Episode 73 - Who's Afraid of a Little Old Niche?

Are you afraid to niche down because you think you’ll lose all the people you could help?

In this episode of Three Questions, I’m making the case for getting way more specific about who you want to work with. Because your niche isn’t a lifetime commitment, and it doesn’t mean you suddenly can’t help anyone outside of it. It gives you someone to talk to, problems to get really freaking good at solving, and a clearer path for building a business people actually understand.

In This Episode You'll Hear:

• How to identify the people you genuinely want to work with, not the ones you think you should choose
• Why fear of losing potential clients keeps so many businesses stuck talking to everyone
• Where to actually start once you’ve chosen a niche (hint: it’s not creating a course)

If you’re great at what you do but struggling to explain who it’s for, this episode will help you simplify your message, understand your customer, and get specific enough for the right people to start paying attention.

Links & Resources For This Episode:
Episode 23 - Your Business, Your Rules: 3 Questions To Get It Right
Episode 27 - Finding Your Tribe & Passion with Stephanie Comella
Episode 39 - Creating Systems to Support Your Business, Life, and Health
Episode 40 - Three Questions to Reflect and Reset for 2026
Episode 62 - What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?
Find a Neuro Studio Teacher Near You
Connect with me on Instagram
Connect with me on Threads

Transcript

Meghann Koppele Duffy: Welcome to Three Questions, where critical thinking is king, and my opinions and research are only here to support your learning and deeper understanding. Hey, I'm your host, Meghann, and I'm so honored you clicked on Three Questions today, so we can talk about a really important topic when it comes to business.

And you know what's so weird to me? This is where a lot of my students and mentees fight me the most. I feel like I would die on this hill. I know I die on a lot of hills, but it is so interesting to me the pushback I get, the what if, the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All these, not excuses, but examples of what I call the what ifs, the exceptions and not the rules.

And what am I talking about here, guys, is niching down in our business. It's something that often surprises me about the pushback, even when I show people a direct path. I give examples, not just myself. There is almo- always so much resistance here. So rather than, like, kind of breaking through your resistance, I wanted to think of three questions that might help you better understand why niching down is critical, and maybe the problem is not niching down, but the niche you are choosing.

And before we kind of get into it, I wanna kind of like paint a picture here When we talk to everybody, we often talk to nobody. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, let me kind of paint a more clear picture. If you want to tell everybody what they want to hear, you are going to get yourself in trouble.

Everybody's been in this instance. I know as a former people pleaser, this is a place I used to get myself stuck a lot. I would tell Cheryl one thing, and then I would tell Kate the other thing when I was not actually communicating what I really wanted or was feeling. And then when confronted with those things, I was kind of painted in a corner because at the end of the day, I really didn't know how I felt because I was so worried about people's reaction to everything.

And we've all been there, and it's gonna happen again to me and somebody else. But I use that example because it is really important when we're taking this to business. Not everybody is going to be your customer. Not everybody is going to be a listener to this podcast. I know it's hard to believe, but not everybody loves me, right?

But focusing on trying to get everybody to love you or trying to change people's mind is, to me, wasted energy. The best advice-- I'm gonna share some of this advice a sp-specific client gave me, uh, throughout this episode, and I, I've given it previously. But I asked him for his advice, like he was a very successful businessman, a beloved CEO.

Um, he d-did a lot of things in business that I really admired, and he's really straightforward. And I was telling him about something I was struggling with, and he said, said to me, "It sounds like you're focusing on the two percent." And I was like, "What?" He's like, "You're focusing on the two percent. Focus on the ninety-eight percent."

And I was like, "No, no, no." And he was like, "You're focusing on the two percent. How many people are actually the problem? Name them." And I was like, "Mm." And I said the two people's names out loud. And he's like, "How many people are in your mentorship group?" And I was like, "Oh, sh-" Because I kid you not, there was literally like 102 people in the group at that time.

This is years ago. And so he was actually kind of spot on. I was literally focusing on 2% and not the 98%, like almost to the exact number. And

I had a pause and I was like, "Okay And he's like, "Just focus on the 98% and tell me what happens next week." And he was right. There was a huge shift. So in our effort to make everybody happy, we could be potentially going after the wrong customer and alienate the people who actually love and care about us and really wanna hear what we have to say.

So to dig right into question one, this is one you are not gonna have an answer for today, and if you have an answer today, I want you to break it down and get super specific. So in your business, who do you really want to talk to, to help, and to work with? Just let that sit. Who do you want your 98% to be?

