#222: Your Course Isn’t Too Niche — Here’s How to Own It

Welcome back to another edition of the Course Creation Incubator podcast. I’m your host, Gina Onativia, here to get you excited about your online course, your workshop, whatever it is you’re putting out there in a bigger way. I am here for it and just got back from vacation. Tell you a little bit about some stories about that in a minute, but really thinking about you guys and this idea that there’s no such thing as too niche.

Okay, No such thing. The riches are in the niches and I’m going to make a case for it in today’s podcast. And if you’ve been hesitating to put out your course, your certification course, your signature course, your starter course, whatever it looks like, because you think your topic or your audience is too niche. I’m going to talk you out of it.

I’m going to talk you into moving forward and taking action, because that’s exactly what we do in this podcast. Okay, We take action. And if you’re thinking niching down is going to give you to small the segment. Just remember that Titans, like Amy Porterfield used to have a really small niche called Facebook Marketing before she built her online course empire.

So keep that in mind. Again, the riches are in the niches and I’m going to show you how in today’s episode, I’m going to show you the power of niching down and how really own it. And as always, this episode is brought to you by art, done for you. Course creation. I mentioned a few of those courses that we can help you build certification courses, starter lead gen signature courses, whatever you think will really build up your business.

We can help you figure that out as well. If you want high touch custom help reach out, Book a call. Let’s talk about your options. Go to course Creation boutique ecom slash course and chat it up. And as I just mentioned and as I just mentioned, we just got back from vacation. We kept it local and we went to Big Bear because we are avid hikers, as you know.

If you’ve been listening to this podcast, we’d love to get into the wilderness. We love to hike. We love to just get out into the mountains and no place better than Big Bear, California. And I ended up pushing myself accidentally two ways during vacation. And the first was this hike that we did, Cougar Crest. Look it up. If you’re ever in the Big Bear area, gorgeous, gorgeous hike that links up with the Pacific Coast trail and and it’s it’s a they say it’s a moderate but I would call it a more difficult hike and because it’s the elevation just keeps going up up up until you hit the summit and it’s about two and a

half 2.4 miles up and then another 2.4 down. And then my husband, Alex, says, Hey, let’s try to get up near Big Bertha, which is another summit, which is a few more miles. But again, straight up. So we add another mile and and a very difficult fire road. So we ended up doing around 5.8 miles. Now, we’ve done this hike before in the winter, a couple of years ago.

And in the winter it was beautiful. It was cool. There was a breeze, it was crisp. In the summer, it’s close to 80. There’s not a lot of shade in this hike. And guys on the way down, I thought, I’m not going to make it. I mean, I knew I was going to make it, but I was slightly hallucinating.

I was hot, I was dehydrated and I really had to push myself to get to the bottom. And it’s downhill, as you can imagine, because you’re you’re going elevation up and then downhill on the way. But I really had to do some mindset work to say, stay in the moment, stay present. I know you’re hot. I know you’re dehydrated to get back down the mountain.

And of course, I was with Alex and my son Tristan, who was just so solid at these hikes. So always an inspiration to me. So it was one way I had to push myself. And then we decided to do this ropes course. This was the next day. Don’t worry, guys. I didn’t do this Right after the delirium of the hike in Big Bear.

They have a fun ropes course two levels, and they strap you in and there’s like a tether above you. And. And then you can do, like, beams. You could walk across a beam, you can walk across ropes. You there’s gaps that you have to jump and you’re pretty high up, or at least two floors up right. And and when I stepped onto the platform for the first time in a while, I said to myself, I can’t do this.

It’s been a long time since I said, I don’t think I can do this. And then, of course, I see Tristan jumping on the the balance beams like a little monkey, as he should, and just running around. And I thought, okay, if Tristan can do it, I can do it. So I do pull out some Tony Robbins magic from back in the day, from working with Tony and I to do.

It’s like, I can do this, I can do this. Like I could not let my thoughts in because I was I was afraid. And I had to do that for probably a good 5 minutes before I got comfortable. And I’ll just be honest, I didn’t get really comfortable doing it, but I was so proud to do it because that was the first time in a while, like I said, that I haven’t pushed myself that that I’ve actually been really fearful and I thought, I don’t want to do this or I can’t do this.

And I’ll be honest, I don’t push myself enough, you know, at what I do in any aspect of my life. So I was really proud. And that was the highlight of our vacation, like the hike and then doing that ropes course. So great reminder. Just push yourself. Go to Big Bear, go to the mountains, and don’t be afraid to get out of your comfort zone.

Right. Because you never know what’s on the other side. All right. But we’re not here to talk about ropes courses. We’re here to talk about what it means to have a great niche and how I want you to own it. First, let’s talk about what does it mean, like when I say have a great niche and I want you to have a smaller segment that you are speaking to.

A lot of times I get course creators who are first starting out and say, Hey, I want to attract all new moms, right? Like, Whoa, I want to attract all teachers. I want to attract all real estate agents. It’s like, yikes, okay. Like the riches are in the niches. It really is. I talk about Paige Schultz all the time, who I had on the show, very successful, real estate course, her niche, emerging real estate agents in the game for less than six months now, she niches down a step further.

And just as women women emerging real estate agents in the in the business for six months, that is a great niche that is niching down so you can niche down or you can also secure your own passionate audience and segment. So another example that would be I had when I had a mastermind or a mastermind member whose expertise was running a photo booth business.

I never heard of this. I knew photo booths from weddings and events, but I’ve never heard of anyone actively running a photo booth business, which doesn’t make sense. Of course there’s people who do that. But but she had a niche business, right? She wasn’t one of these big entertainment companies that were supplying all these parties stuff, like she just rented out a photo booth and she was very, very good at it.

