Season 1, Episode 2: The Myths About Niching Down And Why You Should Create An Ideal Client Instead
You might have heard that niching down is the key to business success. However, as with all things, the truth is far more complex. Instead of focusing on niching down, you will find more value in visualizing your ideal client and focusing your efforts on them. Placing yourself in your audience's shoes empowers you to create more value for your ideal client.
In the second episode of The Limitless Podcast, we dive in on the truth about building your business around a niche. We talk about how the term "niche" takes the aspect of humanity away and why using "ideal client" will serve you more. We share how to develop your ideal audience with clarity and how it can empower your business. Through this episode, you can avoid the common pitfalls in niching down and start making a bigger impact.
If you want to learn how to create your ideal client, this episode is for you!
Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:
Learn the critical things to think about when visualizing your ideal client.
Find out why you (and your brand) don’t need to appeal to everyone.
Discover how to connect with your audience and clientele.
Resources
Join the Social Expansion 6-week group course and learn how to break free from Instagram burnout and speed up community growth!
Sign up for Jamie’s 3 Steps to 30 Days of Content FREE MINI-COURSE today!
Connect with Jamie on Instagram, @jamieratermann, and Twitter, @jamieratermann
Connect with Jamie on Linkedin: Jamie Ratermann
Episode Highlights
[04:08] Using the Term “Niche”
Many people say that choosing a niche is the key indicator to content creation success.
The term “niche” takes humanity away.
The goal of creating a business or content is to help other humans.
Instead of "niche," you can use the terms "ideal client" or "target audience."
Jamie: “Especially if you are a small business or solopreneur, you want to make sure that the choice of your ideal client and how you create them is going to be an empowering process, not only for your offers but also your content.”
[05:39] The Concept of a Niche
You have to create content with a specific person in mind.
Who can you help the most? Who is going to be most excited about your product or service?
Visualize your ideal client in their day-to-day, and identify how to create an intimate connection with them.
You can create potent, compelling, and converting content when you have a person in mind.
The goal of creating content is to allow somebody to feel seen and heard.
[07:04] Creating an Ideal Client
Give your ideal client a name as if they were an imaginary friend. Have regular conversations with them on what guidance you can give them.
Start with demographics.
Knowing how much they make is also important. But it’s crucial not to get too hung up on it.
Having an idea of your ideal client’s salary range will help you understand what they can afford and be willing to spend on.
The most important thing is knowing their behavior. What happens in their daily lives? Then, think about the challenges they face that you can uniquely solve.
[12:29] Two Types of Ideal Client Pain Point
There are external and internal client pain points you alone can address.
As a business coach, Jamie helps clients externally by growing their audience and wealth and internally with imposter syndrome and burnout.
Jamie: “So all of this is a part of really getting to create your ideal client, not finding them — you create them. You create this persona so that you can have them in mind.”
[14:13] Wanting to be for Everyone
There are some common objections against creating an ideal client. The most common is wanting to be for everyone.
The idea of wanting to be for everyone comes from a form of scarcity.
Jamie: “Within a business, if you want to be for everyone, you are thinking that that tactic or that mindset is going to allow you to make the most money — the opposite is true.”
Declaring your presence is not a way to connect with someone at a party. It's better to find something people find relatable to create a connection they'll remember.
You are not for everyone. It's best to be there for people who are ready and excited to connect with you.
[17:46] The Worry about “Niching Down”
It’s the idea that you will ostracize another group that you can also help.
Keep in mind that there will be different versions of the ideal client you create.
Each of us is a multi-level, multi-passionate, and ever-growing person.
Defining a person means knowing their behavior and understanding that they will work through many stages.
Create different versions of your ideal client with the vision that you can be on the entire journey with them.
[20:07 Primary and Secondary Audience
Do five content pillars whenever you’re creating your content strategy.
The three content pillars must go to the money-making and loyal client. One of the other content pillars must go to the audience that might buy from you.
It helps to have a primary and secondary audience.
The fifth pillar should be your story — the person behind the business.
All your content pillars must create a ripple effect for you and your ideal client.
[23:48] Common Realizations Upon Creating an Ideal Client
Your ideal client may likely be a previous version of yourself.
It’s a beautiful goal to help your ideal client get to where you’re at faster by sharing your own experiences.
Defining your ideal client sets a preference for who you would like to continue working with.
