Why A Niche Market Is Killing Your Growth

A niche market is the death of your growth. In this quick but impactful episode, Lisa Pezik talks about what you should niche and what you should not, when you should direct your marketing efforts to an avatar and when you should go broad. This information goes against the grain of what's commonly being taught, but the "way it's always been done" is old news. Read in to get up to speed with growth and scale trends in online marketing.

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Why A Niche Market Is Killing Your Growth

It has been a little bit of time since I've been able to come on and do a solo show. I had a range of wonderful guests on, sharing their top insights and stories in everything from mindset to money, to parenting, to homeschooling, to bullying, to confidence. There's been such a vast range. I want to encourage you to go back and catch up if you haven't been tuning in, because I'm proud of the content that I've been able to put out with my amazing guests. I want to answer a question that I've been getting on a lot lately. One is, how do I scale and grow since we've seen considerable growth in our company, how did you get there? How'd you do it?

Number two, should I be niching my services? Should I be niching my market? Should I be creating my whole business plan around niche marketing and knowing your avatar? That's what I want to dive into because this was a bit of a trap when I first started out. When I first started out the mentors that I hired in the online space, of course, I had no idea what I was doing. I reached out for support and I listened to what they said. This was seven or eight years ago. I can remember very vividly. I was recording a video with a professional videographer. He said, “Who is your program for?” This was when I started in the health and fitness industry. He said, “Who is your quick fitness for?” If you all don't know, I had a previous business called Lisa P's Quick Fitness and I taught express classes.

It was for the busy person who wanted to still look good, feel good and take care of themselves, but yet got stuff to do. You don't have 12 hours or 2 hours or 1 hour to be at the gym or doing multiple workouts a day. It was the best bang for your buck. He had the camera in my face and I looked down into the camera and he said, “Who's your program for?” I said, “My program is for everyone.” I was like, “Because who isn't low on time and starved for movement and feeling good and looking good.” I can service men, women, kids and families. My dream and my hope is that people will do this online program as a family. He's like, “Isn't that diluting your message and dialing yourself too wide and too broad.”

He was laying it to me and I was taken aback by that. I thought, “Should I deem niching down my products and serves that?” Should I be saying, “This is for women 30 to 50. But I looked at who were taking my classes.” It was men and women, all ages and ranges. I had women who were in their 60s that their functional age was in their 20s or 30s. They were keeping up with me in my 30s. I had people who were in their 20s and 30s who were smokers and didn't have the best lifestyle habits and they were slow moving again. No judgment but I had a range of people. I started to question myself, “Should I have any, should I be more dialed in?” All the experts that I was talking to, they were saying, “Yes, you should be dialed in.”

I did that for a long time. You know what happened? I got stuck so soon as I started this business and I knew that I wanted to help people get online and spread their message and create their programs and grow and scale. I was only helping newbies. I was only helping women. I was only helping moms. Eventually I tapped out my market. Niching, you tap out your market, eventually. You can only speak to the same people for so long in the same circles in the same groups. The only way to grow in scale is to pretty much outspend your market. Meaning you are going to dominate that market online. You are going to dominate in terms of visibility, meaning you're going to be on every social media platform. You're going to be everywhere, doing all the things, most likely paying experts and paying help.

Niche wisely. If you’re trying to help everyone, you will help no one, but when you only speak to one market, it’s the death of your growth.

You are going to be outspending the bejesus out of your competitors on Facebook ads and Instagram ads and YouTube ads and LinkedIn. You are going to be speaking on stages, whether that's virtual or whenever in person can happen again. You are going to be known as the go-to. That is how you'll grow in scale. If you're sitting here right now going, “I don't have the money to do that. I don't have the resources to do that. I don't even know if I have the energy to do that,” then niching is not for you, but let me explain.

I believe niching, when used properly is the right thing to do. You create your core concepts that you are known for and then you niche your products and services and marketing campaigns to that. You know what your core offer products are like, you know your core offer topics that you take people the solutions. You know your core solutions that you provide to people. You niche down your value ladder, your products, services and marketing. If you are trying to speak to everyone, you will speak to no one. If you are trying to help everyone, you will help no one, but when you only speak to and help one market, it's the death of your growth.

For example, let's say I'm in the weight loss industry. Let's say I'm in the health and fitness industry. My goal is to help people look better, feel better, move better, sleep better and bring back sexy whenever date night can happen. Crush their goals at the gym, feel confident again and reverse diabetes. That is for everyone. You're going to be hard pressed to find somebody that doesn't want those things. That's your overarching goal. You need to know the solutions that you provide. You start there.

