Thinking about finding my niche. Welcome, Sarah. Welcome, John.

Before we get into it, if you don't really know me much, hi, I'm Rachel Meltzer, rhymes with seltzer, you'll never forget it. I am a freelance writer and business coach. I've used freelancing as a way to fuel my adventures.

I ride the Appalachian Trail, lived in a van for a year, and I've moved across the country multiple times in the U.S. now. And I've also traveled abroad using my freelance income to be able to do all of those things. So one of the biggest reasons I started freelancing was because I didn't want to be tied down to one specific place.

And it was just a great avenue for me to be able to fund all of those exciting adventures that I've been dreaming of. I do digital marketing for tech companies and outdoor brands. It's taken me a long time to get to where I am.

But honestly, even short-term, at the very beginning of my career, freelancing was 100% worth it. I lost my job in 2020 to the pandemic. I was a barista, and I had been freelancing on the side.

And also, like, I freelanced full-time a little bit when I was riding the Appalachian Trail. So after the pandemic, I didn't get unemployment because I had been freelancing and I had claimed that income. So it was really the kick in the ass that I needed to make me go full-time for real, for real.

And I have now worked my way through a bunch of different niches. Pre-van life, pre-Appalachian Trail, pre-freelance. I used to work in schools, and I hated that.

So I then started working in politics. Hated that. Tried going to law school.

Didn't work out. So here we are, years later, freelancing, teaching. And yeah, I basically, the biggest thing that revolutionized my career was finding my niche.

And I really stumbled into it pretty organically, but it was helpful before I stumbled into my niche to start to brainstorm what potential niches I might want to work in and work my way up to the where I am well-known enough in the industry that I'm getting referrals and inbound leads, and not just having to go out and use LinkedIn direct outreach all the time to get clients. I still use it, but it's nice to get referrals and inbound leads. And for someone with no experience in marketing, no experience in corporate or tech or anything that I'm doing right now before I started freelancing, I really did have to do a lot of work at the beginning to get those clients.

So referrals and inbound leads are such a big deal for me now. It makes me so happy. So today we're going to just talk about what a niche is, why you need a niche, how to pick a niche.

We're going to validate the niche that you are going to brainstorm during step three, and then I will share some answers to some really commonly asked questions, and at the end we'll do a Q&A time. If you have questions throughout this workshop, do not be afraid to put them in the chat. I am happy to answer them throughout the workshop.

I have the chat open. I do keep an eye on it. As someone with ADHD, I have a really hard time holding my questions in.

So don't be afraid to share your questions. I will answer them throughout the workshop. So I do want to start this workshop with a little disclaimer.

You might have to experiment a little bit to find your niche. You might try a niche, decide you don't like it. You might try a niche, realize the market is a little more saturated than you would prefer for the amount of competition you're trying to handle.

You might start a niche and realize that the companies in that niche don't have the budget to pay you. I dabbled in a bunch of different things when I first started. I got most of those gigs on Upwork, and then I got a gig with a coding boot camp review site when I first started.

This was like in my first year, and I ended up writing a bunch of blogs for them. I knew not a single thing that I was doing, and I was getting paid $99 a blog from them, but it was really eye opening to realize that this industry didn't really have any specialists as freelancers. So I specialized in coding boot camps, but eventually I realized that that industry is not willing to pay more than $350, $400 a blog maximum, and I really wanted to make more than that.

So that's why I decided to pivot my niche into tech. But having that solid coding boot camp niche really made it so much easier for me to reach out to my ideal clients, because I knew exactly who they were and who to speak to, and it made it really quick. I streamlined all of my processes, and I was able to really network and start getting referrals, and I really became a subject matter expert, and I knew their audience really well.

So it just made my job easier in every single way as a freelancer, and so when I pivoted into tech, it really wasn't much different. I still had a niche. It just was a different niche, and I started to make more money.

So it is definitely an experiment, and you will find your way, and once you do, your business is going to feel a lot easier, but when you're first starting out, and when you're first trying to find your niche, it can feel really challenging. So that is normal. That is okay.

This is not going to be a perfect linear process, but I'm going to try to explain it in a way that at least you'll understand why you need a niche and what's going on with all of that stuff. So a niche is just a specialized segment of the market for a particular product or service. So for you, it could be a service that you're offering.

