Niche Dialoguing: A Conversation With Yourself About Yourself
Your niche and your marketing strategy.
Goes together like…
Well this isn’t really a “goes together” type relationship.
Having a niche is absolutely inherent to marketing.
Telling stories must require details, a specific point of view.
Have you ever heard someone say:
Oh my god, I really connected with that person’s story because of how generic and vague it was.
—
Niching is so so important and actually pretty easy.
I coach niching as telling your story through your business.
While there is certainly value in ‘finding your tribe’ socially
I would argue ‘finding your tribe’ hurts you professionally
Take steps away from your tribe…
better yet, leave your tribe behind…
launch yourself into spaces where you are one of one…
where there is no one else with your background.
With your specific combination of undergrad degree, grad degree, work experiences, lived experiences, on and on…
(Quick Story)
I showed up to an evening MBA program while working as a floor counselor in a behavioral health dual diagnosis residential treatment program during the day.
Could you imagine two settings being more different?
I go from doing room checks and non-violent interventions on 16-year olds to…
GAAP fundamentals and Peter Drucker.
Think about times where you thought to yourself: My peers would be surprised to see me here.
Those unexpected juxtapositions are the blueprint of your niche.
What weird seminars, non-conforming professional interests have been accumulated in your many years of life?
What unorthodox occupational pairings and professional never-have-I-evers are you most proud to disclose at parties?
On the whole, humans tend to see ourselves as simple beings
This is for ease and the standard operation of life.
To the trained, marketing eye, however, we are filled with eccentricities, hidden knowledge, and a trove of unique wisdom that have amassed throughout a lifetime.
Now the question becomes, what does this say about my work?
For the folks in my sphere like therapists, healers, wellness entrepreneurs - your modalities (EMDR, IFS, Somatic, DBT) and categories (therapist, coach, marketer, consultant) are the first line of marketing.
But your creative content, website voice, and ongoing networking strategy speaks to your niche, your professional fingerprint.
Pull stories from grad school, undergrad, hell, even high school and grade school about what pulled energy out of you.
No answer is too silly.
What classes, topics, or teachers?
What classes annoyed you? And why?
I personally hated French. Not the language, to be clear, just the class designed to teach the language.
I hated it because I was very uncomfortable being limited in what I could speak.
With a very limited vocabulary in a foreign language, the infancy of expression was extremely offputting and I became apathetic.
Little window there in my soul there.
What sports, events, or activities attracted you?
I started high school thinking I was going to be a soccer and basketball player all four years. After I got cut from JV basketball and bowed out of JV soccer, both in my sophomore year, I took a long look in the mirror - for a 15 year old - and decided to put my energy into track and cross country. I gravitated to running because my dad was a prolific runner and a lot of friends were already on the track team. However, I excelled at running because it involved a peaceful yet intense journey of steady improvement, if you fully surrendered and committed to the work.
A bigger window into my soul here.
Introducing: Niche Dialoguing
I’ve found it’s next to impossible to sit down and just conjure up your niche or your specific messaging. I’m a believer that your niche is already there. It can be found in your story. So the process in making that clear involves activity, back and forth. It involves participation and inner engagement.
Niche Dialoguing is defined as a Socratic conversation intended to provide clarity and detail around your professional intentions, specialties, and context.
Common questions I will ask when utilizing Niche Dialoguing with clients:
What is your first memory of learning or understanding what therapy was?
Why did you choose to learn more about therapy or healing?
What were the first things you learned about your modality?
Why did you gravitate to this modality over others?
Recall a story of feeling like a kid, being excited about learning something new regarding this modality.
What was going on in your life during this time?
How has your relationship with your modality changed over time?
What parts of yourself come up for you around your modality? How may your practice address those parts in others?
It helps to have a counter force to knead this information out of you. To ask, express interest, and notice patterns and themes about your story that you may not have realized in the past.
In a future post, I will demonstrate Niche Dialoging with ChatGPT. This was an interesting exercise - one that I think AI is great for as it gets your gears turning, but by no means should be the definitive voice in deriving your own niche.