Chynell [00:00:00]: You’re listening to the Routine your Dream podcast with your host, me, Chanel. I sincerely believe that success is hidden in your daily routine. So let’s routine that dream of yours and watch your life and business unfold exactly as you dreamed. Shall we? Let’s go. Hello, and welcome back. If you’re a teacher and you just started an online business or you’ve been having your online business for a while now, you may have heard all this talk about having a niche or a niche. First of all, there’s no wrong way to say it. Let’s just be clear about that. Chynell [00:00:46]: I personally bounce between the two all the time. But there’s one particular time where I always say niche, and that’s when I’m quoting the famous quote in Internet marketing, which is the riches are in the niches. It just sounds so nice, right? It kind of implies that if we have a niche, then we’ll be rich. But it’s not exactly a clear cut if then statement. If you have a niche, then you’ll be rich. Having a niche will help you get there and reach your financial goals. But there’s a certain way you have to do it. So we’re going to get into that today in the podcast. Chynell [00:01:30]: But before we do, I just want to address any newbie that’s happened to stumble upon this podcast and is wondering, what the heck is a niche? Well, let me just tell you, girl, it is a small, specialized section of the population. That’s what a niche is if you Google it. So in the teacher world, in the teacher world, where you have an online business selling to teachers, your niche is not teachers because that’s too big of a group. Your niche isn’t even the grade level that you teach, because even that is pretty big. And there’s so much that goes into just one grade level. If you’re just starting out, you want to start by saying, my niche is teachers who teach this grade or this subject. And then you want to figure out, because that’s a small group, that’s small, but then you need to specialize. So is it 5th grade social studies that you’re going to focus on at first? Even if you teach first grade it and you teach all the subjects within first grade, you still want to think about where your expertise is most. Chynell [00:02:47]: Is it math? Is it reading? Is it integrating technology? What’s your special thing that you bring to your classroom that could translate into that small, specialized group of people? Now you’re not married to your niche, so you can expand as the years go by. But it’s really important to start small because in the example of a first grade teacher, if they’re just putting out a ton of different first grade resources, then people are just going to think of you for first grade stuff. They’re not going to be like when they see a friend who’s struggling with teaching math for first grade, they’re not going to be like, oh my gosh, you need to go to such and such a store. They have amazing first, first grade math resources. Because you haven’t specialized, you’re not going to be that go to person. It’s kind of like when I would go to my district’s all day work sessions like pd, we would be in this big giant auditorium and it’d be every single staff member that worked in the district. And then at some point during the day, we would break out into our subject areas or grade levels. And finally you were like, I found my people. Chynell [00:04:04]: Like, we can now talk about actual stuff that’s going to help us. Those breakout sessions that you might go to conferences at, you’re at the big conference, you’re learning and everything, but then you find your people because you break into grade levels and then you can start talking about specific things within that grade level. So if you are like, oh man, I have a niche, but I thought I just kind of left it at a grade level or a subject area, you’re not wrong for that. In fact, you’re off to a really great start if you’ve narrowed that far. I just want to encourage you to specialize a little bit more so that you stand out from an always growing saturated market. You want to be seen, you want to be able to cut through the clutter and having a very specific specialized niche helps you do so. Okay, so now that we’ve established what a niche is and kind of giving you a feel for what exactly is and isn’t a niche, I want to now talk about how to actually make yourself rich by having a niche. Because if you have one and you’re not seeing the income that you want, I’m going to give you a way to completely dominate your niche. Chynell [00:05:12]: So let me explain what I mean by dominating a niche. To dominate a niche, you are taking up most of the market share in your niche. So, so what I mean by that is think about like all of your customers. You also have other people in your niche probably that’s also serving your customers. So you can imagine a pie chart right now. Somebody is dominating the niche that you’re in. If it’s not You So in the pie chart, they’re the ones who are providing the most solutions to the people who have problems and are going to that person for, for the solutions to their problem. And the way that pie chart looks depends on your specific niche and the competitors that are in it. Chynell [00:06:01]: Because, you know, if you think about the tech space, think about how much Apple would take up on the pie chart. And then Samsung and different companies like that. There are other tech companies that are producing the same type of products as Apple, but Apple owns the market share. They’re the ones that are coming top of mind. You want to be top of mind for, for your customers. And the way you do that is to begin by specializing and servicing a small group of people, AKA your niche. But then you have to dominate the niche, meaning you need to be the first person they think of when they are thinking of your niche. So how do you do that? First of all, it’s not that hard if you follow a clear plan. Chynell [00:06:45]: I promise no matter how many people are in your