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Welcome to Make More Money Without Selling Your Soul. The podcast for bold entrepreneurs ready to simplify scale and reclaim their time. I’m Polly Lavarello, Evergreen scaling strategist and cushy business pioneer. Join me and my occasional guests as we explore the themes of wealth, selling and well-being, because building a business that works for you changes everything. Let’s dive in.

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Hello and welcome to the show. Today I am talking about why you are your own niche is utter BS and what to do instead. Now if you’re a longtime listener of the show, I just feel like I should caveat this with something I feel should be expressed more generally among anyone who is a content creator and who shares opinions online, which is, I am somebody who is a human, and therefore my opinions and ideas evolve, particularly as my business grows. And this is one of those opinions I feel I have evolved upon. So you know, please stop grasping your pearls. Yes, there’s going to be some nuance to this conversation. And you may be wondering, who on earth am I to say you are your own niche is BS, when I’m the very same woman who did a photo shoot end of 2023 wearing a towel on her head with totally retro setup and spent crazy sums of money on it, as well as a rebrand. I say crazy. It wasn’t crazy. It’s probably one of the best of one of the best investments in my business, and I still stand by that. So how can I be the woman who says that and also the same woman who says, You are your own niche is not enough? Well, you know what? I’m reading a great book at the moment. It’s called the seven rules of self reliance. I’m thinking, I’m hoping, I think that’s what it’s called. It’s a great book. And right at the very beginning of the book, it says something, and I wish I had it in front of me, but it’s something along the lines of, I think, in 2024 the online creator industry. So essentially, you know, online businesses, anyone who’s a personal brand, was worth something around two 60 billion. I think it was either 240 or two 60 billion, or maybe 250 maybe it was in the middle. But what it did say for certain was that by 2027 it’s forecasted to be worth 480 billion. Okay, that is huge. So what that means is you, my darling, are on the cusp of a wave that is a very powerful wave to be on and to be a business owner that has already been in this game already as the new ones flock in. My goodness, are you sat an amazing opportunity? Maybe you were already seeing that. I feel like I’m already seeing that. I feel like when people come into the online business world and are looking for support, they’re going to trust someone like me, who’s been in the game for five years or more over someone who only showed up a year ago, right? 

So we already have that unique advantage. But what that means is, not only will there be so many more clients investing in our kind of work, but there will be a lot more people jumping in that competition. You already feel there’s a lot of there’s gonna be even more. I feel like there are so many reasons why that is inevitable, like beyond the financial forecast of whoever it was, some big, established, you know, organization. Just look at the world around you. Look at how the poor, poor bloody love the NHS, but the NHS is overstretched. And beyond that, look at the human craving for health. Knowledge. How Diary of a CEO, one of the most popular podcasts ever, is all this is full of health. Inverted commas, experts. Oh, that’s sounded a bit judgmental. No, but there are. There’s some really amazing experts on that show, maybe some others who I would perhaps not follow their advice quite so readily. But that’s not the point I’m making here. I’m not talking about the quality or caliber or validity of guests on the show. What I am saying is it’s one of the most popular podcasts on the internet, and the majority of the conversation is around health, and that information that’s being shared isn’t go and see your GP, because GPS don’t help with chronic health issues. And who has got the majority of chronic health issues in this world women? So there are a lot of women spending money on their health, and who are increasingly becoming aware of the value of investing in themselves, I feel like back in 2020 there was still a huge amount of privilege attached to investing in your health. Well, nowadays, it’s far more common for people to be spending hundreds of pounds. On specific protocols for themselves, or biohacking gadgets, or any of those things. There is an increased awareness around longevity. I mean, I went round to my aunts and uncles last year and noticed that they the least social media savvy people, probably in the world, were both wearing aura rings. Because whoop and aura is it called Aura, or our I never know how to pronounce it, but wearable devices, you know, all of these things are all part of a culture of us having more health awareness and a more willingness to invest in our health, right? And let’s also add on the fact that the people who are most concerned about their health tend to be middle aged, which is also when they have money to invest in these things. So there are so many winning factors around why now is the very best time to be packaging up your health expertise and selling it online. Now you might be thinking, what has that got to do? Polly with niching? 

