You Are a Niche of One

There is only one you.

That’s why capturing your essence, and distilling down to a “niche”, is difficult.

I have felt your pain.

When I started this journey to be a content creator back in January, I committed to posting on LinkedIn every day.

Over time, I realized two things:

1) I was focused on getting something, anything, posted regardless of value; and

2) A lot of the LinkedIn content was, well, pretty unsatisfying

The more I focused on trying to define my “niche”, the more disillusioned I became.

I wanted more. I wanted to connect with real people not their niche personas.

To learn about how real people build businesses and get their voices heard.

So much of the content on LinkedIn today is about how to build a business online, become a creator or get started as a solopreneur.

But what type of business did these folks build exactly before they started selling content about how to sell content?

That’s where it gets squishy for me.

There are amazing creators out there, who will teach you how to build a following, create online courses, and build a side income.

Some of them have believable back stories, but all of them now make their living off of selling the hope of “ a new way of working.”

For what it’s worth, I’m going to give it a shot.

Take their courses, follow their templates, heed their advice.

I’ve spent months following different influencers to see who was worth my time.

Here are the ones I find have the best ROI:

·      Justin Welsh – LinkedIn content

·      Eddy Quan – Email marketing

·      Alex Hormozi – Building a product that sells

·      Dan Koe – Philosophy and copywriting

·      Eve Arnold – Building online

For the first six months of this journey, I went down rabbit hole after rabbit hole, chasing one bright shiny object after the next.

Now I know it takes six months to figure things out, see who you believe in, and find your voice.

I heard that in order to create a successful company, you have to focus on 1 of 3 categories:

·      How to make money

·      How to save money

·      How to get fit

And then a 4th was added:

·      How to improve relationships

With this in mind, I kept jumping from one niche to another.

My niche iterations included:

·      Teaching people over 40 how to join the creator economy

·      Focusing on encouraging people over 40 to tell their stories

·      Executive communications for engineers

·      Executive communications for start ups

·      Personal branding

·      Corporate communication frameworks

·      Cybersecurity communications

All of these are areas where I have expertise, but would focusing on one niche build a successful side hustle?

These were the paralyzing questions.

I had to come back to foundational beliefs.

Get back to the things that truly matter to me.

That define me as my niche of one.

What I come back to over and over are three basic beliefs:

1)    Every person on this planet wants to know “Did it matter that I showed up today?”

2)    There are intelligent systems everywhere that can guide us on this journey

3)    Communication is the greatest source of leverage on the planet

I have no idea what this niche is called. I call it “ways of being and ways of knowing”.

Ways of being is about how we show up in the world and includes things like

  • communication

  • influence

  • marketing

  • strategy

  • mental models

  • innovation

Ways of knowing is about tapping into the wisdom all around us and includes things like

  • physics

  • systems thinking

  • maps

  • mathematics

  • symbiotic systems

  • animal tracking

  • forest knowledge

  • indigenous wisdom

It’s about understanding and managing how we show up in life, and interpreting the world around us.

It’s leveraging stories and languages to cross barriers, connect, persuade, inform and motivate.

Mostly it’s about connecting with one another and the world around us, making the most of the time we have here.

I hope that you will join me and start posting on LinkedIn.

Or Twitter.

Not the safe content that everyone posts.

But the things that you really think.

The expertise and experience that makes you you.

Don’t worry about your niche.

Just get started.

Experience is the best teacher.

Let me know where I can help.

When you’re ready, there are two ways I can help:

1) I highly recommend the same course ($150) I used to get started posting on LinkedIn (affiliate link): THE LINKEDIN OPERATING SYSTEM

2) 1:1 consulting sessions: GHEIM@GRAYSONHAYDEN.COM

Genelle HeimComment