Are you in the right niche in your online business? How would you know? And if you’re not, how do you go about finding the right niche?
IE 196: How to Find Your Niche in Business with Robyn Graham
In this episode of the podcast, I am talking to Robyn Graham about finding the perfect niche, how to niche down, and how to know if the niche you chose can become a successful business.
Robyn is a brand strategist and personal branding coach. She hosts The Second Phase Podcast and is also a professional headshot and branding photographer.
In spite of having a doctorate in Pharmacy, ten years ago she decided to pursue her passion, which is photography. From her very first client, she knew that photography and branding were what she wanted to do.
Robyn dove deep into learning more about branding 3-5 years ago when she realized that many of her clients didn’t know how to build a personal brand.
Your Niche Makes You Stand Out
When lots of people hear the term “branding” they think of redesign, graphics, logos, etc. They think it’s just about the outward appearance.
But personal branding is more about the voice that is behind your brand. A lot of bloggers think that if they call themselves the brand behind their business, that’s all they need to do. But all that does is make you one blog in a million.
If you don’t focus on defining your brand and niche, you won’t be able to truly stand out.
Your niche is your focus. Your niche should be the one or two things you are really passionate about and where you really serve your audience. And yes, you can be multi-passionate and still have a niche.
Your niche is that space where people recognize you as an expert and an authority. They look to you to answer their questions and to provide solutions to their problems.
Values, Visions, and Passions
People can be afraid to niche-down. They are afraid they will decrease their revenue or limit themselves. And fear is never a good way to determine the answer to anything when it comes to online business.
So, how do you define your niche? Robyn begins with her clients by taking a deep dive into 3 areas-
- Their values
- Their vision
- Their passions
Combining those three things will help you see the alignment. This doesn’t mean you can only do one thing, but focusing on these three things will help you feel peace, joy, and empowerment.
This not only leads to self-empowerment, but it leads to you seeing your business empower others.
Being an entrepreneur isn’t easy. If you aren’t experiencing that joy and fulfillment in what you’re building, you will burn out quickly.
You have to really truly believe in what you are doing in order to grow your business. If you don’t believe in what you are doing, no one else will believe in it either.
How Do You Know if Your Idea Could Be a Business?
Robyn believes that you can take anything and make it into a business.
If you have a hobby or anything you are passionate about and it aligns with your values and visions, you can make it a success.
When you pay attention to your values, you won’t be focused on growing your business just to make money. It will be about serving your audience. Empowering other people leads to more success.
Is Anyone Interested in Your Business?
Find out if people are interested in what you can create. Do a poll on social media. Ask your friends and family.
You’ll get a better understanding when you do this as to whether it has the potential to succeed or not. If you have the energy required to pour into the business you want, and if you stay true to yourself, you can be successful and profitable.
You may have an idea that you have to tweak a little. Listen to what your audience says to you. You do have to be flexible when it comes to your niche, in order to serve your audience.
Keep in mind that you cannot do everything for everyone.
Be willing to narrow down right now and serve those people you have in front of you right now. And that will provide you with the opportunity to eventually grow and serve an even larger audience in even more ways.
Take the Time To Reevaluate
As you age and circumstances in your life change, your ideal audience will change as well. You may have started focusing in one area, but as you grow and become better at business, your clients will shift.
This happens because your values, visions, and passions change over time.
This is why making sure you niche-down is important. This allows you to really hone in on your ideal audience from the beginning. This allows you to grow and become profitable.
Once you have grown and are profitable, it is good to take the time to reevaluate and decide if you’re still on the right path.
Your Niche Dictates Your Audience
A lot of times when people start out, they do a little of everything. They take any job that presents itself.
For example, as a photographer, you have so many different types of photography that you could do: headshots and branding, wedding, boudoir, family portraits, etc.
Some of those jobs might make you feel excited, and some might make you exhausted and leave you feeling unfulfilled.
This allows you to discover what you love the most and where you want to invest your time, energy, and marketing.
Figure out who you want to work with. If you don’t have a niche at all, you won’t be able to really focus on your values, visions, and passions. And if you don’t have those things nailed down, you won’t know who your ideal audience is.
If you decide to add onto or take away from your brand, you have to communicate that well to your audience. Pivoting outside of your niche is fine as long as you are marketing strategically.
Am I In the Right Niche?
The best way to know if you’re in the right niche is to ask yourself some probing questions:
- Do you feel fulfilled in your work?
- Do you feel a sense of joy at the end of the day, knowing you’ve impacted someone else and empowered yourself?
- Do you feel at peace and content with what you’re doing?
If you don’t feel at peace, you need to sit with that discomfort and let it guide you.
If you are not completely confident in everything you are doing every day, all day long, you need to make a change.
Make a list of the things you do that make you feel really great and a list of the things you do that make you feel not-so-great. Then, focus on the things that make you feel great and remove the things that don’t.
If you’d like to connect with Robyn you can visit her website, or check out her Facebook group. She’d love for you to join the Facebook group for all kinds of fun tips on branding. And make sure you listen to her podcast, The Second Phase Podcast.
Action Steps:
- If you liked this episode of Influencer Entrepreneurs, please subscribe and leave a fabulous review!
- Join the conversation on Instagram by tagging Jenny when you’re listening to the podcast. She’ll send you a personal message whenever you tag her.