Now, not the 2% in the other way. Let me explain. Okay, you're gonna always have ride or die people. They are your early adapters. They are your people. I am sure many of you guys are listening to right now, and I freaking love you, and I know who you are, and I'll never forget it. But these aren't the people I'm talking about.

Not your exceptional clients, not your easy people, not the story of your favorite client you tell at a conference. The average person who would walk into your studio, clinic, restaurant, whatever business you're running. The average person. Who do you want to work with? And you need to get specific. Don't be like women.

Don't be like athletes. Get more specific And I'm not even going to ask you to... No, I'm going to ask you

Take that group and get even more specific. Let me give you an example. I want to work with women. Okay, what age group? Women under the age of forty. Okay. Be more specific. What do they like to do? Work out. What are their problems? Well, they're... I don't know, I just wanna work with women who like wanna get fit but don't have a lot of time.

Why don't they have time? Um, are they working moms? Are they stay-at-home moms? Or are they working women without children? Those are three different-- very different types of people. And what happens a lot of times is when you say, "Oh, I want to work with mothers." Okay. Well, there's a lot of different types of mothers.

I see them all day long. Okay? There's a lot of judgment among mothers in the groups. I tend not to judge mothers, they're judging themselves enough. But you need to be super specific. So if you're gonna be like, "No, I kinda wanna work with working moms who still wanna make specific time with their kids."

All right. Boom. What are their biggest struggles? What are they dealing with? Ask the questions, get specific, and even more specific. Now, again, as someone like me, maybe I wanna talk to working moms. I'm not a working mom Okay? Doesn't matter. If I know that person really well and talk to them and don't pretend I'm one of them, nothing's more annoying than something when people say "we."

That's something you'll never hear me say at the Neuro Studio. I do not know what it's like to have a neurological condition. I do know what it, it is to have post-concussion syndrome and symptoms like that, but it's not the same thing. So something Mariska and I always talk about, like, I will never say we.

I'll never say what my favorite cane is. I'll never say my favorite AFO. I don't need one. I can say, "This is what I recommend for my client for this." This is what I'm seeing amongst all my working mom friends, and as an outsider, maybe I can help. Now, for me, like if I'm a working mom, I might not wanna take advice from a woman who doesn't have children and is acting like she knows what I'm going through.

That's me personally, but I might not be your avatar. And an avatar is kind of a, a technical term a lot of business people use. Like, what's the-- Like, give me the description of your actual customer. Like, you know, you can create a little picture. Now, for me, years ago, I s- owned a Pilates studio. It was kind of more a fitness-based Pilates studio in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Shout out Premier Pilates and Training. Um, I sold it because at t- 30, I owned it for five years, I realized this was not a sustainable business model. And if you're running a Pilates studio, I did a whole episode about that. Um, the Pilates studio business model was never a good business model. My dad kind of told me that when he opened it, but obviously at 24 with no business experience, I knew better than him.

Anyway, but lessons learned. So anyway, I saw the writing on the wall. I knew what was up. I actually at one point s- well, I sold my studio. I was gonna go work for my dad in insurance consulting. Why? Because I kinda thought, "Oh, maybe I'll just sit at a desk job, make money, and be happy." Well, that lasted four months.

I knew I wanted to do movement. I knew I had a unique expertise with a master's in applied, um, in applied physiology and exercise science. Nobody really had that at the time. But how, how could I set myself apart from the masses? I did not wanna be a physical therapist. I didn't want to be kind of in the Pilates world in that respect.

And then a woman walked into my studio. Actually, that's not how it happened. I've told this story before, but I'm gonna give you the reader's digest 'cause this episode is not about me. A PT called me and asked me if I knew if I worked with MS, and I said, "Yes, of course, I work with MS." And then I had to Google, "What is MS?"

The arrogance of being 24 years old. But what was interesting to me is when I Googled what to do for people with MS, it was like crickets, crickets, tumbleweeds. It was like stretching, this word spasticity. There was all this stuff, and I'm just like, "Okay, this woman coming in is gonna be like very disabled."

And she wasn't. Yeah, she had a lot of fatigue. We can only do 30-minute sessions. But I was kind of like, "This population is confusing to me." MS is an interesting condition. There's like a ton of information, but there's no information. And it was... Listen, you get, usually get diagnosed on the younger age, so it was a, some, a lot of people my age.