niche that already seem like they own most of the market share, you have space in there and you can create a clear plan to follow. It’s step by step on how to really dominate your niche. And if you’re having a hard time picturing like what this is like, I want you to imagine stepping into a leadership role in the traditional workplace. That’s pretty much the equivalent to quote unquote, dominating a niche in the Internet world. So my story with that is I was a teacher for the longest and then I decided to step into a more leadership role. I became the science coordinator for preschool through fifth grade and I did that while teaching fifth grade science. So I was now stepping into a leadership role and people were coming to me for their science needs. I was their leader. Chynell [00:07:46]: I led the professional development instead of being a part of, of the professional development. And it’s really the same thing when you go from being just any old store to dominating your niche. You’re stepping into a leadership role. And when you step into a leadership role, you approach things differently. So if you’re in a leadership role right now at your current school district, and maybe you’re like the grade level leader, you are constantly thinking about what’s best for the people that you’re leading. So if you find a helpful article, then you’re sharing it with them. If somebody needs to come to you with a problem, you’re, you’re not running out the door saying I gotta go. You’re listening to them and you’re offering Help to them. Chynell [00:08:33]: So really dominating your niche, it sounds like all like warrior, kind of like, hurrah, I’m gonna come and dominate. But it’s actually being of most service to the people that are in your niche. That’s what it really means. It’s being of most service. And as a result of being of most service, you start to impact lives in a bigger way. And that is your legacy. Your legacy is defined by how many people you touch in this world before you go. And the more you dominate your specialized niche, the bigger impact you have in this world. Chynell [00:09:13]: And yeah, the financial freedom that comes from owning most of the market share in your niche is great too. That’s probably why you started. You wanted to make additional income selling your resources online and running an online business. But it’s so much bigger than that. The benefits are so much bigger than that. So it’s an entire mindset shift in how you show up as a business owner. You’re not just a creator. You’re not just creating curriculum that you sell online. Chynell [00:09:44]: Not when you decide to dominate the niche and stand in as a leader. So if you really want to know how to dominate your niche, here’s your answer right now. You got a pen? You might want to write this down. If you want to dominate your niche, become obsessed with helping people. That’s it. Become obsessed with helping others. If you want to dominate your niche. When you have that mindset shift, you show up in ways you’ve never shown up before. Chynell [00:10:21]: You create products in ways you’ve never created before. Because you’re now thinking of yourself as a leader in your community. Instead of saying, oh, I have to blog or I have to get on social media. Social media isn’t my thing. Instead you’re thinking, how can I show up today to serve the people that I’m leading? Oh, I could show them the five ways I overcame xyz, or I could get on live and start talking to people and just haven’t asked me anything. And I can just provide my help. And the more you provide that help, the more people see you as the leader. Now, obviously, you have to align your actual paid products with, with the way you’re showing up and helping people. Chynell [00:11:05]: So if you’re helping people get a handle on guided reading, then you should also have some guided reading resources that will help them. That’s how you make it profitable instead of, like, volunteer work. So if you’re trying to run a profitable business, you want to show up in a way that can help people within your niche. About that topic and then also provide them with paid resources, too. So one way that you can actually show up and become obsessed with helping people is by thinking of your business no longer as just a creator, but instead as a media company. What can you create today in the form of a blog post, a video, an email, a product, an Instagram story, a podcast? What can you create today to show up and help others? Media companies have something called an editorial calendar, so they know that they want to be of service to their audience, so they create a plan of action of how they’re going to show up. So you can do the same. You can do an editorial calendar, I like to call them content calendars, and plan out exactly what kind of content your niche needs, and then think about how you can add to that in your own special way. Chynell [00:12:30]: So maybe you’re like, but it’s all been done before. They can just Google it and find an article that’s helpful, but they don’t have your spin on it. A lot of times, imposter syndrome starts to boil up when you start thinking about dominating your niche and promoting yourself to a leader in your community, in your online space, because you’re thinking, there’s already so many other people that have gone before me and have created amazing content that would serve this audience just so as well. But the problem with that thinking is that not everybody wants to learn from that person in their ways. You have your own special ways of doing things. It’s what makes you you. And there can only be one you. That’s what makes you special. Chynell [00:13:21]: So there are other teacher podcasts out there for business owners, but for some reason, you’re listening to this episode right now. You might like to dabble around, and your customers might like to dabble around, too, but over time, you’re going to naturally gravitate towards one person, because