It could be an industry. It could be a type of company. It could be a company with specific values.

These are all examples of people who are in pop club. They're niches. So we have copywriter for outdoor brands, community content writer for tech startups.

That's someone who's doing content specifically for the private communities that tech startups share to get more, get customers to buy more products loyally. Beauty copywriter, brand strategist for family-focused brands. So family-focused brands is pretty general, but it shows a value that that person is trying to make sure all of their clients have.

That's what they're passionate about. Email copywriter for coaches. Again, coaches is still pretty broad of a niche.

There's all kinds of different coaches out there, and they do email copywriting specifically. SEO content writer for insurance companies. Now, that's not to say you can't offer multiple different services for, you know, an industry or your niche or that you can't work in multiple industries doing multiple services.

We will talk about juggling those things later. Okay. So let's talk about why you need a niche.

I know I shared my story at the beginning, so maybe that's helpful for you. Maybe you already know these things, but you need to know which clients to pick and how to grow your business. You're not going to know that if you don't have some kind of direction.

It's going to streamline all of your getting clients process because it's going to be so much easier for ideal clients to trust you because it's easier to position yourself as an expert. When you can position yourself as a subject matter expert and also an expert in your services and your field, it helps you get referrals and inbound leads and have this little automatic trust just based on reputation. You'll also learn industry knowledge and jargon, which, again, makes it easier for your ideal clients to trust you.

And as a specialist, you can charge more because you are an expert, you are practiced, you can do things a lot more quickly with a lot fewer errors than a newer freelancer who's just a generalist. It's just going to make everything more efficient in every single way. So that's why I recommend it.

So we're going to talk about how to pick a niche, but does anybody have any questions about what a niche is and what it entails? If you have any questions, just pop them in the chat. And if not, we'll just keep going. All right.

I don't see any questions, but if you're still typing out a question, keep going. I'll answer it eventually. We are going to dive into how to pick a niche.

You're going to need the workbook. It's free. It's in the description of this YouTube video, the link.

So go ahead and grab that. I'll also pop the link in the chat here for you. Kathleen asked, does it have to be one type of position? I'm interested in writing and editing.

Oh, okay. So by position, you mean services. Basically, like, the position is, like, you know, the employee speak of service.

No, you can do both writing and editing. And you can have separate niches for your writing and separate niches for your editing if you want to. It just helps to have to be specific about what you're offering and narrow it down as much as possible, what you're offering, who you're offering it to.

And we'll create that specific language for you at the end of this workshop. All right. So once you're in that workbook, if you've never used Notion before, you can just in the top right hand corner, you'll see two squares overlapping.

That's the duplicate button. You will need a free Notion account. And if you click duplicate and you don't have one, it'll prompt you to make one.

So you'll in the workbook, we are going to fill in these three brainstorming lists. There's one list for any hobbies that you like. One for previous work experience that you've loved.

Keyword loved. I want you to put things that you enjoyed doing. We are trying to create an enjoyable career.

I think a lot of people focus on, like, what the most profitable niche could be. But at the end of the day, you don't want to be resentful of your work. If money is, like, a huge driver for you and you know it's motivation enough, then fine.

Just go for the most profitable niche. But if you want to go for a niche that you actually enjoy and can do long term without burning out or becoming resentful of your work, then I would recommend only writing previous work experience that you enjoyed. And then things you are currently learning about.

We're always learning about something. What are you learning about? What are you enjoying learning about? A lot of freelancing is learning about the subject matter you're writing about, learning the skills that you're offering, learning business. It's a lot of learning.

So if you're already learning something that you like, then you might as well use it. So I'm going to start a quick timer for about five minutes and then I will check in with you guys and see where you're at. When you're done filling out this first section of the workbook, just share your favorite emoji in the chat.

I'll also share examples of these lists filled out in just a minute. So do so so so so so so so so All right. That was five minutes.

If you still need more time, let me know in the chat. If not, we will keep going. And if you are done, pop your favorite emoji in the chat.

So I know you're done. Looks like we have like eight people. So I'm going to wait for your wait for a couple more emojis.

Let's do maybe three, two or three more minutes. Nice, John. That's a good one.

I love your emoji. All right. I'm just going to do two more minutes.