There was people older who had MS for years And they didn't look the part. And what I mean by that is that if you have an invisible illness, I'm sorry you go through this, but a lot of my MS clients look perfectly fine from the outside, yet they have a lot of trouble moving. They have proprioceptive issues.

They have balance issues. They have a lot of other health issues that you wouldn't see. And I'm thinking, "I don't know anything, but, like, let me see if I can figure some stuff out here." Because it can't be about just strengthening, because if just strengthening them w- would work, these PT exercises would help, but they weren't.

So just off that, I saw a hole in the market. So this is not always what normally happens. So when you wanna work with a specific group, I don't want you to think you can only work with them because there's a hole in the market. Now, I kind of got lucky, I guess, because I found something where there was a hole in the market, it was super interesting, and it was a population I wanted to work with.

I love working with people with MS. They are

Uh, was it-- I don't know, such badasses. They don't take no for an answer. They research things. They try new things. They're willing to think outside the box. They're not gonna let things stop them, okay? I guess they would be, you know, considered more of a Type A personality like myself, and I kinda was like, "These are my people."

Okay? I also love a puzzle. I don't love cookie cutter shit where it's like, do this, do that. I like when shit g- doesn't go right, and we've gotta figure out, we gotta troubleshoot, we gotta put on our thinking caps. Remember that in school? Put on your thinking cap. Um, that to me was super interesting. Now, were they a challenging population to work with?

Are they still? Yes. But I like that challenge. It was right in my kind of zone of genius. Okay? I've had teachers kind of work and observe me and see the kind of clientele and the tricky cases I have, and they'll be like, "I don't know if I wanna do what you do." And I'm like, "All right, cool. Who do you wanna work with?"

Or they'll be like, "I love this. This is exactly what I wanna do." And I'm like, "Awesome." And it's really important. I did an episode of What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up? You've gotta be honest about that, but you've gotta be specific. So me specializing and niching down with MS, I, on my website, it only talks about MS.

Now, what I didn't realize at the time is multiple sclerosis has a lot, a ton of symptoms. Like, if you ever remember that show House, he would always rule out MS first because there's like the po- the possibilities of symptoms are endless because there's so many areas of demyelination on your nerves that could occur.

So again, I love that challenge. But what was interesting is all my TBI clients, um, all my complex neurological stuff, like, I have worked with conditions people sometimes see only once in a lifetime because people would seek me out because like, "Oh my God, she knows how to work with MS. She-- Maybe she can help me.

I don't have MS, but I have similar symptoms. I have this." And I would say, be like, "Listen, I've never worked with that condition, but I did some research and this makes sense. Let's try X, Y, and Z." And I'd be always totally honest with them. And I think they appreciated that because everybody would love to point out what was wrong with them and tell them what they need to do, but nobody came up with solutions.

So for me, at a very young age, I am someone who's very stubborn and hates bullshit vague answers. "Oh, just do this." Why? And I'm not asking why because I'm trying to poke holes. I really need to understand why so I can replicate it. If I just memorize, do that exercise for this person, how is that gonna help me?

That's stressful. But if you explain to me why that works, I'm like, "Holy shit, can we also use that for this condition?" "Well, no, Megh, that's peripheral nerve, not central nerve." Oh my God, tell me more. Let's look into it. Okay? Now, with all that in mind, focusing on one neurological condition over the past twenty-five years launched a career to have two businesses that are very financially successful, and I still have never lo- lost my North Star client sessions and client goals.

My clients always come first. That is something I'm most proud of and that's something that will never change So when you're thinking about your niche, think about, is this a population I want to work with? So if there's a hole in the market, be honest. Do you actually wanna work with that population? I told you in that other, that What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up episode, I knew from a young age I did not wanna be a doctor.

I did not wanna be a doctor 'cause I don't like working nights and weekends. I don't like doing 48-hour shifts. I like my sleep. I like my own schedule. I don't like writing notes, right? I was like, "There's nothing about being a doctor in this world that I would enjoy." So what do I love to do? I like moving.

I like getting... talking to people. I, I love getting in the weeds about things. I have created my own job, right? So when you're thinking about your niche, be very specific. Do please promise me you're not gonna romance it. One of my favorite students, she works with people with-- She is very hypermobile. She probably has EDS.

