How to niche down for fun and profit

I wrote something down last night that is now the new linchpin for The Hungry.

Communication strategy for product-based creative businesses.

I started reading Alex Hormozi’s 100 Million Dollar Offers, and one of the tenets in the book is defining our ideal customer by niching down because niching down allows us to charge more for what we offer those people.

I teach communication strategy for product-based creative businesses.

When I first started The Hungry, I aimed widely at artists trying to sell their work way too broadly, talking about news, marketing, social media, print-on-demand, and whatever else interests readers.

Truthfully, I was afraid of alienating people because I had an audience filled with types from each of those segments.

Since I’ve tried to hone my message for a long time, starting with a lot of business and marketing information for artists and other creative businesses, cool, but that was way too broad because, with each post, I wasn’t sure which part of the market I was serving.

More recently, I narrowed my view to talking about marketing and communication for those people, and it’s been great, but I still felt like it wasn’t narrow enough.

In a recent My First Million podcast episode, Shaan Puri brought up some tips for people looking to start with no audience. He shared advice to stop trying to be well-known and aim to be known well.

We all know well-known people (celebrities, sports stars, or even the person in your neighborhood who greets everyone), and often, we aspire to that level of notoriety, but to get there, it’s best to become someone known well for what they do.

Puri’s example was about Gary Vaynerchuk (Gary Vee). If I said, “GaryVee’s dream is to buy [blank].” If you know anything about Gary, then you know the answer is The Jets because he talks about it any chance he gets.

Vaynerchuk is fortunate to be well-known for many things. Still, he’s known well for his drive, determination, and unwavering dedication to owning one of the saddest NFL teams in history. As Puri puts it, if Vaynerchuk had said he wanted to buy the Knicks or The Yankees, most people wouldn’t pay attention, but because he aimed his sights on the team he’s rooted for and been miserable for decades, the world pays attention.

I want to be known for teaching communication strategy to product-based creative businesses.

Let’s break this statement down for context. Teaching communication strategy is the most concise way I could describe what people share with their audience, whether on social media, blog posts, or email broadcasts. Storytelling is an essential tool, but people read it and often think I’m trying to tell them to write nonfiction or make up stories about what they do (there’s a place for that, but that is not the point).

Messaging was also a word I tossed around for a minute, but I don’t think people got it either. Communication is a more universal phrase, even if it’s vague, but people get it when they see or hear it.

Product-based creative businesses are creative people who recognize what they make as products. Those products can be physical or digital, but I’m no longer leaning toward people who make artisanal items (paintings, sculptures, fine crafts).

Often, the artsy types cannot stand treating their art as a product, and that’s fine. Still, I see that as a limiting belief, and the entire point of The Hungry from the very beginning was to help people shuck the scarcity mindset of the starving artist.

Also not included are service-based creatives who work freelance or run a small agency. I won’t dissuade those people from reading The Hungry, but the approach to client-oriented businesses takes a different approach. It is not my forté because I have never enjoyed freelance work.

The conversations won't change much if you’re a Hungry reader. The clarifying statement of my ideal customer is mostly for me, allowing me to focus on specific individuals who I believe can benefit from what is shared.

This also means when I create my products and services, they will be specifically geared toward those people, and when they purchase and are happy with their results, they will tell others like them. When that happens enough times, perhaps I’ll become known for it.