So so All right. So I hope that was enough time for you guys to fill out your list. If it wasn't, come back to it later.

Or if you're watching the replay, pause here, finish your list. And we are going to keep going. So this is an example of my actual find your niche workbook list.

When I first set out to find my niche, I put everything I've written about, previous jobs, excuse me, hobbies and interests. So this was a good start. Honestly, even looking at this now, I see so many more niches than the first time I made this.

The first time I made this list, I was like, I have nothing. None of this is profitable. And now I'm looking at it and I'm like, I feel like probably make some money off these niches.

But time changes perspective, doesn't it? We live and we grow and we learn. All right. So we're going to continue on to the next section of the workbook.

You are going to go back through those lists that you just made and put stars next to items that you're most passionate about or what you're excited to potentially learn more about. The best part about freelancing is it kind of is like getting paid to learn when you're first starting out. And there's no shame in picking something that you're not a super duper expert in, but that you really want to learn more about and you know that you can master over time.

So when you're done, I'm going to ask you to share your top three ideas in the And for now, I'm going to set another quick timer and get going. I'm just going to do two minutes. So time is up.

I would love to hear the top three ideas that you came up with in the chat for what you're excited to learn about or what you're most passionate about. Here's an example of what I starred when I first made this list. It's funny because so many things have changed since I made this list.

I think I would do some different stars nowadays. All right. I want to hear from you.

What are your top three ideas? And if you need a little bit more time, just let me know in the chat. That makes a lot of sense for you, Kathleen. Pets.

Nice, Sarah. I feel like it's going to be really easy to combine eco-friendly brands with the outdoors. And you could definitely tie in women's health to that.

I think it will work out. Heidi. Love it.

All right. Keep popping your ideas in the chat if you haven't already. We are going to move on to the next step.

Kathleen, that's so cool. I didn't know you had a background in neuroscience. Interesting.

All right. So now we're going to talk about how to validate your niche. This is basically just a way to make sure that you can make money doing this.

And that you're not just going to spend a bunch of time pitching and getting nowhere. So the next section of the workbook is going to help you brainstorm a few ways your ideal client's target audience is going to interact with your niche. There are little boxes for each of these categories that I want you to fill in with at least three things in each box.

If you need to use Google or another resource to research these things, go for it. Don't be afraid to outsource this thinky think thoughts. But we are going to pick just one of the things that you starred.

It is possible to combine your ideal niches. But for right now we just want to do this exercise for one thing at a time so that it's as specific as possible. The thing about marketing, which getting clients for your business is marketing, is that the more specific you are, the more successful you will be.

For example, I am so much more likely to buy a toothbrush from an ad that's like, hey girl, sick of your toothbrush being disgusting and dirty and slimy all the time? Get our toothbrush. It's easier to clean. It doesn't have any crevices or nooks and it'll never smell bad.

I don't know if you've ever had the experience of your toothbrush smelling bad. I have. I was very disappointed in it and didn't want to use my toothbrush anymore even though it was perfectly good.

An electric toothbrush. Whereas I'm probably not going to buy a toothbrush that's just like, this toothbrush is electric and it's $15. You know what I mean? You want to be specific.

You want to connect with audiences. The easiest way to find out whether or not your niche is profitable is to narrow it down as much as possible. For you, Kathleen, it seems like you know a lot about pets.

It's very easy for you. That was your first answer was pets. I would say whatever your very first answer to this was is probably the best thing for you to focus on for the purposes of this exercise.

If you feel like you can't pick, but you do feel like there's kind of a golden thread that could connect your interests. I feel like, Sarah, your interests go really well together. So it is possible that you could sort of find a way to combine those things.

Whereas, Heidi, I feel like your ideas are not connected at all. They're a little all over the place. So maybe pick one.

I'll leave that up to your discretion. If you have questions about that, just pop it in the chat. But for now, pick one thing and run through that follow the money section of the validation chapter, step three, in the workbook.

I'm going to give you guys five-ish minutes, and then I'll check with you in the chat. And I will, once again, give you an example in just a minute. So So So So All right, y'all.

It looks like a few of you guys came up with some really, like, on-target perfect ideas. This example is for somebody who wants to write for outdoor brands that also want to write about pets. So it's like a nice combination.