It's hard to get a diagnosis. You know the deal if you have EDS or hypermobility. And we've been doing a lot. She took my hypermobility training. She's been studying the work for a while, and she actually said to me two weeks ago, "Meg." I said, "Yes?" "I don't wanna work with hypermobility." And I said, "Okay.

Nobody said you had to." And she's like, "It's frustrating to me as someone who lives with it-" I feel like I'm getting a lot of people who are resistant or making excuses and stuff like that. I said, "Okay, I get that. But do you think you can put that aside and not be hard on other people and help them get to where they need to go?"

And she gave me the most honest answer, and I love her for it. She goes, "Yeah, I think I can, but I don't want to." I said, "Done." I... And then she said, "I actually think I want to help people on the opposite spectrum. People who are super tight or in pain because this me- these methods work the same for chronic pain, don't they?"

I was like, "Yeah." And I was like, "I think that's amazing. And I think it also gives a real good yin to the yang of that." And she's like, "I feel like I can be more compassionate to those people." And I was like, "Done." I think for me, working with people with neurological conditions, I can understand some of the symptoms because I've experienced some of them temporary.

Um, but I get so shocked when other people and PTs and OTs and other Pilates teachers are like, "They're just not working hard enough. They don't want it enough." I have stroke clients that work hard, and I'll be like, "Man, do you know how hard it is to recover from a stroke or a brain injury? It's so hard.

It's like the hardest thing anybody will ever do." I say to some of my stroke clients, "I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I'm mentally tough enough." So this is a group of people I really admire, but if you find the group of people you're working with you have lost compassion for... And that doesn't make you a bad person, that makes you honest.

Trust me, there's a lot of groups of people I won't work with

I'm just sick of the argument and the conversations in some of the movement industry. I'm not gonna have these debates that are meaningless to me, and I'm not gonna debate with you my work when you haven't studied it. Okay? So you are allowed to not wanna work with a population. You are allowed to wanna go all in on a population.

The only thing I ask you about question one, guys, is please do not romance it and be honest with it. I literally was so I think something shifted in me when she said that. Yes, I could do it, but I don't want to. And I was like, "Love that. Love that." I feel like I'm gonna take some of that energy with me when I left that session.

So And remember, guys, this doesn't have to be long-term. You're not marrying these people. And even if you get married, you can get divorced nowadays. But be really specific of who you want to talk to, because those people are going to respond and listen to certain things. Okay? On my-- I have three social media pages, um, not on purpose.

We have The Neuro Studio, um, my Meghannkoppele.duffy, which is like, kinda like my personal page, which I d- don't really ever post on, and the podcast. Now, um, I didn't want to have a third page, but, you know, podcasts on Instagram, just so you know if you ever wanna start one, those don't really kind of get, uh, a lot of views, but it's just kind of out there in the universe.

And on my personal page, I don't need to niche down. I have a business that's really niched down and brings in all my income. I don't really know what I want with that page. I don't really post anything. When I figure it out, you'll know. You'll see it. But you don't have to, like, jump into anything until you're ready.

Maybe wait until you really figure out your niche, and until then, maybe just post shit. Throw shit against the wall, see what sticks. You'll be surprised with what resonates with people. It cracks me up, like, our most popular posts are, like, any time I fold a fitted sheet. I've got all this expertise up in this head, and all people give a shit about is how I can fold a fitted sheet.

I think it's because I don't have any domestic, uh, bones in my body, so I think people are impressed by my folding. But anyway. So to rehash question one, I know I kinda went all over the place. Who do you really wanna talk to? Who do you wanna help? Who do you wanna work with? Don't romance them. Don't make them sound like they're gonna be easy people.

Be super specific and niche down even further. Once you get that group, you wanna work with low back pain? Okay. Be more specific. Do you wanna work with people who have low back pain who are athletes? Do you wanna work with people who have low back pain who sit at desks? Do you wanna work with people who have had low back pain after acute injuries?

And again, just talking to s- people specifically will help you build awareness and a brand, and people will know what you're talking about. But if you talk about every injury under the sun, people aren't gonna know to go to you. And I always laugh, especially if you're on social media, like, you've got the whole global world.

Like, you really don't need that many followers to have a successful business. If you're doing one-to-one sessions, you can easily make six figures really niching down and talking to a specific population, provided you get them results Coupled with question one, who do you really wanna talk to, help, or work with?

