Episode 142

142: Shift Into Your Niche

If you've ever considered pivoting from one niche to another, then you're in for a treat with today's episode. In this dynamic hot seat coaching session, Melissa takes the reins to assist her Elevate 360 Mastermind client, Julie, in navigating her way beyond her comfort zone and embracing her new identity as a leadership coach for entrepreneurs.

Whether you're embarking on a gradual shift or opting for a swift transformation, the utmost clarity is essential when honing in on your niche and target audience. When your message attempts to reach everyone, it often resonates with no one. Therefore, it's crucial to audit your trajectory and personal branding to ensure that your message resounds effectively.

Remember, a muddled message can obscure your path forward, so tune in to gain valuable insights on how to establish a captivating, precise communication strategy.

Topics discussed in this episode:

  • Niche
  • Entrepreneur
  • Personal development
  • Comfort zone
  • LinkedIn
  • Successful business
  • Personal branding
  • Online business
  • Scaling
  • Revenue
  • Leadership training
  • Service-based business

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-henault/

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Transcript

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Yeah. Yeah. So it's like all these pieces are coming together and all the work that I've been doing in terms of my offers and all that still completely apply. Mm-hmm. 'cause they can apply to someone in corporate or business. Right. I'm just gonna go after the entrepreneur because, and this could be a story I'm telling myself, but I really believe this in my intuition when I'm finding from working with the clients that I have and having my launches and all of that.

e income. I could have spent [:

Now, of course, I could have maybe found my own coach and they would've paid all of that. But I'm, I, that has been so clear. These guys don't spend money on themselves the way entrepreneurs do in terms of personal development, success, leadership, all the things. Right. So that's been an aha for me, and I've been, I realized, and I think you said this to me, and it's been in my head, corporate is my comfort zone.

Right. And that's where I've been. Mm-hmm. So I spent my whole career in hr. I saw myself as an HR executive, all the things, but I'm, I've been in business for 30 years, but I didn't identify as a business coach. It was more of a leadership coach. Right. But it's all semantics. It's su it's success. Mm-hmm. It just feels completely aligned now to be talking to entrepreneurs.

really could use my support. [:

Or do I put a line in the sand and go into my group and say, look it, here's what I'm doing and here's why they can stay, because I'm still gonna talk about success and they'll be able to apply it to any area of their life. Mm-hmm. Or, you know, but you're gonna start hearing me talk about this now in my content, in my lives.

we dive into that, with your [:

Here, I'll read you what I wrote this morning I teach female entrepreneurs how to build, grow, and run a successful business. I wanna keep it simple, so, Build is my offer where it's a membership, it's $79 a month. It's cheap because they don't have the money to invest right now. So I can give them really good tactics on how to continue to build their business.

Mm-hmm. My, my signature program, which is a six month coaching program, is where I'm gonna teach you to grow it. I call that free to strive or thrive and then running your business, which is completely different than building it is where is my one-on-one? I have a, a pro, uh, product I call free to arrive.

of what I'm thinking. Yeah. [:

And it is the rate limiting factor of them actually being able to scale and succeed beyond being a solo entrepreneur. They end up burnt out. Mm-hmm. Their team, they have massive team turnover. They don't know how to build culture. They don't know how to build rapport, create vision, and I think it's a huge gap in entrepreneurship.

ously. in my bias opinion, I [:

That would be, I think a big piece of the signature program that six months. Gotcha. That grow. I could, I could drop it a little bit in the building, but I think, the way I'm envisioning it, the, the entrepreneur that would come into the membership doesn't have a team yet. Who knew, right? But yes, that one that goes into my six month signature program, they're scaling, they're probably having to build a team.

don't have a lot of business [:

I've seen businesses implode from seven figures. Like one of my dearest friends too, now I've seen their businesses just shoot off to seven figures and then just like crumble because they just didn't know how to manage the growth, the people, the team like, and there was never any focus on it. There was never any focus on I need to work on how to lead.

Right. Because they were the visionary. Um, and that'll only take you so far. I totally agree. And then when you're under stress too, you can't be barking orders. They're not gonna stay, right? No. Yeah. So that's my jam engagement leadership. That's what I did for 30 years. So that'll be definitely big marketing piece on the scaling.

ee or into my lists, into my [:

Yeah. this is where you're gonna, I, I've notoriously talk out of both sides of my mouth, so I'll let you think through it. it depends on. If you want, I, I don't know what your revenue stream is now, and if you're depending on it, and if you're giving people an, an option to just bail because you're changing direction.

