Marketing Advisor, Mentor, & Educator

Kevin C. Whelan

Niche

Forget passion, follow your curiosity

Tonight I was listening to the podcast, How I Built This.

It’s an NPR podcast featuring stories of highly successful “innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists”. The show is incredibly inspiring and well-produced. If you haven’t listened to it, go check out out.

In the beginning of a recent episode, the host of the show, Guy Raz, recalls an interview with author, Elizabeth Gilbert.

In that interview, Gilbert apparently advised people not chase their passions but instead to chase their curiosity.

It got me thinking about the people I talk to who are still looking for a niche that aligns with their interests.

In most cases, it’s extremely difficult to monetize your passion. You may not even have a passion. And this leaves people stumped about what to do next.

Do you become a mercenary and solve whatever problems you see as your biggest opportunity? Or, do you try to align your business with your curiosity?

I’m willing to bet you’ll have more longterm success by following your curiosity. And doing so will give you much of the same drive, energy, and determination you’ll need to stick with it long enough to succeed.

It may also reduce the pressure to pick a niche that is perfectly aligned with your passions.

Follow your curiosity.

162. Three ways to get clients to take your advice

This is a preview episode of the private podcast that comes with a free Mindshare Community membership. Join today for more members-only content and community.

In order to be successful as an advisor, you need to be able to:
  1. Prove you’re worth hiring for your knowledge in the first place
  2. Reinforce why you’re worth listening to after they hire you

If you have difficulty selling advisory services, or if clients stop listening to your advice during your engagements, it might be due to one of the three things I talk about in this episode.

Give it a listen and share with a friend who might benefit!

If you’re reading this via email, click here to listen to this episode on the web or join Mindshare to listen to more episodes of the private podcast.

Most people won’t buy today

Most people won’t buy from you today.

It doesn’t matter if you have perfect a message, offer, and audience. If they’re not ready now, they won’t buy today.

But they might buy someday.

Which means to win the business of most people, you have to have two things:

  1. A clear and compelling value proposition for a specific target market
  2. A way to stay in front of the right people until they’re ready to buy

Getting clear on your target market and offering things they actually want is your first and most important job.

You have to know what problem you’re solving and they need to know that’s what you do.

As for the second part, that’s where content marketing excels. The value you share over time gives you permission to stay in front of them.

No value, no attention.

So if you want to grow your advisory business, there’s almost no better way to do it than content marketing done consistently for a long, long time.

Build relationships and keep showing up.

Was this year a success?

Chances are, you accomplished a lot more this past year that you think.

You never realize it until you stop and reflect.

Look at where you were in January of this year. Now look back two years. Five years. Ten years.

How far have you come? Are you happy with the direction you’re going or do you need to make some changes?

A lot can happen over a decade. It’s hard to think that far into the future, but doing so keeps your direction in line with your values and interests.

Think about what business you want to run for the next ten years. Now’s the time to dream it up in vivid detail.

You can accomplish far more than you think with some longterm thinking and consistent effort towards your goals.

Happy New Year.

How to be hired faster and paid more to do better work

I see a lot of shoddy marketing work out there.

People are offering too many services, not doing what they promised, not actually getting results, and then obfuscating the entire situation.

I’m not saying it’s intentional or malicious, but it happens a lot. Here’s a recent example, and I’ve seen far worse.

Marketing, like many industries, is unregulated. Which means anybody can do it. Which means finding quality work out there is not easy.

So when I say it’s good to specialize, I mean finding an industry and/or a small set of core services to offer that you can do excellent work at.

Sure, you can branch out to other industries. You can offer tangential services. I understand the need to do that and it can be done well sometimes.

In fact, I did that for a long time with my agency before I specialized. But looking back, my agency work wasn’t always great, either.

At least, not the stuff outside of my core competency that I should have never offered.

As an advisor, I sit on the client side of a lot of work product. I can tell you first-hand that those who specialize tend to be hired faster, paid more, and do better work.

If you’re reading this, you’re already delivering great work for your clients. This isn’t about you.

It’s about the industry. It’s about striving for excellence.

It’s your reminder that success comes from doing less, not more.

Be sub-specific

In a sea of content, sometimes the best way to stand out is with sub-specific content.