When I first started, that's what I thought I wanted to do. And I also had my first one-on-one coaching client that was that ended up being her niche. This was after I transitioned to coding bootcamps and started coaching.

So I thought it was super funny when she wanted to do that because I was like, oh, my god, I have the perfect list to start you off getting your ideal clients. So the nice thing about the follow the money example, if you fully fill this out, you can come back to it later and expand on the things that you've already put in it. But you can actually use this as a basis for your ideal clients list later, which you will learn about in future workshops from this bootcamp.

So this is just, like, a piece of the example of all six of the categories that we did when we filled out her find your niche workbook. So if you are still thinking and you come up with some ideas for your follow the money example that you want to share in the chat, I'd love to see them. There are a ton of you guys watching this now.

So let me know. I would love to hear from you. Don't be afraid to participate in the chat.

This is a shame free zone. Okay. So as far as validating your niche goes, there are seven signs that I typically look for that show that a niche might be profitable and sustainable.

So typically oh, look at that, you guys. A nice little typo. My dyslexia is showing.

This happens literally every workshop. So your niche might drive profit for a company or your service might be something that is directly tied to profit, whether that's copywriting or ad copy, email copywriting, that sort of thing can be tied to profit. It could be that the companies in your niche clearly regularly hire freelancers.

Sometimes that can be really hard to tell from the outside. You never know. A lot of companies use ghostwriters or have NDAs with their freelancers that say they can't share that they've worked for this company.

I've had quite a few of those in my day. I'm actually working for one right now, and I'm like, damn, this would look so good on my LinkedIn. So you never know if sometimes companies work with freelancers and don't share it.

But if you can tell from the outside, that's always a good sign. If recurring work is super common for those freelancers and other freelancers in that niche seem to be thriving, that can also be a good indicator. You can find that stuff out by doing coffee chats with other freelancers or joining private communities like pop club, my community for freelancers, something like top of the funnel.

They have a free membership community on Slack. Those sorts of places are where freelancers go and are not afraid to share information like that. Or like I said, you can just network with them on LinkedIn and set up coffee chats with them.

If companies in your niche often get funding, you can find this out on Crunchbase. There are lessons for how to use Crunchbase in the freelance resource library that's included with all of my paid coaching options. If tech or SaaS products exist within the niche, this can also be a good sign for now.

That sector might be that sector feels a little bit shaky, but it's also been feeling a little bit shaky since like 2016, and everybody's always talking about how the tech boom is going to end, yet I'm still writing in tech for a lot of money. So, I feel like it's fine. If there's specialized knowledge that you need in order to do your work, this is a great validation of how much you'll be able to charge.

You can also learn specialized knowledge as you go if you don't already have it. So, that's something in the future that you could charge more for. Specialized knowledge might be that you're a veterinarian and you're writing about pets and pet care.

It could be that you have a neuroscience degree, like Kathleen, and you're writing about mental health. It could be that you are a web developer and you're writing for coding boot camps, that sort of thing. But there's other ways that you can, like I'm writing about small businesses right now, and as a freelancer and with parents who own a small business, I have specialized knowledge that I just sort of learned as I went that I can now share.

So, it's not necessarily something that you have to have from school or from past job experience. It can be something that you learn as you go as a freelancer that can also be really valuable to charge for. So, we are going to do one last thing in the workbook.

I don't think I can't believe it's already 3.54. It's because I started late. I don't think you're going to finish this exercise during this session. So, just keep that in mind.

I just want you to get started on this so you can start thinking about it. But basically, I just want you to define the target audience for your niche so that you can more easily stand out to your ideal clients. So, there's a section in your workbook, in the validate, step three, validate section.

It's called target audience. And there are a ton of questions in there that are going to help you define the target audience for your niche so that you can write better for the niche, validate that this niche is viable, and then make it easier to market your services to your ideal client later. This is going to make your sales calls later easier.

It's going to make it easier to prove that you know how to write for that brand in a way that is persuasive. At the end of the day, most marketing is meant to be persuasive. Even if you're just doing like an SEO blog, you're trying to share information in a compelling way.

So, your target audience should be a specific group of people or a specific person that you can visualize who would be interested in the product, services, brands, the stuff that you just brainstormed. So, you can run through and fill this out pretty quickly. Or if you don't get to all of it right now, don't be afraid to come back and finish this later.