How are these all relevant? Well, here’s why it’s relevant. So a big thing happened to me back in September, which felt big, but not big all at once. And that was a very honest conversation with my new mentor. And the question he asked me was, you know what? What do your the majority of your clients have in common? He had obviously identified that while the way I do work, you know, the simple, sustainable ways to scale, is unique, who I work with wasn’t particularly there was no super or sub niche around it, aside from my brand, which definitely attracts a certain type of person. And, you know, said, Is it mums? And I was like, not necessarily. I work with a lot of women who, you know, might be caring for their own parents, or whose children have left the nest and they’re, you know, now finally, have the time to focus on their business. So no, parenthood is not the thing that they all have in common, and I don’t really necessarily want it to be the thing that everyone has in common. It’s not something we discuss very In fact, it’s something we barely touched on at all inside the accelerator. And actually, I’m quite proud of that. I want to have spaces where child free business owners can be comfortable, because I don’t think there are enough of them on the internet. So no. The other question was, well, you are neurodivergent? Do you want that to be the core theme of the kind of clients that you bring in your sub niche. And again, no, there’s a whole, you know, there’s a whole podcast episode I could do around that. That’s not to say I don’t like working with neuro divergent clients. A lot of my clients are neuro divergent. I myself am, my daughter is. So I just want to be clear on that. I’m not saying I don’t like working with them, but do I want it to be the thing I talk about all day. I mean, anyone who’s spent time filling in 282, ehcps for their children, and spends a third of their free time up at the school dealing with send related things will appreciate that. No, I did not want to roll that up in my business and how I talk about business, even though, obviously it is a factor in how I talk about business. 

So the only other thing that came up that was really clear, and I’m sharing this because maybe, you know, maybe you can see something like this in your own business. Because, bearing in mind, I’ve worked with clients now for five years, I’ve got loads of case studies. And he said, You know, when you look at those case studies, who did you enjoy working with the most? Who have you worked with the most anyway? So I looked at those things, and it’s so funny, of course, because this is the work I do with my own clients, right? This is the work we do inside the accelerator. This is what we look at my VIP days. This is what I work with my clients on one to one. Because there’s usually just a little part of us that’s trying to play it safe in how we position ourselves, and if we can just be that little bit more specific, suddenly we can get a torrent, more leads. A torrent, more sales, right? What was blazingly clear to me was that the majority of my clients were wellness practitioners, nutritional therapists. In fact, my first ever client was a nutritional therapist, psychologist. There’s been a lot more psychologists coming into my world recently. What else? Therapists, health coaches and just coaches in general. You know, obviously coaches can expand across many different areas, even personal trainers, like there’s been a real mix and doctors, and I love supporting them. And I reflected that, I feel like one of the reasons why those kind of people particularly like working with me is because I do have an almost scientific approach to marketing and a very no fluff way of breaking things down, which make things really easy to absorb, and, you know, to kind of evidence based practitioners that can have a really strong appeal. I’m not asking them to dance at the beginning of every kind of coaching call, for example, or mentoring call, which, you know, I’ve been in those kind of containers. I enjoy it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just not how we do things around here, okay,

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you know, and that has a real appeal to certain type of person, right? So that was really, really clear to me, and it was actually probably only in the last year. Or two, I’d started attracting marketers as well, and copywriters and brand strategists, but they were still within the minority of the kind of clients I support. But because of my rebrand, I will say that various wellness practitioners had more recently been asking me the question, but can you help people like me? And every time I heard that question, it was such a reflection of, you know, even though it’s all over my website, even though I have funnels where I talk about this all the time, even though my podcast, even in its intro, references health and well being as an integral core pillar to how I view business, that it still wasn’t clear enough. And the reason why it wasn’t clear enough is because people require repetition and, you know, various touch points around the same area to really associate you with something. And I hadn’t done that because I was being too broad. Well, the truth is, you know, the two seven figure businesses I’ve supported have both been, in fact, no more than that, there’d be more than two seven figure businesses, but the ones who I’ve supported to transition to seven figures were both health coaches, so yes, I can 100% help people in that space, but I had been avoiding it. So let me talk to you. Can’t believe we’re already 10 minutes in, and I’ve barely begun, but I’m going to share with you the three reasons why being your own niche is BS, ie, you, being you is enough. Double down on being you and being really clear on who you are and your values is enough to differentiate you from the rest of the noise. It just a true, my friend, it just a true. So you know, when we do that, we’re not leading with being a service. If I’m being really truthful with myself, there was a lot of ego in that, you know, like, Yes, I played around with it, and yes, you know, one of the reasons why I chose a retro photo shoot was because I felt so disillusioned by General brand photo shoots, where they just all seem so false and fake. And so I was like, if I’m going to be ridiculously fake, let’s be so fake that it’s really obvious and have fun with it, so that people have a feeling when they look at my content and and really see a side of me, even if it’s not the version you see of me every day, and that that just felt so much more joyful. But the truth is, being of service is making it easy for people to find you, and if someone is having to discover you to go through your content, you know, even if you have the most perfectly mapped out marketing pillars, even if you have the most perfect homepage and the most perfect client journey. 