These better be people you can actually help, and if you can't help them yet, figure it out. Put your head down. Get really freaking good with it. If you wanna work with a specific group... I wasn't great at working with people with MS when I started. God, I was 24. I had, like, no clue what was going on, and I was tired all the time 'cause I was, like, 24, right?

But I got better. So don't think just because you're not the best, you won't, won't be. Put your head down and work, but don't romance it. Okay? Now, let's move co- to question two Ugh, I hate this question, but I need to ask it. Why are you so scared to niche down? What is the actual problemo, people? What specifically is the problem?

First, name the fear. Like, what are you scared about? And maybe scared isn't the word. Why won't you... Why are you refusing to niche down? "But I help so many people." Oh, stop it. Enough. What are you worried about? Well, y- are you worried that if you're talking to just people with low back pain, you might lose a customer who has an ankle injury you could help?

Who cares? Let somebody else go help that ankle person. Do you really wanna work with someone with an ankle injury? And if you're like, "Yeah, I wanna work with everybody with all injuries," we are getting off topic. So, before I go deeper down this road, if you are still fighting me with the niche and say you wanna work with all injuries, that is fine.

You will be marketing to everybody all the time, constantly trying to get people in, and your business will not grow. A- if you talk to anybody who has built a successful business, there are a few things in play. Number one, they niche down, they niche down harder, and they went all in. Niching down created an opportunity for things to then blow up.

A funny story. My friend, um, Missy, she's Missy Bunch on social media. She's got a big following. She does neuro work. She's a lovely human. When I had my intensive out in Phoenix, I invited her to guest lecture, and we actually talked about niching down because she was like, "What is with people?" And she was like, "Guys, niche down, niche down harder, and then things will kind of..."

She's like, "You kind of gotta go in and then out." And, like, right before that, we were like, I don't... Everything rolls around bathroom humor to me, and I was like, "It's like you just took a huge shit." And we were dying laughing, but it totally was exactly the visual. Missy was saying, she's like, "My business kept growing as I niched down and down and down and got more narrow," and then she kind of went like, phew, and then everything exploded.

She got all these opportunities that weren't even in her original niche. But because that niche was so strong and she built a business, she now had this expertise of how to build a business, how to build a community, all these things that people were asking her about. But the-- You can't let the cart drag the horse.

You can't be, "Oh, I'm gonna help you do this and that and that and that," because people aren't gonna know what your expertise is. Where-- Why she got to there, why I have all these opportunities to work with different athletes or to do podcasts or do stuff behind the scenes I don't even talk about, is because I niched down hard, got really specific and good at what I did, and that then opened up doors for people asking, "Could you do this?

Could you do that?" So, if you're gonna still fight me on this, I will then just ask you to revisit your goals, and your goal might not be to build your business. Maybe it's something different, and then I want you to then turn off this episode and go to one of my goal-setting podcast episodes. Maybe if Joe is nice, he will put them in the chat because Joe, you know, I don't remember any of my episodes.

I can't believe, I think this is episode 73. Hmm. Thank you for being here for 73 30 Minutes with Meghann. All right. So back down to specifically why you were scared to niche down. Okay? Now, don't be scared. Everything will be fine. If you pick a niche and it doesn't go, you can always pick another one. It's okay.

Nobody will die if you pick the wrong niche. But what I don't want you to do is pick a niche, and then when it doesn't blow up in, like, a month, you freak out. You've gotta be in this for the long haul, the long game. I am very strategic with everything I do. When someone asks me something, I'm gonna say, "How is this gonna help me now?"

Or, "Could this potentially benefit down the road?" And I do that strategically. You have to be strategic about your business. It's, like, so amazing when people, like, will be like, "Oh, that's sleazy." Sleazy? It's strategic. Okay? So I'm gonna say no to something that totally pulls me in a different direction, but I'm gonna say yes, and I'll say, "Hold on.

Can we do it this way?" And then I'm always very clear, how can this benefit me? How can this benefit you? Because I always feel like if something's a one-way street, that's never gonna end well. Gotta be a two-way street. Okay? So think about the story we told in the beginning about talking to everybody and talking to no one, or kind of people pleasing.

Don't be afraid of the customer you're gonna lose. Don't focus on that what if, that should have, that ugh. Focus on the customers that you can help every single day and talk to them nonstop

Talk to the people you want to talk to every single day. Share everything you know. They'll pay you to organize it. Don't focus on the what-ifs. Don't focus on the exceptions. This is so super critical. And please don't play scared. If you're scared or you're nervous, reach out. Be like, "Meg, I think I'm gonna go in this direction."