You can also copy and paste this entire section into ChatGPT and see what it spits out and then adjust it based on what you know and what you can find out. This is also something you might want to think about over time. When I use this workbook during coaching with my one-on-one clients and my group coaching clients, I always remind them to just like think about it during the day.

So, like search for these things on TikTok. See which influencers are sharing about it. Like add it into your social media.

Add it into your daily life. Watch a YouTube video about it later. Like keep it on your mind when you go for walks and you will like realize more and more things.

Writing for your target audience is going to be, if you're a freelance writer, your bread and butter. If you're offering a different service as a freelancer, whether it's web design or web development, video editing, social media management, all of these things are things you're creating for a target audience. You want to think about their experience and their preferences as you do it.

So, when you're done filling out this section of the workbook, you can share one sentence about your target audience in the chat from what you figured out. And I will give you guys another quick five minutes. So, so, I'm just going to pause the music for a second, but you guys can keep going.

The timer is still running. John asked a really good question. Is it okay to have multiple target audiences? Yes.

There are so many different things that you can brainstorm when you're validating your niche. Every business is technically going to have its own different target audience. So, it's normal when you're defining your niche and trying to validate it to see multiple potential, like, ideal audience avatars, essentially.

Their target audience. So, yes, it is okay. If you can think of multiple things for certain questions or multiple things for the whole thing or you want to do these questions multiple times for different avatars, you can totally do that.

Just make sure you're not going, like, too crazy. Basically, this is a way to, like, put yourself in your audience's shoes to help with validating your niche, obviously. But later, it will also help with sales and also help with providing your service to the client.

So, that's really the purpose of this. If you're noticing that there are multiple answers to some of these questions, put down everything that you can think of. This is a brainstorming exercise.

So, feel free to get a little messy and, like, make an actual storm, if that makes sense. All righty, y'all. So, if you didn't get to all ten of those questions, no worries.

Highly recommend coming back to them later. You can even copy and paste them into your Notes app and keep them on your phone to think about later on or just set aside some time for this tomorrow or something like that. But I want to hear from you.

Just share one thing that you learned or figured out about your target audience in the chat. I would love to hear from you. Here are a few examples of some things that you might have figured out about your target audience.

Sometimes this amount of information is all you need. It's plenty. Sometimes you want more information.

Also, a lot of clients will give you what they call avatars for or, like, profiles for their target audience when you start writing for them, which can be super helpful. We're doing any type of digital marketing. Typically, businesses with an actual marketing strategy will have these on hand.

So, you can always use those. You can always collect them. For your data to help you work better in your niche.

Kathleen, that's good to know. They're more likely to live in an urban or well populated area. Heck, yeah.

Anyone else want to share? I think it's pretty cool to see in the lifestyle section where people are more likely to live, what they're most likely to be doing, and also where they gather their info. Like, outdoor people are on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, for sure. But, like, coders are mostly hanging out on Reddit, YouTube, and Stack Overflow.

Those are two very different places to get your information from. So, I find it interesting to see how different niches stack up in those ways. So, when you're actually helping companies do their marketing strategy, if you decide to do strategy in the future, these are good things to pay attention to and keep in mind.

All right. So, now we are going to do the very last step. We are going to basically just combine everything that we've done so far.

If you're still struggling with this, like, if you get through this in the next five minutes and you cannot complete this section, it's just summarizing your target audience, who you write for, and three examples of potential clients you might want to write for, like, real brand names. Then you might want a little boost. I'm going to talk to you guys about my coaching options at the end of this workshop.

And you will get a discount code today. So, if you are interested in that, keep it in mind. It is coming.

And if you have questions about creating your summary, let me know in the chat. Once you're done, you can share who you write for in the chat. And, yeah, I'm excited to see what you guys come up with.

And, again, this can just be one option if you decide that you want to write for multiple niches or that there's more variability. That's okay, too. You can always come back and do this workshop again for the other niche and or the workbook.

You don't have to do the whole workshop. So, yeah. All righty, y'all.