When you have your value ladder, meaning your opt-in, your low-level product, your core offer product, your high level product, your highest one-to-one level product, maybe mastermind down that road, that is for a specific individual. That is for a specific group. Maybe your low-level buy-in is for busy moms or working individuals is for moms who have kids under this age. You niche down that program. Your group coaching program are for high achievers are for people who have multiple things going on. People who don't have a lot of time.

Your mastermind is for executives. Your mastermind is for people who are trying to compete in the fitness industry. It's for the top ten elite in a company or entrepreneurship. You're teaching them those same principles. It's geared towards different people. When you market it, you can speak to that. For us in our business, we help people spread their voice online, live a life they love, have a total freedom have financial freedom and have businesses that are set up to either sell to work for the rest of your life, because you love it. To have affiliates and referrals and kick ass people that want to be a part of your business. That's our core concept.

This show, a lot of times is for people who are trying to grow and scale to the six figure mark, if we're going to use money. Those who get into growth and scale packages with us, they are established business owners. Those who are going to get into our mastermind, they are moving more towards seven figures and they've got a team and they've had considerable growth and considerable success, whatever you want to market that ads. You can see that what our solutions are for everyone, but specific products are niched, specific marketing campaigns are niched. That's the way I want you to start thinking about your value ladder. That's the way I want you to start thinking about how you're going to grow in scale. It's a solution. It's not an avatar. You need to know who your avatar is for that product or program. It's the solution.

It's the fact that people need to feel understood. If you're talking about a pain point or a solution or a product or a service, and it's not for that person, they're not going to invest in you when they're not, it's too vague. They can't identify and say, “Yes, that is me.” They're not going to buy it. They're not going to invest in you. Again your product and your marketing must be niched, but the overall you want to have a framework or concept or a system that anyone can tap into. A system that man woman, young, old, rich, poor kids, no kids. That's how you grow in scale, because then you can take that system or that framework, meaning three steps to five part system, step-by-step plan three things you need to know. You can take that content and then you can adapt it to any opportunity that comes your way.

It's much easier to pivot when your whole business isn't built around a niche.

Somebody calls you up and says, “I want to give you, $20,000 to come and speak to my company about this.” And you're going, why don't we speak to companies about that? I only speak to stay at home moms. You're going to miss that opportunity. Someone comes to this hand. I saw the work you're doing. I'd love to have you come speak on my stage. At these personal development events, I pull all kinds of people from all sorts of walks of life. You say, “I only service men aged 40 to 60 that want to grow something and you're going well or if there's going to be men and women in the audience, then I can't come and speak.” You're limiting yourself of opportunities. If you are too niched and too dialed in on the solutions overall that you provide.

It's so much easier to pivot and change when your whole business isn't built around a niche. That happened to if you don't that happened to us. We started working with the newbies who we thought wanted to transition online and we got into doing it. We realized we don't no offense if you're a newbie, but you're not. There are other people there for you because we found that newbies when they had plan B and they had a backup plan, they weren't as motivated to get stuff done. They weren't as motivated to invest. They weren't as motivated to see it through in the term. They wanted the cheapest amount possible in the quickest amount of time. They wanted to sacrifice nothing and get everything. I'm not saying that's all newbies. I was a newbie. At one point, my husband was a newbie at one point, but our mindset was a little bit different.

We realized that our skillset matched those that have already been established in business with no plan B. When you build a whole business around a niche, it makes it difficult to rebrand and to grow. As opposed to, if you have a membership or a coaching program or a mastermind or something around it, you can shut it down and close it and have a new product or start something new. It's a lot easier to pivot and shift and change when your whole business isn't around a niche. That's my take on it. If you're like nodding your head, take it. If you don't think it's going to work for you, leave it. That's the beauty of listening to people like myself. That's the beauty of tuning into podcasts. That's the beauty of choice.

Someone can tell you do this and you go, I don't think I want to do that. Or someone can say, go do this and that makes complete sense. That's exactly what I'm going to do. Taking if you want leave and if you want, that was something I thought I would come on and share his. A lot of people have been asking me again, as they've been coming online, if they should, or shouldn't niche. Hopefully that serves. If you are an established business owner, without a plan B, reach out, this is everyone's pivoting online. This is the time. Because if we don't evolve and we don't change and we don't grow, we don't get clear on the solutions we provide. It’s not just the one hit wonder. Our big thing is about the value ladder is having a solution for everyone having a solution so that you have that constant recurrent revenue coming in, and then it's all working the way it should with done for you.

That's exactly what I want you to contact us. If you are a newbie start with what I said, get clear on what your solutions are and then what your value ladder on your products and programs are going to look like. Because you don't want to hire anyone or you don't want to start putting stuff out until you get that clear first. Hopefully that serves. Thank you for tuning in you mean so much to me for being here. Tell people about this episode, if this helps. I'll see you again next time on the show. 

Written by Lisa Pezik

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