It’s setting a boundary for yourself and a better future for your business.
[27:54] Common Pitfalls in Creating a Niche
Number one is the notion that you should niche down to one type of content or one thing you’re good at.
Focusing on doing only one thing is zapping. You are a multi-passionate human who has more than one thing to give.
Content creation is an energy exchange. You will know when someone gets lit up by the content they make versus just pushing stuff out.
YOU are a significant factor in creating your ideal audience.
Resentment comes up when your audience does not respond in the way you want to. You have to know the people that you help intimately to make adjustments.
[33:27] Why Creating an Ideal Client Empowers you
Call your ideal client, content pillars, and your story your marketing master core. These brand cores are always developing.
Create strong relationships, feel energized by your content, and realize you are a creative visionary.
Social media is a gift that allows us to connect with people we can help most.
Having an ideal client allows you to be more creative, create excitement, and build loyalty.
The goal is to create a community around the impact you want to make.
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Transcript
Jamie Ratermann: This idea of wanting to be for everyone comes from a form of scarcity. Within a business, if you want to be for everyone, you are thinking that that tactic or that mindset is going to allow you to make the most money. The opposite is true.
You're listening to The Limitless Podcast, where we dig into all of the possibilities that exist when you lean into the big vision for your life and your business. Hi, my name is Jamie Ratterman and I am a holistic business coach, meaning I am just as invested in growing your health as I am and growing your wealth. With 11+ years in brand and social media marketing, I help rebellious entrepreneurs master marketing, embody leadership, and say “fuck it” to the hustle.
This show is here to encourage you to become radically aware of your self-imposed limits, to break free of your shoulds, and to expand your brand into a movement led by you. The way I see it, marketing is a way of spreading your mission, social media is a gift for connection, and sales are where you build your strongest relationships. Let's dig in.
Hello, welcome back to The Limitless Podcast. This is episode two, where I focus in on “niche”, a word you'll hear me rarely use, because I'll be talking about how to add the humanity back into this strategy within your business.
I'll share how you can develop your own ideal client, the objections that can come up along the way, really what's empowering about what you realize when you start to create this person with clarity, and then also how to make sure that this is empowering for your business and not energy-sapping. I'm really excited to share how I coach some of my clients through this and how it is really a big business builder for you.
Second here is I want to personally invite you to the second round of my six-week program, Social Expansion. The doors are officially reopened and we are going to help you break free of Instagram burnout. We all know that Instagram has been changing. The reels are important and they can be fun, but I don't want you to lose sight on all the opportunity that's on the internet.
This six-week program is about breaking free of that Instagram burnout or dependence, making sure we're independent of just that one platform, accelerating community and revenue growth. Knowing that other places like LinkedIn and Pinterest can actually be where you make some money, and then within that, how being able to have more outlets for your business is going to build long-term marketing resilience. I'm going to drop it into the show notes.
The big goal here is that we will focus on messaging, thought leadership mindset, and how to make content creation for this many platforms really easy, because I can tell you, Instagram is your most time-consuming. How can we use that hard work that you've done and bring them to these other platforms? Drop into the show notes if you're interested. Let's get started.
Hello lovelies! Welcome to episode two of The Limitless Podcast. I am so excited to do this again. It's really lovely, but a part of this and a part of what I would love to start this journey off with you all is: let me know how you're feeling about it. What do you want to know? What do you want me to share?
I'm sure you've heard this before with other podcasts you're listening to, but do me the favor and start to rate me. Let me know how you're feeling about this, where you want this to go, in the comments. Give me those reviews; I can make sure that I share this message with more people. Also feel free to take that screenshot of these episodes, especially if they've been speaking really well to you.
Maybe you share one takeaway and tag me at @jamieratermann. I would love, love, love to just hear and see if I'm getting that seal of approval from you all and what you want to hear from me next. I want to just say [I’m] already thankful for everyone who's already been listening, and really just feeling nurtured and ready to continue this podcast and do all that I can.
Today's episode is going to be all about a word that I rarely use, but I'm going to say it here. I want to talk about the real truth about a niche. Ideal client, target audience, whatever you want to talk about, or whatever term you want to use here. A part of this is that you may have heard this silly term, especially for any of you who are creating content for the first time, who are building their businesses, who want to use social media and content strategy to create success, is that you must choose a niche.
