#136: Finally Naming My Niche (& It Only Took 6 Years!)

If you’ve ever struggled with giving your niche a name that fits just right for your business, this episode is for you!

In this episode I’m sharing:

• The best & unexpected niching advice I received at the start of my business
• The 3 “Niche Hats” I’ve tried on, and the mistakes that came with using them…
• How I came to my current niche name that ticks all of the boxes

And at the end, I’m sharing a key question to ask yourself to help you narrow your own niche name too!

I helped a client with this exact struggle in my new Voxer Power Hour offer – between 8th March – 8th April I’m offering these at an introductory rate of $100 (USD)! Click here to book now >>>

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TRANSCRIPT:

It’s finally happened. I have named my niche. And guess what? It only took six years!

[*TRIGGER WARNING* Before you jump into this episode, I want to let you know that there is a mild mention of the theme of sexual assault in this episode.

The reason why I say it’s mild is because there is no description. There’s no elaboration whatsoever on any one incident. It was purely used for context and that is all, but I still appreciate that is a sensitive topic for many people, myself included. And so that is why I want to give you a heads up before you dive into this episode today.

If you feel that you’re in a position to keep on listening, then please do. Thank you so much.]

INTRO:
So if you’re someone who’s ever struggled with niching, I think that this episode is for you because I really wanted to be super transparent about the different iterations of my niche and how I tried on things that didn’t quite fit properly but I tried it on anyway until I can find something else that felt more aligned and also the big mistakes and reflections that I picked up along the way.

But before I share that with you, let me just share where the struggle started. So Yeah, I always struggled with traditional niching because we all know that if you’re talking to everyone, you’re essentially talking to no one, which is why niching is so important for many people. And I remember when I confessed the struggle to a dear friend of mine, and who was actually a mentor to me at the time, I said, Ugh, do you know what?

I’m really struggling. I, I feel like I can’t do this. So shout out to Ry Schwartz, who really helped me during this time, especially as I was very new in the online business world at the time. He says to me, you know what Mai-kee, most people niche by industry or they niche by the service or product they offer, but you, you niche by ethos.

And I still remember in that moment, I felt so understood. I felt so seen that there’s just, A different way to identify. The people that I loved calling in, who I loved working with, because when I actually looked at their industries, they were so wildly different, and I thought, what is the common thread between all of them?

And I thought, oh, is their ethos on business? Is their ethos on life? And for the longest of time, that was my placeholder. Right. But putting that into my bio or putting like when I’m introducing myself, saying that I serve like ethos based entrepreneurs, that did not make sense whatsoever. It was just more of internal language.

Right. And so that’s what really made me want to try out a couple of different things. So I’m going to share with you three variations of the niches I try to kind of call it like just the way that I want to call in my clients and community and why I’ve decided to kind of. Veer away from that. Some very important reasons and also how I’ve really gotten to this point now when I’m actually super happy with what my niche is called.

THE 3 NICHE HATS

So let’s get to it. So the first niche hat that I tried was in the form of gender. So I definitely had messaging around helping women in business. And then I remember as the conversation really started to evolve, I used women X, and then I learned that that was actually harmful to the trans community. I used language like, you know, women and women who identify as, but then again, there was another debate and, you know, very important conversation about, again, how that can invalidate the trans community in particular.

So when I really look back in retrospect. I know the reason why I wanted to only work with women and it’s because it was from a safety perspective as a trauma survivor who was still healing and if you know anything about my story you’ll know that basically the core of my trauma is because of sexual assault and it just so happened that every person who did do that to me happened to be a man.

And so I received a lot of support over the years from my therapist, from family, friends, and really trying out different healing modalities. And I realized that actually, even with that messaging and marketing myself as someone who only supported women, there were a couple of men who still came into my world and they were the most beautiful people, people who I loved working with and wanted to get to know more and to support.

And that Was just when it dawned on me, it’s not meant like that’s the problem for me. It was just that I didn’t know how to communicate my boundaries of the kind of people I wanted to serve. And so that really meant that I did a lot of soul searching, I did a lot of deep digging, and had to really face some uncomfortable truth.

And that is why that I no longer use gendered language. That is not the way that I call in my community, right? And I really wanted to find different ways to call them in that excluded the required use of gendered language, right? And I also do want to say that I know in retrospect now, that when I only marketed to women in the past, I was naturally excluding non binary folks, gender fluid people, and anyone beyond the gender binary in the process.

And for that, all I can say is I am so sorry, and I really hope that I am doing better now, right? So, That was niche hat number one, and I wore that for quite a few years, I would reckon.

And then came niche hat number two. This niche hat was all about using language around being values aligned and integrity led and using anything with the word ethical in it.

Let me just say, That I do value all of these things, right? I really want to work with people who have the same values as me and who really, they do have integrity, like they really do what they say they do and they are mindful of the ethical use of various actions, language, etc. I think they’re actually really wonderful words, but the thing is, each of them in their own respective way comes with caveats of requiring additional context.

Because Let’s be honest, all of these things are relative. When I see values aligned, I think, okay, but what are your values? And being in integrity isn’t always a good thing. It depends on what you’re in integrity to, right? And ethics, oh my goodness, right? I know why the rise of ethical conversations have really come to the forefront.

But here’s the thing,

I always thought deep down, who am I to say who gets to be value aligned, who gets to say that they have integrity or not, or whether they’re being ethical, because I didn’t, I certainly didn’t think so. That was not my role to play, because again, everything here is relative. I think there is a beauty in all of these things.