I hope you were able to answer the question, who do you write for? I'd love to see your answers in the chat if you've finished writing that out. And while you pop those answers into the chat, let's jump into some frequently asked questions about your niche and finding your niche. So, we kind of already talked about this a little bit, but I get asked every single time I teach this workshop if you can have more than one niche.

And the answer is, yes. However, you should be strategic about it. And you should also, when you're first starting out, in my opinion, it is really helpful to just stick to one niche until you build up a good foundation and system.

Because as a new freelancer, you're also learning how to get clients, how to offer your services, how to price your services, how to do sales calls. There's so many things that you're having to juggle and learn in so many moving parts that it's going to be a lot easier. If you just focus on one niche, it's also going to be a lot easier to market your services if you just focus on one niche.

I would say do that for a year, maybe six months at least, in order to get the hang of things. I think it's really easy to say yes to every opportunity and if that's sort of where you're at because you need the money, okay. I get it.

But I would say in your marketing efforts and your direct outreach and your portfolio and your LinkedIn profile and your messaging towards the clients you're trying to get, try to stick to one niche. If something else comes your way, you don't have to say no to that. But if you can market for one specific thing, everything is going to be faster and easier for you.

That being said, once you have established some kind of baseline and you feel like you aren't like a baby deer walking on ice as a freelancer, that's how I felt my first six months, it will help you to start to find a balance. So your most profitable niche should be the one that's taking up the majority of your time and energy on your schedule and also the majority of your income. For example, I usually have like three to five tech clients and one outdoor client per quarter.

So each quarter I take on like a three-month contract with an outdoor client because I love writing for the outdoor industry, but it usually doesn't pay as well as tech does. So I take up the majority of time with tech clients. It also helps to position your marketing.

So like I said, having one niche on your website, your LinkedIn and all of that client-facing stuff can really make your marketing much easier and go more smoothly. It'll make you look more like an expert and a specialist, which is much more likely to get hired and get clients more quickly. You can create multiple versions of your LinkedIn profile in like a Google doc or a Notion doc, excuse me, and then just switch it out.

So like your banner, your headline, your about section, and maybe your featured section should be optimized for that. I have multiple versions of my profile, one for coaching, one for tech, and one for the outdoor industry. And that's really helpful.

So once my books are full, like I can't take on any more tech writing clients right now, I can switch my profile to outdoors or coaching and vice versa. That can be really an easy way to stand out. Most people in like these other niches aren't like going back and looking at your profile all the time.

They're only looking at your profile when you're messaging them. So you could try that. It also might help to find a golden thread.

So if you work in multiple industries, like Sarah wants to do, the three things she listed do have a unifying theme. It's a certain lifestyle that people are trying to live. There are plenty of companies that are doing something in all three of those niches.

So it makes sense for her to sort of follow that golden thread. An example of this would, you know, you can find a golden thread in anything. But a good example of making it less chunky and generalist is to highlight the thing that unites it all.

So the thing that unites everything for me is that I use engaging storytelling to connect brands with their audiences, regardless of whether they're SaaS industry or the outdoor industry. That's what I'm doing for both of them. So it works to unify them.

So basically, you just want to unify your messaging across your niches if you can. And then another great option is to filter your portfolio. So I have a separate sales page for each service I offer on my website.

And then I also have one sales page for the outdoor industry. And all my other sales pages are tech focused. And then I have a portfolio on each page, but they're filtered by, like, it's the same portfolio, but I filter which pieces are shown based on the service.

And I just use tags in my portfolio in order to have those separate things show up. And that just makes it look a lot cleaner and nicer. And you can always, like, hide a page on your site or use something, wherever you like to keep notes, whether that's Google Doc or Notion or whatever, with multiple versions of your portfolio so that you can share more selectively if that's something that you're interested in trying.

If you have any questions about having multiple niches, don't be afraid to pop them in the chat. All right. Now, another question that I guess get a lot is, like, basically, like, what is full effort? How do I know whether or not my niche is the right fit? How do I know that I've tried everything I can to make this niche work before I pivot? Like, when should I pivot? Basically, full effort is going to look like you created a portfolio of at least three pieces in your niche, whether you've made those pieces from scratch yourself, which we'll talk about in a future workbook, and we have also talked about in all of my paid coaching options, or that is previous work that you've done that you've compiled into a portfolio.