Even as I say it — nitch? Neesh? I actually never use this term. With my coaching clients, I never use this term at all. It makes me unhappy because I believe that it takes the humanity out of it, because that is what it is. Whenever we're creating a business, whenever we're creating content, we want to help other humans. That's the goal. So you're gonna hear me use, more likely, the words “ideal client” and “target audience” during this episode.
I want to talk about what is really true about it, how this process and this strategy can be empowering to you, but also some of the pitfalls, also some of the places that you may have heard of how this is defined online that doesn't really serve you. Especially if you are a small business or solopreneur, you want to make sure that the choice of your ideal client, and how you create them, is going to be an empowering process, not only for your offers but also your content.
In general, when this term is brought up, it's like you have to have someone in mind, you have to do it the way — you have to create content for this one person. Knowing that is what's going to allow someone to see you, to know what kind of resource you are. This boils down to something really simple, a simple question: who can you help the most? Who is going to be the most excited about your product or service, or your type of help, or your style of help? You want to know who this person is.
I like to say, “You want to picture them or visualize this person in their day-to-day.” How can you create an intimate connection with your ideal client, knowing who they are, when you're creating content, knowing who they are when you're starting to build an offer or to create a new product? If you have a person in mind, you're going to be able to really create potent content, compelling content, that will more likely convert, more likely allow them to feel seen because that's really the goal here.
Whenever you are creating content, the goal is to allow somebody, one person, 10 people, 100 people, in your audience to feel seen and heard, and know that they can relate to you. How can you do that without knowing who they are [or] without knowing how you can help them? I have mentioned the ideal client, target audience. I also have a third term when I'm talking about this subject: it is your adult imaginary friend.
I heavily encourage all of you to put a name to your audience, who he or she is, and being like, “What would Morgan like to do today?” I'm outing myself a little bit. My adult imaginary friend is Morgan, and Morgan and I have regular conversations of how I can help her, what kind of guidance I can give her, and how my offers are going to be helpful for her.
Let's think about what it is really to create an audience, to create an ideal client for your business. A couple questions to consider. Of course, demographics make sense here. It makes sense to jump in and have those be the seeds of building that audience. The biggest thing here is, demographics are just the starting point so don't get too hung up.
What stage of life are they in? What area of the country might they live in? Are they married? Are they single? Are they with children? All of that is going to help you help inform you about how you can help them.
Within that, too, there's also the question of how much money do they make? This salary question is important to have an idea, but it's the number one place where I don't want you to get hung up. When it comes to different aspects of who you're creating content around or who you're offering your products or services to, you want to have a general idea of how much money they make, but you don't want to feel like it's the end all be all.
If you're the type of service provider where you have only high-ticket offers, it makes sense to have [thoughts like], “Okay, my client has to make 125k to 200k,” and that's totally fine. You know that that is going to be the range in which they can afford your offer, they can afford your services, and live their life. That's the goal.
But let's say you're somebody who has a high-ticket offer but also feels so empowered by their message that [you] want to give more ways for people to plug in at a lower level. You can open up that range a lot wider. Maybe you have an offer every few months that's $200 so they can experience you, even if they may not be able to afford your high ticket. That salary range may become 50k to 200k and that's absolutely fine as well.
The idea with naming these things is to understand that you want to know where they're at in their life, that they can afford what you're doing, that it’s not going to feel like they're stretching or hurting themselves to do so. But you don't want to be like, “Oh well, I think they only make 48k so I'm not going to sell to them.” Be like, “No, if they fit all this other stuff — that we're about to get into — they can decide.”
We are all intelligent, smart beings. We can hold the people that we talk to at their highest, to let them decide what they want to do with their money. Making sure that that demographic question doesn't get you too hung up [is important].
I want to dive into this for products as well. Your product — if you want it to be something they buy monthly, what kind of salary would they need to have if they want to regularly purchase your product? That's just an idea. The demographics: stage of life? Where do they live? What kind of money might they make? That's a good starting point. But the place that I want you to spend your time when you're defining your ideal client is their behavior.
Take it a step further. Are they coffee or matcha drinkers? Are they health conscious? Or are they seeing this as top order? What about their friend groups? Are they the leader or are they the follower? Are they the planner or are they the party animal? Are they the kind of people that are working their way up the corporate ladder, they're so dedicated to their work, or are they counting down the minutes to the weekend? Being able to understand who they are in their day-to-day is going to be really helpful to you.