But again, I felt like it still missed the mark somehow, so as much as it definitely served its purpose during the years of like, I think it was since 2020, there was still something that felt slightly off. Which brings me to about 2023, and this is when I was kind of in that in between because I had to be super honest with myself.

When I first got my branding photo shoot. I remember it was when I left my last job and I was venturing out on my own as a solopreneur and it was super exciting time and I remember the first branding photographer, so shout out to Liz Riley, who was my branding photographer back then. She helped me come up with the term Quiet Rebels®

She is the one who actually helped me find a name for the people who I did want to call in and the people who I felt that I felt like that was also me. It was a two way street. You know, being a quiet rebel. And so for me, using Quiet Rebels® language, that felt right because. What that means is many things to many people, and that’s always been the beauty of it, like, on this podcast, every guest I’ve ever had, we’ve all explored different ways where we identify with this, and the beauty of it is that we don’t have to be the same.

It’s like, the thing that makes you different is what makes you so special, and that’s the very reason why you belong to the Quiet Rebels. And of course, you know, I’m super biased about this one because it’s one of my trademarks as well. And the thing is, oh, this is, this was the hardest part. It was like, even though this was actually the most accurate descriptor of the people I love working with and the people who I love having in my community, I had to, Admit to myself this uncomfortable truth is that people don’t automatically think of calling themselves a quiet rebel.

It’s one of those things that once they hear it, they’re like, oh, actually, that could be me. But it’s not the everyday language that they use because it is, you know, it’s a relatively unique term. So as reluctant as I was to put this one on the back burner, I did, and that was hard. That brings me to right now.

MY NEWLY NAMED NICHE

Here in 2024, at the time of this recording of this episode

after a lot of umm-ing and ahh-ing about who is it, what is the common thread, what people value, what speaks to the people that I love working with and who I love serving, and who I love cultivating a community for. And well, my lovely. It’s human first business owners.

And what I love about this is that it speaks to people in so many different layers and actually shout out to my partner who actually helped me see the two sides of that.

When I say human first, I’m calling in the people who see their own clients. their own community for their humanity, that they’re not just a business owner, they’re not just a customer. They are a human first to them and they treat them as such, right? Not as a transaction or as a disposable person. No, no, no.

A real human with feelings and thoughts and dreams and fears and all that beautiful spectrum that is humanity. That’s what I love. And also being a human first business owner meant that they themselves are also the people who factor in their own needs, their own values, boundaries, life, everything in between.

And I love that. So it’s kind of like just a beautiful circle of people valuing other people and not kind of leaving themselves out in that equation. Because when I thought about Alternatives. I’ve heard of people first, people led, which again, I think it’s really beautiful language, and I didn’t want to copy a close peer of mine who does use some of that language, and I think when I read it, I thought, where is the room for us?

And I realized, human first has two meanings, and it is beautiful,

and also, Another thing is that it doesn’t actually depict how seasoned you are in business or how new you are in business either. Because when I actually look at my office suite, there is something for everybody, right? There are different levels of support. There are different areas of, um, different areas of expertise that can go into it.

And that was also another reason why I love the human first part. So when I, I meet people now and they’re asking, Hey, Meike, what do you do? I say, I help human first business owners get heard and hired for their work in the world. And yeah, side note, I love me some alliteration. So that’s also wonderful there.

But for me, I wanted my messaging to speak to people no matter where they were at because I knew that when I look at my office suite, there truly is something for everybody and the common thread between us all is that we see other people for the human they are behind the business, behind being a client or a customer, and we also acknowledge, validate, and validate, and value our own human experience as well.

So that’s where I’m at my lovely. That is how I have truly taken six years to have found the niche that truly feels the most representative. of the people I want to call in, at which level of business, and truly the connection point, the thread between every single person that I’ve ever worked with. They truly have been human first, and I’m so, so, so happy to have found that.

And I wish it didn’t take me six years, but the reason why I wanted to record this episode as a whole is because this stuff can take time and there are some things that you can’t know just by thinking about it. Sometimes you need to repeat a message over and over and over again with different variations, trying out different words, swapping out different labels, different approaches, different angles.

HOW YOU CAN GET STARTED

You can’t know just by thinking. The true knowing comes from trying and if you’re not quite sure where to start, here are a couple of things that I literally said to my client today when we were working together for a Voxer Power Hour because we were working on exactly this, like how do I actually call in the people that I want to, all of my offers are dialled in and you know, structured great, got great feedback.

I asked her the question, “what is it that’s going to help your ideal people feel the most seen by you?”

That, coupled with her own values, her own take, and the themes of her methodology, all of that wove into a really beautiful way of naming her niche. And I’m very happy to find, to, to learn that she was actually really happy with what we came up with at the end. And so that’s why I just want to say, it’s going to take time, that is okay.

You might have to put on a couple of niche hats before you find the right one, and it’s okay if it’s not a perfect fit straight away because you will find it. The more you stay curious, the more that you allow yourself to try different things and be okay with it not fully working, you will find it. So that is my episode for you today my lovely.

I really hope that by just sharing the behind the scenes mistakes and just different hats I’ve tried on that it’s gonna help you point yourself in the right direction to having a niche that you’re really proud to stand by. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of the Quiet Rebels podcast.

This was another solo episode with yours truly, Mai-kee Tsang, and I hope to see you in the next one! Bye for now~