Either way, you share your writing on LinkedIn or other social media where you plan to get clients. You've made a list of your iGo clients. Again, we'll talk about this in the future.

And you're strategically sending pitches or connection requests every single week. Every week. It's okay to, like, skip a week for vacation once in a while, but you're doing your best to keep on top of it every week.

You've continued actively learning about the niche and the skills for the services that you're trying to offer. And you've tried to pivot your strategy when things aren't working. So, maybe instead of trying to get gigs with agencies, you're now trying to get gigs directly with your iDeal clients' companies.

Maybe instead of applying to gigs that you see in newsletters and posts, you're doing direct outreach. That's what I mean when I'm saying you've tried pivoting. So, if you've tried all of these things for three months or more, I would say probably I don't want you to waste too much time, because if you're not making money and you just make money, then that's not going to work.

So, at least three months, I would say. If you're still struggling after three months to get your first client, then there is something else wrong. So, that could be your niche.

It could be your strategy for getting clients. It could be your messaging. It could be a lot of things that are keeping you stuck, but your niche could be one of them, and that's when it's a good time to start thinking about potentially pivoting.

We talk a lot about pivoting inside PopClub, and I can also give you one-on-one advice during your strategy session when you join PopClub, or obviously I offer maybe not obviously, I offer one-on-one coaching as well if that's something you're interested in. Another question I get asked is, like, what does it look like to position yourself as an expert? What does that mean? Typically, it's going to take at least three to six months to position yourself as an expert, and this is sort of when you can start really feeling secure about your niche and what you're doing in it. Becoming the expert in your niche is basically just how you're going to set yourself apart from other freelancers.

It's getting you visibility. It's going to have you start having clients come to you, and this is going to mean, like, optimizing your LinkedIn profile, optimizing your website and your portfolio, like, doing coffee chats and networking to get people to refer you, doing a good job with your clients. It's going to basically be the turning point in your career from I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing into just another day on the job.

If you feel like I'm just going to work today, you're an expert. Like, you're there. It's also the point when you're going to want to start thinking about charging higher rates, and you will naturally, because you're charging higher rates and positioning yourself as an expert, potentially getting referrals and inbound leads, you're automatically just going to start getting better quality clients because of, yeah, just like the osmosis of all of those things.

So you can officially declare yourself an expert when you have three to five buy lines or clients. Sometimes clients are going to be, like, ongoing projects. There are going to be certain services, obviously, in digital marketing that you offer that are not going to get you buy lines.

It's mostly a writing thing. So if you've gotten three to five clients, you're getting somewhere. You know the lingo and goals of your clients, and you know which services will support your client's goals, and you can offer them in a package.

So these are all things we're going to work on in the future in this boot camp, but if you have any questions about positioning yourself as an expert, don't be afraid to pop those in the chat. But these are all things that we'll cover over the next couple months. So if you have any questions, whether it's about the get started freelancing boot camp or about finding your niche, pop them in the chat.

I'm happy to answer them. This is our little FAQ time. And if you don't have a question, I'd love to hear what the best thing you learned about in this workshop was in the chat.

Or if you have feedback for me, I can't see your face. Don't be afraid to give me criticism or feedback. Pop it in the chat.

I'm happy. I'm open to changing things for y'all. And while you type out your questions in the chat, I'm just going to run through my quick coaching options, and then I'll come back and answer all of your questions.

So for the get started freelancing boot camp folks, I am offering 20% off almost all of my services. And if you're interested in PopClub, you can use the code that is listed here. And this will also be emailed to you later.

And you'll get 20% off for your first three months. I have never offered a discount on PopClub before. So definitely take advantage of it if you want that.

The coupons all expire in December. And I will not be offering 20% off PopClub ever again. So definitely take advantage of it.

One on one coaching is also 20% off. I currently have one spot available for long term one on one coaching. Or you can start with a one on one intensive.

It's just one hour. I also offer websites done for you. If you've seen my website, I created it with Notion and Super.

It's a super easy way and affordable way. It's only $16 a month to maintain, to have a website. And it's super easy to edit.

If you already love Notion and you're already an avid user of Notion, the website option might be good for you if you've been putting off creating your website. I'm literally charging hourly for it so I can keep it as affordable as possible for you. I just heard from so many one on one and PopClub clients that they were struggling with getting their website done.

