Advice Line: How To Refine Your Niche When Marketing Isn't Working (Justin Green)

Summary

Advisor Marketing Made Simple

Episode: Advice Line: How To Refine Your Niche When Marketing Isn't Working (Justin Green)
Release Date: March 26, 2025
Hosts: Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright
Guest: Justin Green, Founder of Assist Financial Planning

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Introduction

In this episode of Advisor Marketing Made Simple, hosts Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright welcome Justin Green from Assist Financial Planning. Justin, who operates his firm solo on a part-time basis, shares his journey of serving clients over the past three and a half years. With current revenues of $35,000, Justin aims to scale his business to $250,000 within the next five years. The discussion centers around identifying effective niches, refining messaging, and optimizing marketing strategies to attract the right clients.

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Justin's Background and Current Challenges

Justin begins by introducing himself and his firm. Initially targeting millennials, he swiftly pivoted to focus on online health and fitness coaches, inspired by a peer who worked with tattoo artists. Despite early successes, Justin faced challenges in attracting clients who could afford his services, leading him to broaden his niche to include various online coaches such as business, marketing, and sales coaches. This shift resulted in a mixed client base of online business owners and high-earning young professionals.

Justin [00:56]: "I was getting online coaches to find me, but maybe not the best fit as a client."

However, Justin found that while high-earning professionals could pay, he didn't enjoy working with them as much as he did with online business owners. This dichotomy led to confusion about whom he was passionate about serving versus who constituted a better fit for his business.

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Identifying the Ideal Client

Kendra prompts Justin to delve deeper into the differences between his preferred clients and those he doesn't enjoy working with. Justin estimates that only about 25% of his clients are online business owners he truly enjoys collaborating with, while the remaining 50% are high-earning professionals.

Justin [05:34]: "The ones I enjoy definitely are higher revenue... So I'm in this weird spot where I just do not have as much fun talking with them as I do the online business owner."

This reflection highlights the importance of aligning passion with business strategy to ensure long-term satisfaction and success.

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Refining the Niche and Messaging

Taylor and Kendra guide Justin through the process of refining his niche. They emphasize the need for clear messaging that resonates with the ideal client’s pain points. Justin acknowledges that his original messaging focused too much on general financial topics like cash flow and budgeting, which attracted clients not fully aligned with his ideal profile.

Kendra [04:09]: "The first starting point... is who are we attracting so that the messaging matches."

Taylor suggests moving beyond industry-specific niches to focus on broader characteristics such as age, revenue, and specific financial challenges.

Taylor [07:54]: "You have to really take note of that, that that's a really important part of your niche here, that you want to focus more on these younger professionals."

Through this discussion, Justin realizes the necessity of targeting online business owners in their 30s and 40s with annual revenues exceeding $250,000, offering them solutions like lowering taxes, maximizing revenue, and reclaiming time.

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Optimizing the Website and User Journey

Kendra reviews Justin’s website, noting that while the design is appealing, the messaging is too vague. She recommends a more targeted tagline that clearly states who Justin serves and the specific problems he solves.

Kendra [14:24]: "If you're in your 30s or 40s and you own an online business generating a certain amount of money, we can help you lower taxes, maximize your profits and save more money."

Justin agrees with the suggestion but expresses concern about shifting his podcast’s focus from health and fitness coaches to a broader range of online business owners.

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Podcast Strategy and Marketing Channels

The conversation transitions to Justin’s podcast strategy. Initially centered around fitness professionals, the podcast’s focus needs to align with Justin’s refined niche. Taylor advises that the podcast should position Justin as an expert in financial planning for online business owners rather than merely facilitating conversations.

Taylor [32:25]: "We want to showcase your expertise, likely in some shape or form."

Justin shares his past struggles with solo episodes, noting a decline in listenership when he moved away from interview-based content. Taylor suggests leveraging video podcasts to enhance visibility and engagement, recommending that Justin commits to producing full-length video episodes consistently.

Taylor [29:23]: "What would the podcast look like now that we have maybe a better understanding of who we're targeting?"

Kendra adds that focusing on content that addresses the specific problems of his ideal clients will make the podcast a powerful lead generation tool.

Kendra [37:21]: "What problems do the people I love to serve have and what language do they use to describe it?"

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Lead Generation and Conversion Tactics

Towards the end of the episode, Justin seeks advice on improving lead generation. Taylor emphasizes the importance of having a clear target audience and a compelling call to action tailored to that audience.

Taylor [41:08]: "If we're not really clear on who our audience is, who our target market is, what those pain points are, then it can be challenging to convert them."

Kendra suggests utilizing Justin’s video skills on platforms like LinkedIn, which may be more suitable for reaching online business owners compared to Instagram, where he previously focused on fitness coaches.

Kendra [42:11]: "Choose one marketing channel and then really build a marketing funnel around that."

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Key Takeaways and Action Plan

Justin concludes the episode with realizations about the importance of focused messaging and aligning business activities with his refined niche. He acknowledges the need to prioritize his messaging over short-term marketing wins and commits to honing in on serving online business owners in their 30s and 40s with substantial revenues.

Justin [44:54]: "The big takeaway is just kind of honing in on who exactly it is I want to work with and how I can best serve them."