So she taught other entrepreneurs, I think mostly women, how to run a very successful photo booth business. So she’s not teaching you how to run weddings, right? Or how to wildly successful events. She’s just doing that photo booth aspect, just that one little aspect. And I thought, Is there a market for this? Are there enough people? And she said yes.

So she ended up launching like a very successful group coaching program who knew with a great niche. Sometimes you’re saying to yourself, Who knew, right? Who knew there was enough people to support that great niche? Here’s another example of a great niche. I have a six week accelerator student, Stacy Ashman, who helps academic physicians with their path to success.

So academic physicians, I had to look it up, guys treat patients, but they also have this academic side like the research, right? And they’re researching advancements. Very important that these guys are doing it right and they they get the papers that then become the next level of advancement of health advancements. She works specifically with them to help them figure out their career path.

Gosh, not all physicians, right? So academic physicians, I’m like, oh, I love this great niche. She worked on the six week accelerator. She worked with me to launch her course, and now she’s a medical mentor. So love, love, love that niche. Now, why is it so great? Like just thinking about these examples. Oh, one more. Megan Helmsley, who was on the show trimming donkey hooves.

That’s a great niche, right? Like, so it seems like it’s obscure, but there’s an audience there with a pain point waiting for a solution. So if you think your topic might be too niche or too obscure, then think about is there a market, is there a pain point, and do you offer a relevant solution? Okay, so I want you to think about those three things.

Now. Here’s why having a niche is so important. One clear messaging versus broad strokes. Okay, Let’s talk about why having a niche is so awesome. Number one is the clear messaging versus broad strokes. When you’ve got that niche audience, you are talking. Seth Godin says This marketing guru Seth Godin, You’re talking to a swimming pool, not an ocean.

You can use specific language when you’re talking to somebody, somebody who runs a photobooth business, right, versus running an events business or anything else. Like those photobooth people are going to know certain things that that I will never be aware of. But that’s the power of it. The Donkey Ferrier’s While Meghan speaks specifically to that and there’s power in that, there’s power in that language.

And knowing the exact words they use on your sales page and your emails are another reason why niching is so awesome is you stand out amongst competition, right? So if I am Paige Schultz and I’m not saying I’m for every real estate agent, I’m just for women, emerging real estate agents, then I know I can be really powerful, really impactful just in that segment.

And especially when you’re starting out, by the way, it’s a clear path to speak to a specific group. Another reason why it’s so great to have a niche is sometimes small audiences have deeper loyalty and word of mouth, right? Because they’re passionate. I know when we first started out with Corporation Boutique, we built up a little passionate following with the six week accelerator and we had an ambassador program, and it really served us to be in a niche and not say, Hey, we’re just going to market for all people.

Another reason why I love niching down is micro audiences are the way to go and oftentimes will perform better than a big calls list. And I’ve talked about this before in the podcast where I know experts who have huge lists that were tens of thousands, hundreds, thousand, and the list is not engaging. And I would much rather them have a micro audience of a thousand that actually bought that actually engaged with them.

So just think about that to just that micro audience will listen to you more than that broader audience. Now here’s how to own your niche. And there’s three ways. First of all, spell it out, okay? Sometimes we try to be all cutesy, like trimming donkey hooves. That course is name trimming Don Quixote. She’s not messing around. She knows the pain point.

Or like all deformed, weird donkey hooves. She calls it what it is. Going back to Stacey’s course academic physician Kickstarter course. It’s not fancy guys, but it speaks to the niche. It speaks to that smaller segment. So don’t hide in some fancy titles. Tell them what it is. Really speak to them. Like we were saying at the beginning of this episode.

Also, number two, speak to the pain. You’re not talking to everyone. Pete Schultz is not talking to the real estate agent who’s maybe been in business for years and years and hit a rut. That’s not her person. Her person is in pain because they haven’t had a sale yet. And it’s been six months since I got my license.

I’m wondering, is this really the right path for me? I left another career for this and I’m nervous. I’m nervous. I’m never going to turn a sale. That’s the pain that I want you to speak to. And that’s the moment that you want to speak to. So don’t be afraid to get specific because you’ve drilled down, you’ve earned it.

You’ve earned their trust. Third, show your credibility by talking through why you’re trustworthy. So we’re offering certification courses right now. And I’ve been talking in this podcast about how I’m building up different certification courses because I know that gives me credibility. If you want to build a certification course with me, I’ve done one live, I’ve done one rerecord it prerecorded, I’ve done one where we are doing it both.

It’s a hybrid. So that gives me credibility that I want to talk about. And I want you to talk about it. So don’t be afraid to put your expertise and your credibility out there. All right. So in closing, if you’re not sure of your niche, there’s a few ways to go about this, right? You can have a workshop.

I’ll link to it in the show notes episodes I’ve done, how to do a workshop, how to do a live workshop. You can do some validation interviews if you were afraid that you were too broad, right? Like you’re something for everyone, but you’re not appealing to anyone. Validation interviews are a great way to go. Who can you talk to on the phone via Zoom and really learn how to drill down?

And then you could offer coaching is another idea you could heavily discounted. I don’t like free coaching, but you could heavily discount it just this once as you find your way to figure out that audience that is really, really right for you. Okay. Hopefully this has inspired you to niche down and find that smaller segment that you can really speak to.

If this has impacted you in any way, I would love for you to leave me a review. Think about applying for our high touch customer done for you services and until next time, go create, be you and be brilliant and get it done.