Visualize the average Monday for your ideal client, the average Tuesday, average Friday. How do they spend their Sundays? One ideal client might be relaxing and spending so much time outside on a Sunday. Another might be feeling really anxious, have the Sunday scares, and be spending more time in their solitude. These are two different ideal clients. These are two different people that you get to speak to if your product or service is something that would help them.
Understanding the behavior of these people is going to help you more often so lean into that. Lean into what that looks like. Once you have a really good picture of who these people are, you want to think about the challenges they face that you uniquely solve. Within this, you want to make sure that you don't just list all of their problems, their pain points — we've heard these terms before, right — you want to list the challenges that you uniquely help them with.
I like to put this into two groups, one being physical or external, and the other side being mental or internal. I as a business coach, externally, help people grow their audience, grow their wealth. Internally, I help them with imposter syndrome.
Or I might also help them work through burnout. If I'm a personal trainer, I might be helping someone burn more fat and feel stronger in their body physically. But internally, I might be helping them with their motivation and their mindset at the gym.
All of this is a part of really getting to create your ideal client, not finding them, you create them. You create this persona, so that you can have them in mind. Like I said, name them there, your adult imaginary friend. So these are just a few of the questions that I like to ask my clients to start to think through how they can create this audience or have this person in mind.
I want to mention this again later, but also put in the show notes, I have a free training that helps with this. It's called 3 steps to 30 days of content and within that I list a laundry list of questions to really help you create this person, so having them in mind. So this is where this is where you hone who that person is. But I know that there are some common objections amongst my clients amongst people who come to my sprints that they don't want to hone who this person is.
So being able to understand a couple these objections, one of them being I want to be for everyone. This one I always laugh at: why would you ever want to be for everyone? I have never had to use Tinder, but could you imagine if I was for everyone on that app, where I would come in and I would have to filter through the day all the people that swiped that they liked me and all of the above.
I had to go on some really bad days to find the somebody, I'd have to like work. This idea of wanting to be for everyone comes from a form of scarcity.
So within a business, if you want to be for everyone, you are thinking that that tactic or that mindset is going to allow you to make the most money. The opposite is true. Let me use this analogy. What if you went to a party where you didn't know any anybody there?
But you wanted to make friends, your goal, your desire was to go to a party where you didn't know anybody. So you want to make friends. But you walk in to, let's say, a room of 10-15 people and you're like, “Oh, wow, these homeless people look interesting. All these people could be my friend.”
So to really get it done well, you decided to stand on us on a sofa chair and go. “Hi, I'm Linda, I want to make friends.” Now, you will get a few people that are like, “Who is this person? That's just just declaring that and like, I guess I'll say hi to her” Of course, that's good, that you'll get a few people.
But there's gonna be another 10 people that are sitting there going, like, “Does she seem like, she seems I don't I don't jive with that.” So knowing that, you just declaring, like, I'm here, I've arrived, may not is not a way that someone can connect and relate to you.
Instead, what if you walked into the room, and you were able to like, oh, okay, all these people really interesting. Oh, that guy that has, has a band t-shirt that the band that I love, or for whatever reason, right now Ariana Grande, he's wearing an Ariana Grande concert t-shirt, I want to hop on over and talk to him. And you get to say, “Hey, I love her too. I'm actually going to her concert, or when's the last concert you've been to?”
You're going to be more likely to be memorable amongst that man, or that person wearing an Ariana Grande t-shirt, because you've been able to find a way to connect with them directly. This is us going “Oh, there's some behavior here that I can help with.”
Another example of this is you see somebody drinking wine and you are a more of a wine drinker than you are a beer drinker, let's say. And you walk over to them, like, “Oh, where do you find that wine? I'm more of a red fan.” But what is that about?
This is going to open the conversation and be able to create more memorable connection than you deciding to stand on a sofa and just shout that you want to make friends. So you get to create these connections, this experience. So within this, we're gonna set a boundary here are a set of right now, you are not for everyone.
But the people you are for kind of love, you are going to want to help you build your business. So defining them, creating those relatable connections is going to allow you to be successful, to grow more wealth, and to enjoy the process of marketing your business. So number one, early objection, I want to be for everyone, no you don't. You want to be for the people who are ready and excited to connect with you. So create that—define that for yourself.