I know for me what we did is, I, for those of you, most of you know my story. All of you really know my story. My, my business was founded on direct sales. It was teaching people indirect sales, how to grow business on LinkedIn. Mm-hmm. And about two, about a year and a half in, I had this huge epiphany that I really wanted to be working with, service-based entrepreneurs.

ent to my audience. I didn't [:

I actually just shifted my message. I just started to shift what I was saying. I started to shift my copy, when we started to, you know, recruit for launches, I took the word direct sales, social selling. Um, I took all of that out. Hmm. And I just changed my verbiage. And with our ads manager, we took out direct sales as a market, and, um, we started bringing in a different audience.

And when I went to launch, I, it was awkward actually. The, the, I'll tell you, when I knew I was out of alignment and selling to direct sales, my audience hadn't caught up to where I was. Okay? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And this was the launch that cost me more money than I, than I made. Okay. So I was already, it was becoming very evident to me.

e. I wasn't aligned to it. I [:

Mm-hmm. But we had already run ads and had marketed to use the same ads triggers we'd always had. Right. And um, we went the launch and my message just fell flat. I mean, you guys, I opened cart and no one bought nothing. Crickets. This was after making a million dollars in 19 months. So I hope this makes some of you feel better if you've done a launch and didn't make any money.

enses for my team were about [:

We finally had two sales squeaking, uh, like close, like the day the cart closed. 'cause we gave these two people like a really good deal. 'cause I was desperate to at least pay for my ads. Right. Sounds so familiar. And it was awful. And that was the, but that was also the same week that Kelly, that was literally the same weekend I spoke at Kelly Roche's game changers event where they had me on stage speaking to entrepreneurs who were service-based.

This was when I like had a goose egg of a launch. I can't see outside my little, you know, undercurrent of feeling sorry for myself. Right? And I have this whole sea of people who are service-based entrepreneurs who really wanna hear my message. And so that was a goose egg launch. I did my presentation for Kelly, like, you know, shaking my head like this is the wrong audience.

with within moments all week [:

My message has always been this and that's what always brought me revenue. I'm gonna have to be willing to take a leap of faith and change my message if I wanna attract a different audience because I mentally have moved over here, but my audience ha has not from a marketing standpoint. And I've gotta let them know right.

in direct sales, and there's [:

I didn't say to them, Hey, by the way, this is the direction I'm going. I continued giving them the value that they paid for. I was still coaching my model, but I was recruiting a whole new cohort at the same time. And I know my coaches felt it because in January, and I know you, you felt it Julie, 'cause you were coaching.

Oh yeah, yeah. I was like, what is she doing? Hang on. Yeah. And then in January you got a whole new cohort and you were like, who the hell are all these people? They were like a whole nother level, right? Yeah, yeah. But I never, I never told anyone publicly what I was doing. If you're really consistent, and this is where Kristen can probably chime in, but.

s to what kind of expert you [:

Right. We started talking to our new avatar, but I didn't ignore my current clients. They're all still welcome. Yeah. We just had a hot seat with my pod, my first paw of the day, and one of them is like number one incomer in a direct sales company. She's still, they're still finding me. Right. But yeah. Um, your corporate people may still find you, right?

Yeah. Because it's, I'm teaching the success principles. Yeah. So you're right. I hear, I hear what you're saying. So, but if you want to make an announcement, you can. I just think, I think, I think you're right. I think you're right. I think I should just quietly. Modify my message. Mm-hmm. Right. Right. And the critical key is to make sure you're, if you're running ads, that your ads manager is very clear.

nch in January. Yeah. Right. [:

And it's not that we don't still serve anyone, regardless of whether you're an affiliate, marketing, network, marketing, whatever. but our core, your niche just changed. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. No, that, I think that makes sense. I think I'm gonna continue because I was going kind of slowly just changing.

Mm-hmm. instead of just dropping a word too though, the content. 'cause when you're in your develop, and Kristen knows this, her and I have talked about it, like you're talking in your content to that one person. Mm-hmm. That's how I try to do it. Like I, you know, my client, I think you're gonna get, get much, much more, um, viable leads being really, really direct to the entrepreneur, right?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. When we are trying to straddle both, that's when people aren't sure if you're talking to ' em anyway.