And my always thought is, "Okay, perfect. What's step one?" And usually they're like, "That," and I'm like, "Well, that's step 10. What's gonna be step one?" Step one is really understanding your consumer. I was just talking to one of my mentees, uh, I don't know, I have lost track of days, um, and she's like, "So I think I wanna go in this direction."

And I said, "Ah, no notes. Love this for you." And she said, "Really?" I go, "I love this for you. This is a perfect direction." She wants to be more mobile, not in one spot. She's moving away from brick and mortar. Number two, she has the personality. She's got the focus that I think she can do what she wants to do on Zoom.

The population she chose, I'm like, "This is big. This is a small group, but a big group." Do you know what I mean by that? She's like, "Yeah. I'm a little worried that it's too small of a group." Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Nope, nope And this group specifically often gets physical therapy. It's paid for, and then they're kinda thrown to the wolves.

Nobody's talking about the pre-surgery. Nobody's doing this. And she's like, "I know. I feel like I can do that." I was like, "I know, and you're gonna kill it." And I said, "Every time we talk, if you veer off this niche, I am going to pull you back into it." She's like, "I don't think I'm gonna veer. I feel like I'm ready."

And I said, "100%." So two things about that. What if I said this was a bad idea? 'Cause I do sometimes devil's advocate people. I test them, but I test them to see if they're really in it. Because don't let anybody tell you no when you have a good idea. Okay? That's number one. But don't be stubborn And listen to hear what they have to say.

If I said to her, "Okay, that is a really good niche. Do you have the skill set to do that yet?" And she said, "Yeah." And I'll-- And I said, 'cause I said this to another teacher, she wants to go another direction, I said, "I love that for you, but I have worked with you in person. You are a wonderful teacher, but you have to improve your skill set because with this population specifically, their margin of error is really small.

They have high pain. You've gotta be on it. You've gotta be the best. You've got to... You see when I assess, when I get the sensory input immediately? That's where I want you, and I am here, and I will get you there." And I could see in her face she was a little disappointed with my comment, but I had to be honest with her.

She was a mentee of mine. I didn't wanna send her out in the world ill-prepared. I wanted her to know, do I think she could do it? 100%. But, uh, do I think she needs to put her nose down and grind a little more to do it? Yeah. But I would say the same thing to myself. Now, what I love is she did not let that stop her.

She didn't say, "Oh, Meghann doesn't think I'm good enough," blah, blah, blah. No. She kind of has gone in, she's starting sharing stuff on social media, and has something scheduled with me in person so we can really hone in on the assessments and the skills that she could potentially add into her business. And I said to her, "You don't have to use my assessments, but you do need to have a distinctive skill set to get the job done."

Because you could be great at marketing and s- marketing stuff, which I think she is going to be very good at, but there's a big difference between marketing and giving results. Now, I'm someone who I'd rather my students be like, "Pssh, I might suck at marketing, but I can get results." Okay? 'Cause that's kind of where the imposter syndrome and all that crap comes in.

When you're really freaking good at what you do, to me, that markets itself, and then you can get people to help you there. I don't want, again, cart dragging the horse here. So if you're afraid to niche down, ask yourself, "Is this the right niche? Do I have the skill set to get the results that people need?

And do I really understand my consumer?" Which is step one. Don't just do it through your experience or your one client. You really have to understand that consumer and give them what they want. Got it? And last but not least, let's go to question three. What is the best way to get started with niching down?

Okay. Well, everybody hates this. I feel like, th- this is like, everybody's gonna hate this episode. I feel like I'm telling you shit you already know and you don't really wanna hear. I'm sorry. Let me, let me try to make this more applicable here. Step one is the best way to get started. I'm not joking. Most people start at, like, step six or s- step ten.

"So I've got this course I wanna write. I wanna teach people how to improve-" You know, decrease their low back pain. Did anybody ask you for that? No? Well, what's your customer? "All right, my customer is people who have back pain." All right. What age are these people? Are we specific? Are we doing male, female?

Are we doing non-binary? Like what population are we talking to? Um, what age group? Are they at desk jobs? Are they active people? What is the population you're really going to market to? "Well, I don't know. I wanna talk to them all." Okay, well, let's kinda niche down first, understand the consum-consumer. So we don't wanna just be talking about a course before we have a customer.

