores. She was literally in a wheelchair, pushing a real cart. And I was like, that's why I was here. I never go to the grocery store at 10 AM on a weekday. My point is you don't know what's on the other side of your yes. What are people asking you for help with? Help them. Stop thinking about yourself. That is not kingdom. Whatever you do, they will get you. Don't be worried about that. Your passion will make it in there. It will. Here's a sticky statement. Your profession doesn't need to be your passion, but your passion does need to be in your profession. I'll say that one more time. You can write it down if you want. Your profession doesn't need to be in your passion. But your passion does need to be in your profession. Fun fact, podcasting is not my passion, but what other program would you ever get in about podcasting, about content creation, where we are having a talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ, where else I haven't seen one. I mean, Myron Golden kind of talks about content creation. Sometimes he talks about the Bible, but the thing is I'm pursuing the profession because that's what people need help with, but you're going to get me, God has gifted me in a certain way. Even the fact that I'm having this talk right now, you know, one of my spiritual gifts, exhortation, teaching, they're, they're going to get you. Don't be worried about that. If people ask you, you know, to help them make a podcast, like help them do that and, and, and get the teaching and the clarity in there, if people ask you to do construction, but you are passionate about telling stories, teach them how to do construction through your stories. If people are asking you to tutor their children, but you're passionate about change and parents. Make sure your program includes the parents. It's for them. But don't turn down the people who are asking you for help, saying, I don't want to do that. Really? I am not bashing you. I am speaking, the title of this is, The Real Truth About Picking a Niche, Six Years In. I am speaking from experience. I'm speaking from conviction. I'm speaking from rebuke. I'm speaking from a confessional state Convicted by the scriptures if people are asking you coming to you for for makeup advice But you want to pour into their personal growth talk to them about personal growth while you do their makeup If they are hungry, feed them. You know what, how God said, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. I was hungry and you didn't feed me. I needed clothes and you didn't clothe me. God has gifted you, given you an expertise and experience in a certain area. And people are attracted to you for that, for some reason. I don't know what it is, but it's where God has positioned you right now. 10 years. God can, you could fulfill this assignment and move on to something else, but you're probably not going to move on to something else until you do this or else you'd just be in a perpetual cycle of just discontent. Anyway, the three sentence formula. Here it is. Write this down. My product is for people who believe blank. That's sentence one. My product is for people who believe blank. That's their paradigm. You are addressing a person who has a certain. World view. The people Jesus was targeting had a certain world view. They were hungry. Those people wanted the Messiah to come more than anybody else. Longing for a savior from Roman oppression. They were the most oppressed. They had a certain paradigm. My products are for people who believe blank. That's in the first sentence. Sentence number two. I will focus on people who want blank. That's their passion. So sentence number one, my products is for people who believe blank. That's their paradigm. Sentence number two, I will focus on people who want blank, that's their passion. Sentence number three, I promise that engaging with what I make will help you get blank. That's their problem solved. I promise that engaging with what I make will help you get blank. Come ye all who are burdened and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. One of the best calls to action ever recorded. So whatever you make, this is implied, is the solution to our problem. It is the vehicle. They keep saying, man, I wish this horse was faster. Well, yeah, you could try to breed a faster horse. But God gave you a vision. A vision is able to see what most people miss. You could build a whole new vehicle. Isn't that such a gift, creativity, and you're able to say here, I made this specifically for you, I hope it helps. That's fulfilling. That's purposeful to tie it into the last episode. That's it guys. The three sentence marketing formula. My product is for people who blank. I will focus on people who want blank. I promise that engaging with what I make will help you get blank. You know what? Just for uh, example purposes. I did one for myself. So you could hear my example and maybe it could help you with yours. My product is for people who believe that their voice is needed to make positive change in the space they are passionate about. I'll focus on people who want to become coaches, consultants, or educational podcasters. I promise that engaging with what I make will get you a roadmap, resources, and accountability you need to create an impactful podcast without being overwhelmed by the tech or time required. Very clear. But you see how that sentence can clarify this niche thing and kind of nip it in the bud because it's just been terrorizing people. I've been seeing people struggle. I was struggling with this for years. Can't figure it out. Constantly just held in bondage. I've I got kind of caught up there, but I hope this was helpful. Let's open up for some Q& A.