The other objection I get a lot is the worry that if you niche down—I'm using that word more than I normally do. If you niche down, you will ostracize this other group that you know you can absolutely help you know that you can absolutely help more than one group of people that you if you define one, that means you're leaving out the other.
So a couple of things here: When you are creating an ideal client, there is going to be different versions of that person. I'm going to use the example of Morgan again, my own ideal client, each person is a multi-level, multi-passionate, ever-growing person. So Morgan, if she's a new entrepreneur, I know that I could help her in those early stages, talking about how to define her ideal client how to define the kind of content strategy she wants to create.
I also know that a year down the line or when she has her first successful offer, I can help her expand that—I can help her expand it to a new place. I also know when she's killing it, and she has a multi-offer business that I can help her work through building a team and being able to still keep the potency of her content, the more successful she gets.
So understanding that when you define one person, you're defining their behavior, but they- but you know that they're going to work through many stages. So one, you're not ostracizing the version of Morgan. If she's not at the beginning stage that she's at another stage. That's absolutely fine. But I know that Morgan no matter what, is going to hate Mondays, she's likely to continue to hate Mondays, and she's also going to likely continue to be a coffee drinker and she's also likely to continue to be a leader in her friend group.
So being able to create this version of this person that I have in mind, I know that I can be on that full journey with her because of the way in which I offer my business my products. So understanding that when you do define an ideal client, and have a person in mind There's going to be different versions of that person. You can have a wider funnel than you think.
Second piece, and this usually comes up with when someone tells me nope Jamie! I have two clients, I have two audiences, I absolutely do. Like, alright well, let's talk about this. So when you realize who you can help the most, who's going to benefit from the most of the current offers that you're providing the current products you're providing?
How can you position your content to go after the person that's the most loyal, the one that's going to make the most money from you, I like to recommend five content pillars whenever you're creating your content strategy.
So if you're doing five content pillars, I would recommend that three of them absolutely go after that money making that very loyal, the one you can help the most audience, three of those content pillars are centered on that person, where one of your other content pillars might go to this other audience that you know, may not buy as much from you, but might buy from you. If that's what makes you feel good, it feels like you're, you're catering and taking care of the people who you want to help—I'm all for it.
But knowing that you need to have a primary and a secondary audience, you have a primary who you know is going to really respond to you and really want to refer and talk you up to other people, referral marketing is always going to be the thing, it's going to be fantastic.
You want to make sure your content goes towards them first. The second piece here is that you you're the second piece within the content pillars is that your fifth pillar should should be your story should be the leader, the person behind the business who created it, that's going to, that's going to be interesting to no matter which audience you have.
So, again, I would like to call bullshit when someone says that they have, so they need to have so many different audiences. But knowing that, you want to at least have a primary and a secondary audience, whenever you're thinking about that. What it really is that whenever you're creating a really compelling content strategy, you want to have all of your content pillars to create a ripple effect for you.
So if I have all my content pillars, as resources, as inspiration as education, as entertainment, whatever it might be, for my ideal client, Morgan. She's going to feel catered to, she's going to feel connected, she's going to feel that I am a resource for her. That's the goal, right? That's the thing that she comes to me for.
When I create content, I get ripple effects of Morgan, I get the ripple effect of the fact that her friends that might not be exactly like her have many things in common. So maybe one or two of my content pillars is going to be is going to be interesting to her friend, Jessica. Also, Morgan may have a boyfriend who loves one of my content pillars.
So being able to have this five content pillars that that absolutely catered everything that Morgan needs, I'm also creating a potential ripple effect for these other categories, other pieces that I share, that it's going to ripple out to her friends ripple out to people who are similar to her, but may not be exactly like her.
So you get to create that ripple effect still, by honing your messaging, honing your content around that one person—keeping all this in mind. So common objections of oh, I'm going to ostracize someone? You're not. You get to create content strategy that's going to help them and also create a ripple effect, especially when you create really compelling content pillars for yourself.
Okay, objections, moving our way through those. But once you get on board, once you go, “I get to create this person, I get to visualize who this person is, in my realm who I'm showing up on social media, I'm creating email marketing around creating blogs, videos, all the above”, you'll start to realize something and I wanted to share some common realizations that I have with my clients.
One of those realizations is that your ideal client may likely be a previous version of yourself. How empowering is that? So I'll use myself as an example here. I've been in marketing for more than 10 years, I've been doing health coaching for three years at this point, I get to help someone get their goals and their desires faster, because I spent all that time.
