Yesterday, I alluded briefly to the idea that you can be a generalist and niched down at the same time.
In fact, that’s exactly what I did and it worked great.
First, I kept my B2B marketing agency running to accept any business that came along while I built out a new horizontal specialization as a fractional CMO/advisor under my own name.
I didn’t market the agency anymore, but it was always there for when a good opportunity came along.
Eventually, I phased out of agency work and focused solely on doing advisory work once I was making about $100k/year at it (with two clients).
But I knew that in order to stand out and build a real business, I needed to niche down. So I kept that running kevin.me while I built my niche consultancy, Everspaces.
I focused 90% of my time and energy building Everspaces while still accepting clients that came along in other industries by directing them to kevin.me.
That allowed me to look good on paper to any vertical (though leads were few and far between) while building a reputation in the coworking niche.
Jumping into a niche doesn’t mean you have to go all-in from the beginning. You can keep rather broad and there’s a good chance you’ll drum up business.
It might not be the best business, though it will pay the bills while you build inroads into a vertical/niche.
But once you get traction in a niche, there’s no comparison.
Your work gets better, your lead flow increases, you become less interchangeable and can charge premium rates, you can more easily build an audience, you can package your knowledge as education products, and the flywheel continues.
Niching takes time, which is why I suggest phasing into it so you don’t burn out of cash before you get traction.
But once you do get traction, you’ll wonder why you didn’t niche down sooner.
You gotta see it to believe it sometimes.