To give you some examples, here are some ways that I do that:

  • Instead of writing for consultants, I write for marketing consultants.
  • Instead of writing about marketing, I write about daily emails, or recurring systems, or leading indicators.
  • Instead of writing about general strategy, I write about making trade-offs and placing bets.
  • Instead of writing about client management, I write about calling out the emotions in the room.

The more specific your topic and/or audience, the easier it is to go deep and stand out.

General content gets lost in a sea of noise. To stand out, be specific. Be sub-specific.

It works with content and positioning, by the way.

Who are you intrinsically interested in serving?

You probably like what you do. You’re a marketer who built a career doing work that excited you.

Maybe you started out as a designer. Or writing. Or coding websites. Or making videos.

Over time, you realized your hobby had real business value. You broadened your skills and operated at a more strategic level.

So where do you go next in your career, assuming you have a choice? You always have a choice.

To me, the answer is to do work for people you enjoy serving.

It doesn’t mean you have to do unprofitable work for people with no money. Do that for fun on the weekends or as a way to give back outside of your main business.

But ideally, there should be some intrinsic interest in helping the type of people or industry you serve.

It will make a big difference to the longevity and success of your business. Without it, you’ll eventually wear out and want to do something else.

Phase into helping those kinds of people. It doesn’t need to happen overnight. But it’s worth aiming for.

At the end of the day, it’s good to do work you enjoy. Most people don’t get to do that. But it’s even better if you can do work for people you truly enjoy helping.

The road is long.

Make time for tinkering

The other day, I made an argument about why you should only chase one shiny object at a time.

My point was that when you pursue too many business ideas, you end up succeeding only partially at any of them… if you’re lucky.

And while that’s true from my experience, I think there’s an important distinction to make: tinkering.

My entire life, I’ve been a tinkerer. Mostly as it relates to technology.

It’s this curiosity and explorative nature that led to the career I have today.

Some 20+ years later, I still find myself tinkering with technology and getting a lot of benefit from it.

These days, I explore everything from web3 to photography, video and audio production, web development, new software, hardware devices, and a lot more.

I’m not yet sure what benefits these explorations will have yet, but I do know it will lead somewhere. It always has.

So don’t be afraid to tinker. Make time to explore your interests. It can be good for business.

But when it comes to the business ideas you decide to run with, choose wisely. Build one thing at a time.

Not because it’s a forever decision, but because you don’t go far without focus.

Chase one shiny object at a time

Last week, several members of Mindshare got together for our monthly community coffee meetup.

The meetups are a chance for us to talk shop and get feedback on our immediate situations from others in the group.

One of the trends I noticed on this call—and in other contexts before this—was people wanting to do multiple things at once.

Multiple businesses, multiple target markets, and multiple value propositions across each.

There’s no shame in any of this. Literally all of us fall into this trap at some point. Including me.

That’s because as marketers, we have the skills to launch a number of ideas quickly and fairly easily.

We can help all kinds of businesses. We can do all kinds of things for people. And there are tons of opportunities everywhere.

But the problem is, when you chase too many things, it becomes hard to succeed at any one thing.

Our attention gets diluted, our energy is dispersed, and our time is always scarce. Our work suffers as a result.

And that doesn’t even take into account how the market perceives you.

When you confuse the market with mixed messages about various projects, markets, and claims of expertise, they begin to wonder what—if anything—you’re truly expert in.

It’s hard enough to get one idea off the ground, let alone multiple.

Better to get one thing going successfully first. Then, if you aren’t happy, consider trying something new.

Chase one shiny object at a time.

Copy and paste your best clients

Your best clients are often the people you do your best work for.

After all, you won’t think of them as your “best” for very long if your work isn’t top notch.

Plus, when you are good at what you do, you usually like it a lot more, too…. which makes you even better at your job while also increasing your general satisfaction.

It’s a great cycle to be in if you find it.

That’s why one of the best ways to find a niche is by “copying and pasting” your best clients.

What industry are they in? How big is the business? What personality traits do they have? Why do you work so well together?

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Find replicas of your best clients in all the factors that matter.

Combine a vertical with a personality trait, value system, or company size. Look at all the variables that make them a great fit for you.

That’s your bullseye.

Not only will you do better work, you’ll like it more, too.