Then the biggest mistake, I have done this myself, I still do it sometime, but remember, my avatar for my business that I market for is an advanced practitioner. I teach our advanced neuro techniques course. Okay? I'm kind of our avatar. Someone who's been around the block, educated, no bullshit, wants results.

That's our customer for that course. Our customer for that course is not people who want a list of exercises, not egomaniacs, people who wanna critically think and work. Okay? So when I'm sharing some of my material, I have to make it a little high level, because for me, I'm not gonna take a course from someone who's telling me stuff I already know.

Okay? Remember, think about who this person's customer is. If you're working with someone with low back pain, don't share from where you are now. Say you've solved your low back pain, you've solved thousands of people's back pain. Do not teach from where you are right now. Think about where you started.

That's where they are. Talk them through the steps. Yeah. Have you gone to PT and you feel great when you're there, but then you be-bend over to tie your shoes and you're out again? Does everything feel fine, you're killing it, until this happens? You've done all the exercises, you've done this. Well, how was your sleep?

Like, so again, you've got to talk to people where they're at now, not where you're at. And this is a mistake I see all the time. And again, how do I know? I've made this mistake too. I say to some of our like level three neuro studio teachers, "Love that post. Who was that for? Me? I'm the only person in the world who understood what you meant there."

And they'll be like And I'm like, "Hold on. It was a great post. I loved it, but I'm not gonna pay you for anything." You're sharing the work you learned in my course. Don't cater to me. Cater to people who are gonna pay you money. Maybe be like, "Hey, are you a Neuro Studio teacher who's getting a little lost in the weeds and needs some community and help?

Hey, I'm a level three teacher. I can help guide you through it. I can translate Meghann for you. I've been studying with her for 20 years," or whatever. Talk to your customer. Boom, right there. Maybe you wanna work with people who have just had a stroke, okay? Don't give them all this complex stuff. Be like, "Hey, have you been told you have spasticity and still are a little confused about what that's like?

I get it. Let's talk about it." Talk to them. "Do you notice when you're doing your exercises, they're telling you to move a limb, but you feel like you're moving other parts of your body? Is that a problem? Let's talk." Talk directly to your customer. They are the ones that need help. And guys, I am telling you, from a business standpoint, I run two businesses, the Neuro Studio, which I run with my business partner, Mariska, okay.

We do a lot of education. We have a subscription. We've got a lot of different e-- It's more of an education company. My Koppele Method business where I still see clients, I do week intensives. I do intensives with teachers. All of that, toooootally different thing. But that business alone, just seeing clients and getting them the results, that is an s- easy six-figure business, and I work a lot less than I used to, right?

Now, to run businesses, there's a lot of behind the scenes. I've gotta do our social media and stuff like that, so I can't see as many clients as I used to, nor do I want to at this point in my life, but I still see clients every week. So time for time business, seeing clients and getting results, it's not a dead business.

You could be making very good money getting people amazing results. You can also do some group stuff depending on your population. Maybe you wanna help people improve balance. You can do these amazing balance classes that people can do from home. But talk to people about the problems they have. Don't be like, "Oh, look at all the problems I've solved."

Solve the problem for the people, your people specific. So I know this all seems obvious. And if it feels too simple, it's probably not simple enough. I'm telling you. I know things seem obvious to you. I remember my good friend, um, Ashley, she is a, a very well-known trainer out in LA. Um, Ashley Borden's an amazing human.

Um, she's been around for years. She actually was on, um, what was that show with Khloé Kardashian? Revenge Body. Um, just amazing. And she works with women in menopause because she's a woman in menopause and lifting. Now, what was interesting, she had told me once that I think her most viral post or a, a post she did was basically just showing women how to, like, re-rack the weights and put the lock on the end without, like, screwing up your nails, and I'm totally probably butchering it.

Sorry, Ashley. And she's like, "It seemed so obvious to me, like, why would I even share that?" But women are like, "Oh my God, I always see people do that, but I never wanted to do it that because of X, Y, and Z." And it really helps connect. So if you think something is simple, it is not simple enough. People don't want complex shit.

As the queen of complexity, people don't want complex. I work hard to simplify it, but also I'm like, "This isn't simple." I am catering towards a different population. Okay? So I'm going to wrap a bow around all of this. I hope you're not scared to niche down. I hope you're excited to niche down. I hope you really take some time to think about who you really wanna talk to, and devil's advocate it.