I know which social platforms are going to be good for your business. I know the ones that are going to be a little harder to gain traction on. I know that ritual and routine as a leader is going to help you towards success. And I'll show you the ones that I've experienced and the other things that I've experienced so that you can get to where you are faster. So it's one of my favorite realizations.
So someone's like yeah, I'm sorry. I'm describing, like a previous version of myself, I'm like, Yeah, makes total sense. You are paying a service to somebody, so that they get to be where you are a little faster, with a little more nurturing products or services that help them get there. So it's totally common for someone to say, “Okay, this is chapter one version of me, and I'm at chapter five.
So I get to share chapters 1,2,3, and 4 of my experience to help them get to where I'm at faster.” That is a beautiful goal to have, whenever you're creating an ideal client.
At the end of the day, whenever you create this person you have in mind, you are setting a preference for who you would like to be buying from you. You are setting just this goal of, “If I wanted numerous people to be carrying around my product, who would I want those people to be?”
Would you want them to be fashionable? Would you like them to be someone who shares this to their Instagram stories, tells their friends about it—really finds it to be an important part of their day? If you're more of a service provider, would you like it to have a entirely filled group program of people who are excited to be there? “Who would be excited to be in your group program?
If you can know who they are, you're just setting yourself up to look forward to coaching calls to meetings. But okay, you can create this energy shift, whenever you are speaking directly to the person that you would love to spend your time with, that you would love to be getting DMs from or comments, but also to that are filling you're filling your programs, buying your products.
So essentially, what defining an ideal client is, is setting a preference for who you know, would love your product, but also who you would love to continue to work with who you would love to be creating lessons and goals and a lifestyle for—so being able to know that.
Last but not least, the realization here is that all that creating an ideal audience really is, is setting a boundary—you are setting a boundary for yourself. And in general, you are wanting to feel valued for everything you do. You want to feel valued as an entrepreneur just as much you want to feel valued as an employee of a larger business.
So knowing that, if I know who is I want to talk to, and I know that they're going to value the way in which I put out my energy, you are setting a boundary for a better future–a better future of being the leader, the creator behind your business. So that's a big part. So those are some common realizations.
But a big thing that I want to make I want to hit home is that creating a niche can go badly. It can be difficult. Whenever you find “Okay, if I've niched down and it works really well, for me.” There can be some pitfalls, so one common thing you're going to find online is that someone's going to tell you that you should niche down to just one type of content, or one thing that you're really good at.
I'm going to use examples of reels coaches. On Instagram, you're going to see a lot of people talking about you got to post a reel every day, and their content will be here's a trending audio, “Look at how I posted a reel today. Look how fun this can be.” Here's a reel like, you can see that their niche—their main goal here is that they help you create reels, that's it.
They create reels, you should create reels, that's the goal. I guarantee there's many of you going like, I have like three of them in my feed right now and you know who they are. They provide an amazing service to something that everyone's trying to figure out how they can create this new type of content and that's fantastic and they're going to get a lot of traction. Because if I'm going like “Okay, I need this particular help. And they I know that this is all they talk about, I'll follow them.” That's going to make sense.
But whenever you decide to whittle yourself down to playing one piano key. Whenever you're just like hitting that piano key over and over again, this is the note that I'm going to keep playing. I know that you need this note, so here I am playing that same note over and over again.
People are going to be like “Alright, I'm in I want to follow you.” I like it, but it's going to be zapping for you. You are a multi-passionate human, you have more than one thing to give. You are a symphony. You create content off of your many experiences, your expertise, your style of leadership. You are a symphony.
When I hear when someone's like I only can do one thing or create one thing, I know that they're just ignoring the rest of the piano keys, they're ignoring the things that are going to light them up and energize them when it comes into creating content.
I wholeheartedly believe that you can be really clear about who the audience is and who you're creating content for, without whittling yourself way down to one thing, that's exactly why I could talk about five content pillars, that's exactly why I want you to have a full picture of who this audience is, and how you can help them in more than one way.
The reason why is that content creation is an energy exchange. You will know when someone is lit up by the content that they create and when they're just pushing stuff out. You will know that when I share a story that I'm really passionate about, I'm going to feel exuberant, radiant, sharing it in the way that I want it.