Somebody isn’t going to be Googling like I am looking for a vibey business mentor who has a penchant for dopamine dressing. They might remember me for that reason, but the reason why they choose to invest with me won’t be any of those things. It will be because I can clearly solve a problem for them. And sometimes we can get so deeply rooted in our own personal brand, it just becomes a distraction. So look, I’m not here to say it doesn’t matter. You know, that would be like saying, Oh, just show up to business meeting in your trackies. And, you know, unbrushed hair, and, you know, like stinking, like, that’s not a good first impression, is it? You know, you do want to have a professional presenting brand. And yes, you know where you can be clever enough to incorporate your brand values and how you present yourself, then wonderful. And I will say it can lead to a bit of navel gazing if we get too deep into it, and it can accidentally become a bit too much about us, if we don’t find the balance between who we are being and who they are and the problem that we solve for them. Okay, so yes, and I see this all the time, people get so excited by rebrand, and they do this whole like, Oh, I’m not going to promote this, and I’m not going to say that. To say that, and I’m not going to do this until I can launch it, and it will feel exciting for all of five minutes, and then it’s back to normal. And then for anyone who knew who’s discovering you, they’re just seeing the new version of your brand anyway, so we just have to be careful not to put too much emphasis and weight on it. I mean, I will say for me, personally, I found that having the rebrand just helped me reconnect and fall in love with my business again and bring a new excitable energy. And I will say that had its own value, for sure. But you know, there are other ways to do that that are less expensive. So that’s reason number one. Okay, the reason number one is like, don’t turn it into a navel gazing exercise. Don’t lead with ego. Yes, have fun. Yes, be you. Yes. You know, allow it to be a part of your marketing strategy, but don’t let it be your whole marketing strategy, your personal brand and your niche. Okay. Reason number two, if you want to be seen as. As an expert, acts like one, okay? So if you want to be an expert, we want depth, not breadth. Okay, that’s really hard to say with big teeth. You want depth, not breadth, she says.

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But you know, when you see the same kind of client repeatedly, oh, my goodness, the difference in the results that you can achieve for them. And I know this because I used to be more of a generalist. I used to help people in so many different ways. If people were like, can you help me with my social media? I’d be like, yeah, sure, if you can. You help me with the ads. Yeah, of course, I can do that too. Can you help me build a funnel? Yeah, I can do that. And yes, I could do all of those things. But did I ever get amazing at any of them? No, because I was spreading myself too thin. No one can be masterful when they’re doing too many things all at once. So if you want to be the the expert that people associate with, let’s say nutritional therapy, endometriosis, like a In fact, we were getting to Reason number three, which is SEO, people will search for nutritional, you know, solutions to endometriosis. I don’t know if they look for solutions, but you know, they will look for nutritional support for endometriosis, non surgical, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And you will feature faster, but more than that because of Reason number two, where you’ve been building up depth in that area. When they come to you and say, Oh, you probably haven’t heard of this before, but I’ve actually had this kind of operation and this kind of surgery, and I’ve tried this kind of you’ll probably be like, Yes, I have. I have supported that before, and say that with conviction, because you have and that will create more trust. You’ll build up so many case studies that you will learn things well outside the scope of what you were ever trained to do, and you will be able to bring so much more value for that reason. And later on, should you decide to create a group program, your group program is going to have more value because you will have that nuance from the deep expertise you’ve been creating. 

So number one is like, it’s not all about you, sorry, it’s about your client too. So don’t get so deep into you being your niche that you forget about the most important thing is you’re solving a valuable problem, and is that clearly communicated? Number two is that you want depth, not breadth. You want to be building a body of work, a body of expertise that is irrefutable, that will then be like, yes, of course, I’m going to write a book on this. Of course, I need to launch a podcast. Yes, let me come on your podcast and talk about this. And you will be able to bring a level of depth to your expertise because of how fast people, reason number three can be finding you, because they will actually proactively be seeking you, which, yes, results in faster sales, because when they find you, they’ll be like, Oh, my goodness, I know I need help with I say this as an endometriosis sufferer, you know, I know that I’ve been searching for protocols to support me, an anti inflammatory protocol that will help me With all the challenges that come alongside endometriosis. I know I’ve paid for things like that, and I know I do it in a heartbeat, because it’s something that I’m living with, in discomfort with. And yes, I will throw money at somebody who tells me they’ll tell me what supplements to buy. So I’m not wasting money on a whole load of BS and what to be eating, so I’m not overthinking those things. So there is such a power to it. And so often we’ll be like, Oh, but what about the people? I could help people with PCOS. I could help people who are pregnant. Yes, yes, you can. You can. And no, that is not speeding up your sales if somebody reaches out to you and while you’re in the beginning stages of building a business and building consistent cash flow. And they say, Can you help me? And you decide, oh my goodness, yes for cash flow, I’m going to say yes to this. That is kind of different. That’s not the body of work that you’re building up as a marketer for your business to bring in consistent cash flow and consistent inquiries in the earlier stages. If you need to make the odd you know, I think we’ve all been there. I’ve been there. I did the odd job that I would have 100 I mean, nowadays there’s so many things that I would say no to in a heartbeat that I said yes to before, just because I needed to make ends meet for a short time. 