What's their personality type like? What's their schedules like? What do they complain about? Like, these are all things you have to consider

Think about the average person, not the exceptional one. And don't limit yourself to people who are just there interested to learn. Those are like-- I always say, like my husband, um, he teaches special education and history, and he always says like, the AP teachers are like super snobby and think they're above the special ed teachers, and I will die on this hill.

I don't think an AP teacher is often the better teacher. It's easy to teach people who are intelligent and want to be there and who might have specific educational goals, so will strive for that A. It is much harder to teach people who are intelligent, I think everybody's intelligent in their own way, who don't really wanna be there because it's not geared to how they learn or what they're interested in.

It is a lar- harder to teach people who don't want to learn the thing you want to teach. Most people don't wanna change. Let's be honest. And our bodies, our brains prefer familiarity. We don't want change. So if all these things you're doing in your life is giving you back pain or leading to a hip replacement, it's gonna be hard to change that.

So the real great teachers are you guys, the ones that can teach the people who everybody says are unteachable. They're not unteachable. Nobody is just talking to them in a way they can receive it. So really think about that population and talk to them and listen to them like nobody's ever done that before.

Number two, stop playing scared. Don't worry that, "Oh, I'm niching down too far. I'm gonna have no customers." I remember one of my favorite people in the world, Cindy George, she does scar tissue, uh, the McLaughlin Scar Tissue Technique. She's amazing at it. She's just an amazing practitioner. And she was like, "I don't know if I wanna niche down."

I looked at her website, I'm like, "Holy crap, you offer too many things. How am I supposed to know what to do?" I'm going to get, what is that? Uh, decision paralysis. Just tell people they're booking an hour of Cindy, and you have all these credentials. You'll figure out what they need. But I'm a f-- she was afraid to niche down in scars.

I go, "Name a person who doesn't have a scar." That's like a great niche. But be more specific with those scars. What are you gonna help people do? And that has really helped her build her business and let people know. Can she do a lot of other things like Reiki or Pilates and that stuff? "Well, what if I don't get as many neuro clients?"

Well, do you like working with neuro clients? "Yeah, but I love working with scars." Awesome! Lean into that. Boom! Because then when they're there and they say, "Oh, I'm having this problem." "Oh, I can also help you with that." Do not be afraid to niche down. The only thing you should be afraid of is picking a niche that you don't love and can't work with.

Remember, if there's a hole in the market, great. If there's not, if the market's saturated, even better. If the market is saturated, that means people need it. The market is saturated with hypermobility trainings and stuff like that, and most of them are terrible. It's the same stuff wrapped up in a different bow.

So I tell our neuro-seated teachers, "Go in there and go in hard. This shit works. This shit's better. We're the only one taking a neuro approach." Be that person. People need results. People with hypermobility need help, and they're not getting it. There, there's a lot of marketing to them, but no results. So there we go.

Don't be scared to niche down. Last piece of the niche, make sure you can deliver. I never make promises I can't keep. Number one, that is stressful, and I find if you're straight with people, they appreciate that, and at the end of the day, I'm teaching movement. I'm not curing cancer, so nothing's kind of a guarantee except X, Y, and Z.

This is what I can guarantee. If you put in, this is what we'll get And last but not least, the best way to get started with niching down is just doing it. S-start from where your customer is, not where you're at. Remember, you've already done that hero's journey if you've dealt with that condition or whatever.

And again, if you didn't deal with that condition, that's fine. I have made a whole career of working with people with neurological conditions. That doesn't mean I have to have a neurological condition. I've also said a lot of times with people with neurological conditions, they make it about their unique experience.

I have created methods that cater to your individual brain, not even your neurological condition. So your brain is gonna respond to that neurological condition different than someone else. So I was able to niche down even further. Now, when you niche down even further and you can create something new, you're creating a new language.

It's gonna be new to people. That's a problem I have, but it's a problem I love solving every day through continuing questions and interacting with people like you guys. So if you're struggling with niching, you have any questions for me, reach out. Let me know your ideas. I will give you my honest opinion, and I will never say no to a niche.

I will just say, "Oh, think about this, this, and this." If that's what you wanna do, go all in. Don't let anybody tell you not to do something. Go where the market's saturated. Go where the market's empty. Don't care about the market. Care about what you want. And hopefully, next time we speak, you're a little more niched down and ready for the next episode.

Thanks, guys.