You're going to feel it in the words, you might feel it in the video, you might feel it. In general, we all are giving and receiving energy on a regular basis, versus somebody else who might be putting out some cookie cutter content, like cookie cutter, like I'll just get a post up today, I'll just put it out. Or like, I just got to feed the beast of this crap, you'll know—you're going to know.
So being able to not only choose challenges that you can help with your ideal client with, but also, whenever you are deciding what those pillars of your content strategy are going to be making sure you choose things that you're passionate about, that if somebody wanted to talk to you about it, every single day, you would talk about it every single day without fail, you feel good about it.
Knowing that when you're creating this audience, you are a big factor. What do you want to talk about? How do you uniquely help them so that you don't lose that energy that comes from being the content creator behind your business.
The last piece here about when niches go bad— I promise want to stop saying that word I just I really don't enjoy it. You can start to feel resentful. You can start to feel resentful if you start to create content for many people are trying to figure it out, and they're not responding the way you want to. You can be “Well, I've created content around this so many times.
And then they asked me, they asked me a really silly question that I created content around last month. Like why didn't they see that?” Or whenever you put a lot of effort into one type of video or one type of content, and they're just like not responding. You feel like “Why aren't they here? Where are they?”
So part of this is really getting to intimately know the people that you help. So if you don't have a clear picture of who they are, if you don't have this clear picture that I've been mentioning, you will start to feel resentful when you're not getting the traction, the engagement that you were hoping to have.
So being able to think about, “Okay, if this post isn't working well, what am I missing that would help Morgan in this scenario? How can I do this a little differently that might play well, to what they might be experiencing right now.” So making that adjustment. I hope this experience or hope listening helps you realize that creating an ideal client is really empowering.
This is the way in which I'm when I'm thinking about creating content when I'm even thinking about this this particular episode of the limitless podcast I'm going “Alright, and you guys have heard me say are my ideal clients name is Morgan.” But I go, “Alright, Morgan, what might be plugging Morgan today? What can I help her with on this? recording this on a Friday, on this Friday?” Keeping that in mind.
Or when I'm starting to think about how I want to create messaging around an offer or a program? How would Morgan benefit from this program? How can I help her like what What would her ideal outcomes be from from being with me for three months or five months? And then whenever we revisit this, I like to call your ideal client your content pillars, and your story, your brand story specifically, to be your marketing master core.
Having those brand cores always developing more and more, knowing that there are things that you want to revisit monthly, having those things in mind, but being able to look at, “Okay, I'm coming out with something brand new in my business. I'm doing something I've never done before.” How might Morgan have evolved since the last time I spoke to her about my business? How might she connect with this new idea a little differently.
Creating that relationship is going to be really helpful to you. In the grand scheme of things, I want you to make strong relationships. I want you to feel energized by your content. I want you to realize that you are a creative visionary, that we get to use social media as a gift to be able to connect with people we can help the most.
When people talk about creating a target audience, really all we're trying to explain is that when you have someone in mind, you're going to be able to be very clear about how strong your products are, how strong your expertise and leadership are, if you have someone you're speaking to, if you have someone in mind.
You're going to be able to be more creative and think about how, like, if I'm talking about confidence, I can be really creative of how that might come in three or four different forms for Morgan. So being more, you get to be more creative. When you know who you're talking to.
You can create excitement, when someone leans on you. Like you have to follow this person because she gives me everything I can I could ever want. And then of course, you create that loyalty, loyalty is a big piece here. Because the more that we create online, the more that our internet world expands and does more things you want to find a way in the way in which you present yourself the way in which you present your business, to have people that can't wait to see you, can't wait to see you in the feed, can't wait to leave a comment to share to see what you're cooking up.
Because that that's the ultimate goal is to be able—if we're saying that content creation is an energy exchange, how can you create community around what you give to the world the impact you want to create. So that's a big piece here.
Alright, so I want you to take this and run with it. So I'm going to make sure I drop into the show notes, that free mini training called 3 Steps to 30 Days of Content in there, you can start to develop your audience to be able to ask those questions. So I'll make sure that that is in the show notes for you. Please check it out. I also dive into this in my own content sprints. And I'm in there with you if you have any questions about how to develop that audience.
But hopefully, this episode has helped you get some more clarity around the fact that you don't have to niche down too far that we want to retire that word niche and also that this can make creating content on your business around the way in which you want to present yourself online. This is going to be a very empowering step for you. Have a lovely day.