But did I bang the drum about them on social did I tell everyone I was doing them? No, because as far as the world was concerned, I wanted them to be seeing me as an expert in a certain area, and I didn’t want to draw attention to the other things I was doing. Okay? I wanted to say that because I feel like a Not, not enough people are transparent, right? Like, and what I mean by that is, I’m not saying I was like, dog walking, although you could be doing that, but I am saying, like, probably beyond the time that I was running ads. You know, if someone said, Can you do an audit for me and look at my ads performance, I would go and do that, even if it wasn’t on my list of things that I did, and charge them a power hour for it, or something, which, nowadays I have enough demand in my business. I don’t need to do those kind of things. But I would do them because I’d be like, yes, that means. I can buy my kids school uniform without having to go into debt. So I’m going to do that. And I just want to normalize that, because I think sometimes we feel it should be easy, because other people make it look easy. And believe me, we’ve all had our journey to getting here. So the things I want you to be thinking about when it comes to understanding the niching thing is yes, yes. Yes. A lot of us are afraid. Yes. A lot of us who think we already have a niche are only scratching the surface of a niche. And if you go that little bit deeper, you don’t suddenly have to rebrand. You don’t have to announce enormous pivot, like I literally just ran a workshop around ads for wellness practitioners as a way of dipping my toe in the water. And it did so well, okay? And did I need to announce to everyone that that I was now pivoting? Did I need to change overhaul my entire brand? No, okay, because one thing I had to look at was, well, these people are already buying from me. 

These people are already in my world, you know, so I don’t know, like, if they were doing that before, then I don’t need to change too much. And I imagine, similarly, for you, if you’ve already got evidence of those types of people working with you, then you’re not going to need to do that again. Can be a distraction. That can be its own form of navel gazing. It’s like, oh yeah, let’s just procrastinate brand over here rather than go make some juicy sales, okay, but believe me, when you do all of these things, sales, I mean everything, everything that you want as a personal brand from, you know, like I say, being that in demand person to speak on a stage. Like, I’m going to be honest here, I have been told or invited to, on several occasions speak on stages. And one of my reasons for not wanting to do so is thinking, Well, ultimately, I help people with the online business space, with funnels, with, you know, offered development, and I just didn’t see how it would translate to a stage, and it felt just maybe a little bit too samey to what I see other people talking about on stages as well, and yes, I’ve got the cushy piece, but even then, that just didn’t feel quite right. But now, now that I know I’m speaking to wellness practitioners, even the process of going through my accelerator sales page and updating it to share case studies that were purely from the wellness sector. Going through my examples of what it looks like, you know, what the sticky situation that my ideal client is in, and what the accelerator supports them with the level of specificity I could bring to that sales page made me think like, oh my goodness, I would buy this from me. It’s so good. And similarly, now if I’m invited to do a talk or write that book, I am so much clearer on who I’m speaking to, and therefore the inspiration and creativity just flows. And I can say to you my biggest financial month this year came off the back of me being hyper specific about who I help, and there’s some amazing opportunities that have already come off the back of that that are yet to materialize. So it’s a really exciting time in my business, and to think that for so long I’d been looking at my most successful clients thinking, Oh, well, they all have this thing in common. They all have a hyper specific problem they solve. But that’s not me, without ever questioning, well, why can’t it be me? 

So it is me. Now, this podcast isn’t going to change too much, because, again, I was reviewing the podcast thinking, does it need a whole overhaul? And I was like, this has been very close to the themes I’ve been talking about all along. Yes, there will be some episodes where I go even more into like what it looks like for wellness practitioners. But there isn’t much changing around here, because it was already always there, and I just hadn’t claimed it. So my invitation to you is to pull out your journal and to take a moment to reflect upon a bit like in that romance movie, when that really cute best friend next door who’s just been smiling at you and being adorable, you’re in. Adorable the entire time, and you’ve been wasting your time on toxic relationships, and then suddenly he’s there, and you can see him. The light shining on him, and you’re running towards him in your cotton white dress with buttons down the front, and you’re skipping over the tulips, and you’re wrapping your legs around him, and the sun’s going down and the music comes up. Yeah. What is that? What is the alternative to that? In your life, in your business, that part of your niche that you’ve been ignoring that you get to wrap your legs around now, okay, so go have a think about it. If you enjoyed this episode, if you’ve got a business pal in your life who is resisting with every part of their being to hyper niche or super niche or sub niche, or whatever niche, niche, niche you want to put on it, then please share this episode with them. Please like it. Please review it. If you have any questions, if you have any like, what party you said this before, and now you’re saying that come at me and my DMs. I welcome it very much. And well, I’ll be in your ears next week