And it just kept falling in the back burner. So we will whip that up for you in one month or less. Get it done.

The Freelance Resource Library thing I mentioned a couple times is also 20% off. It has literally every lesson I've ever created. And it gets updated every single month with new lessons.

So if you're interested in that, you can buy it standalone. But it also comes with all of my other paid coaching options, PopClub and one on one coaching. I also offer a done for you Get Clients on LinkedIn service.

So I will execute my Get Clients on LinkedIn routine. It is based off of the Get Clients guidebook. I will create messaging in your specific voice.

We will chat before you get started about what kind of clients you're looking for. How you hope to position yourself. Your packages.

All that good stuff. So that I can help you get clients on LinkedIn. You can learn more.

You'll get the download of this as a PDF afterward. You can click through to all of these links to learn more. You can just head to my website.

I also offer LinkedIn profile critiques. Those are only $25. These are all the free resources I offer, which is a lot.

So obviously, the Get Started Freelancing Bootcamp, you're in it right now. If you're not getting the emails for this and you want to, there are monthly recap and look ahead emails that you can sign up for on my website. We have other free events.

If you're interested in that, there's co-working, office hours, and all kinds of other events, creative writing workshops, things like that, on our events calendar. The Fizz is my weekly newsletter if you're not signed up. I highly recommend it.

But I make it. So I also host a podcast called the Guidebook Podcast. It has guest interviews and solo casts all about freelancing.

And the Get Clients guidebook will help you get clients on LinkedIn. My Notion templates will help you get set up in Notion for free. And the business setup checklist will make sure your business is set up.

We're also doing a workshop about the business setup checklist in the future. So if you're interested in that, go ahead and check it out. Again, all of those resources are free.

Okay. So that's everything I have to offer. If you have questions, just pop them in the chat.

I'm happy to answer them. And if not, thank you for joining me today. It was really great getting to know all of your new niches.

I hope this helped you find your niche and quiet all of the overthinking in your brain so that you can get started and move forward. Our next workshop is coming up soon in March. And hang on.

Let me find the details. And we're going to be picking your freelance services on March 19th at 1 p.m. Eastern. And you can register for that workshop on our community events calendar.

You'll get an email after this event if you signed up from the community events calendar with more information on signing up. Or you can find the links for literally everything I just mentioned in the description box of this YouTube video as well, including all of those resources and services that I mentioned. Thanks for coming, John.

Hope this was helpful. All righty. I'm just gonna hang out and answer some questions.

So feel free to pop them in the chat. I'll probably be on for another five or so minutes. Thanks for coming, Sarah.

All righty. It looks like we still have five folks left. If any of you guys have questions that you want to pop in the chat, I'm happy to answer them if you do.

Doesn't look like there are any more questions, so I am going to head out. Thank you for watching, y'all. If you're watching the replay and if you have any questions and you're watching the replay, all of my contact info is in the description box of this video.

So don't be afraid to reach out to me. I am always happy to help with any questions that you have. We'll also have some office hours coming up soon on our community events calendar that are free as part of this bootcamp situation.

So don't be afraid to check those out if you want to ask questions live. All right, see you next time. Get started.

Yes – but not yet. When you're starting out, pick one and stick to it for at least six months to a year. You're already juggling a lot as a new freelancer: learning how to pitch, how to price, how to do sales calls, how to deliver work. One niche makes all of that so much simpler. Once you've found your footing, you can absolutely expand.

That said, if work in a different niche comes to you – you don't have to say no. Just keep your active marketing focused on one thing.

Here's what "full effort" looks like before you consider switching niches: → You have at least three portfolio pieces in your niche → You're sharing your work on LinkedIn (or wherever your clients are) → You have a list of ideal clients and you're sending pitches or connection requests every week → You've been doing this consistently for at least three months

If you've done all of that and you're still not getting traction, something might need to shift – but your niche is just one possible culprit. It could also be your messaging, your strategy, or your portfolio. That's a great time to get a second set of eyes on it.

Honestly? It takes about three to six months to start feeling like one. A good rule of thumb: when you have three to five clients or bylines under your belt, you know the industry lingo, and you can name which services your clients actually need – you're there. Charge accordingly.