maybe their beliefs and their values line up to yours or something like that, their personality, they just. They make it simple and easy for you to understand, whatever it may be, there’s going to be a natural person that you gravitate to, just like your customers will as well. And if you’re not creating content right now, they don’t even have that option to gravitate towards you. So you want to at least start giving them that option. And remember, the way you do that is literally thinking, how can I be helpful to my audience right now? And if you don’t have an audience, that’s how you create an audience, especially for your niche. Because when you have your niche figured out, then you can really start to dig into what your ideal customer needs and start creating content around that and start creating products around that, and then you really, really stand out in your market. I’m going to use myself as an example because I just started a new niche in 2019, and my niche is new teacherpreneurs who are looking to launch and grow a profitable teacher store, and also expert teacher sellers who want to really scale to the next level, whether it be taking like 100,000 and turning it into 200,000 a year, those kind of things. Chynell [00:15:04]: So, but my ultimate niche is teacherpreneurs who really want to scale. And I was very reluctant to enter into this niche because I am incredibly shy. And it is very hard for me to just hop on an Instagram story or an ins or a Facebook Live or something because I’m shy. And so I had to look inside and really ask myself, am I going to really be that silly, selfish to withhold all this information and wisdom that I have and not help other teachers just because I’m concerned about how I look, how I sound, if I mess up, if I’m, you know, if someone doesn’t like my strategies, all the self doubt kind of things that show up when you’re trying to step into that leadership role in your niche. And I’ll tell you something, if I wouldn’t have had a business coach, I would not be in this role. This podcast would not have launched. And she really pushed me there because she saw how much I was able to do in my business. And I have a relatively small store, but I’ve made big profits and she’s seen that as a unique gift that I could teach others. Chynell [00:16:29]: And she pushed me and pushed me and pushed me until I finally was like, okay, I’ll do it. So I started with a couple clients and then it just grew and grew and grew. And I got confident the moment I was able to really start seeing evidence that I was increasing people’s actual sales and putting more money in their pockets. And then it then I just kind of became addicted to helping people. But I know that I still struggle with like showing up the best way I could. And I think that that’s probably relatable because I know other people are probably listening to this and saying, yeah, I haven’t done a live this week or ever because of how I might sound or how I might look or whatever, insert excuse, you know, you have. But when you just say, I just want to help people, then you get out of your own way and you actually just start Helping people. For me, I’m baby stepping it because, you know, it’s taken a little bit. Chynell [00:17:32]: That’s why I started the podcast instead of a Facebook group right away. I know that over time I will just continue to create more and more for my niche of teachers who are really just ready to take it to the next level and shoot for the big goals, the big scary goals that they hear other teachers having and succeeding with. Like, that’s my kind of people. And I know the only way I reach those people is by showing up and serving them over and over and over again. I promise it gets easier. I’m less afraid to go live. If you know my horror story, you know that my Instagram account went live once for me and I did not even know. And I was live for like a good 20 minutes having an intimate conversation with my husband, by the way. Chynell [00:18:19]: So, like, I had to get over that fear. But that fear I’ve gotten over, like, I stuck, still don’t go on live all the time. But I’m here showing up for you week after week on this podcast because I can be in my pajamas and just speak wisdom into your earbuds or your car speakers and just know that I am your ride or die right here on this podcast right now. And that I plan to show up more in other ways in the future. But this was my starting point. What can be your starting point? If you don’t like video, start on a blog. If you don’t like blog, start a podcast. Whatever it is, make a plan for you to start showing up consistently to serve your people. Chynell [00:19:04]: That’s it. That’s as basic as it gets. The most helpful people are the richest people in this market that we currently serve. The people who are the most helpful. That means they have the most products that are helping others, they have the content that are helping others. Whatever capacity, they’re being the most helpful. So the most helpful is the most rich. And that is why the riches are in the niches. Chynell [00:19:32]: Because when you’re the most helpful to a specific audience and you’re not screaming to a room of everybody, that’s when people completely become raving fans of yours. I speak more about this in my new freebie called how to launch and grow your profitable teacher store. Even if you’re a vet veteran at this all, I still go into this. So if you feel like it would be helpful, check the podcast description because I’ll put a link in it. And as always, if you enjoyed this podcast episode, I know it’s probably uncomfortable because you’re like, oh, man, now I gotta show up and serve more. But if you’re in it for the right reasons, I promise it’s worth it. But if you loved this episode and you’re ready and fired up to start taking action, screenshot this and share it with me on Instagram and we’ll start a DM conversation. Alrighty. Chynell [00:20:24]: Okay, until next time.