Finding My Niche
How narrowing my focus opened more doors.
Happy Friday, friends!
I’ve had so many conversations about finding your niche lately. And while I have a very defined niche now, that wasn’t always the case. In fact, during the first few years of building my business, I was pretty resistant to the idea of niching down, mainly because I worried I’d be leaving opportunities on the table.
But finding my niche has actually had the opposite effect - it’s helped attract clients who are a great fit for me. Here’s how:
My network can easily refer work my way because they know exactly what I do and who I serve.
Leads find me on LinkedIn through a profile and posts that speak directly to their needs.
I have hyper-relevant case studies that illustrate the value I can bring to prospective clients.
So let’s talk about how I got here. And if you know me, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that it was a bit of a winding path.
A Bit of Background
Before launching my business, I spent the majority of my career marketing consumer products and consumer tech in the ecommerce space, and knew I wanted to continue on that path. Reading this book about nine months before launching my business helped me further clarify where I wanted to go next.
Years 1 & 2: Testing the Waters
If you’ve been following along for a while, you know that I started my business without a real plan in place. I’d left my marketing role at Amazon a few months prior, took on a few freelance projects to extend my time off, and quickly realized I could make this a full-time thing.
I found that there were a lot of small consumer products businesses that needed help launching and growing on Amazon, and with four years of in-house experience at Amazon sitting at the top of my resume, that was easy work to go after.
So I’d stumbled into a niche, but I didn’t find the work particularly interesting. Plus, the small businesses I was working with also had small budgets, so I had to take on many clients at once to make it work financially, and I had no interest in building my business into an agency.
I also took on a few marketing strategy projects during this timeframe, and that work was much more interesting to me. But again, it was for small businesses with small budgets. 🫠
Year 3: Starting to Pivot