Kendra and Taylor reinforce the value of clear niche definition and consistent, targeted marketing efforts to achieve sustainable business growth.

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Conclusion

This episode offers valuable insights for financial advisors struggling to define their niche and refine their marketing strategies. Justin Green's candid discussion highlights the challenges of balancing passion with business practicality and underscores the necessity of targeted messaging and strategic marketing to attract and retain the right clients. Hosts Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright provide actionable advice, emphasizing clarity in niche definition, effective use of content platforms, and the importance of aligning messaging with client pain points to drive meaningful business growth.

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Notable Quotes:

• Justin [00:56]: "I was getting online coaches to find me, but maybe not the best fit as a client."
• Kendra [04:09]: "The first starting point... is who are we attracting so that the messaging matches."
• Taylor [07:54]: "You have to really take note of that, that that's a really important part of your niche here, that you want to focus more on these younger professionals."
• Kendra [14:24]: "If you're in your 30s or 40s and you own an online business generating a certain amount of money, we can help you lower taxes, maximize your profits and save more money."
• Taylor [29:23]: "What would the podcast look like now that we have maybe a better understanding of who we're targeting?"
• Kendra [37:21]: "What problems do the people I love to serve have and what language do they use to describe it?"
• Taylor [41:08]: "If we're not really clear on who our audience is, who our target market is, what those pain points are, then it can be challenging to convert them."
• Kendra [42:11]: "Choose one marketing channel and then really build a marketing funnel around that."
• Justin [44:54]: "The big takeaway is just kind of honing in on who exactly it is I want to work with and how I can best serve them."

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For more insights and resources shared in this episode, listeners are encouraged to check the show notes or reach out to Taylor Schulte and Kendra Wright directly.

Transcript

[Kendra]

Hey, it's Kendra and Taylor and we're here to make Advisor Marketing simple. Today's guest is Justin from Assist Financial Planning. He runs his firm solo and part time, serving clients for the past three and a half years. His current revenue is $35,000, and he wants to grow to $250,000 in the next five years. Let's explore what's working and what could be improved. Welcome back to the show. Today we're having a conversation with Justin. Justin, to kick us off, can you share your name, your firm and your location for our listeners?

[Justin]

Yeah. So I'm Justin Green. I founded Assist Financial Planning, Assist FP for short, back in 2021, spring of 2021. I'm located in Massachusetts and I work mostly with online health and fitness coaches. But that's. I think that's going to be a big part of the conversation type today.

[Kendra]

Great. And what's the big question that you really want to dive into with us today?

[Justin]

I really want to hone in on exactly who I serve and the messaging that I'm putting out for them in 2025. So I don't know if that's exactly the question, but that's kind of the big concept that I'm hoping to explore with you guys.

[Kendra]

And can you give us a few more details on what you've done niche wise, you know, what you've explored, what you may be in between or considering? So we just have a quick lay the land and where you stand with your kind of niche set up right now?

[Justin]

Yeah. How long do you have? I flip. I've flip flopped quite a bit over the last couple years. So when I first launched, it was kind of for millennials. And then within a couple months, I went all in on the online health and fitness niche. I'm good friends with Colton, if anyone knows him. He was an advisor doing tattoo artists was his niche. And so we both kind of around the same time went really all in on this, like, unique niche idea. And I felt like it was working pretty good for. For a while I had a podcast. I was bringing in that target, you know, client. I'm not sure that I was like, my messaging was good enough to get clients who could actually afford me. I think that was one of the problems. So I was getting online coaches to find me, but maybe not the best fit as a client. And so eventually I kind of started to play with broadening that to online coaches in general. So business coaches, marketing coaches, sales coaches, et cetera. And then I would just naturally get young professionals High earners, tech employees, RSU is nothing really more technical on the stock option side coming through like an X, Y, P, N, find advisor or Napa, et cetera. Most of those would actually be local in the Massachusetts area. So I've got this business that's kind of split 50, 50 of these online business owners, online coaches and then these like high earning young professionals. And I'm in this weird spot where and I think maybe people listening to this might be able to resonate with this of like the high earning professionals pay and don't complain and they rarely want to meet and like that's a really good way to build a business. I just do not have as much fun talking with them as I do the online business owner because I just love the building the business part and I love, you know, talking to other like health minded individuals. And so I really enjoy those conversations but they tend to not be, at least I have not attracted the ones that are the best clients. And so this is where I kind of had this hang up of like who I'm passionate about helping and then, well, like who is the like better fit client.

[Kendra]

So one thing you said there that was really interesting to me is the high earning professional, they can pay you but they're not as fun. But then you said online business owners like you enjoy those. Correct. Because I know a lot of online business owners who could afford a financial planner.

[Justin]

Yeah. And I think that's where my messaging, the second part of kind of my question comes into play is like I just think my messaging was targeting the wrong topics. Right. And kind of what I've learned over the years is if you talk about, you know, cash flow and budgeting and debt and et cetera, you get people who have debt and want to talk about cash flow planning, et cetera. And so I think that may be where I kind of took some missteps early on with my messaging.

[Kendra]

Right. And I think really kind of the first starting point before we even get into how to attract, you know, a qualified client is who are we attracting so that the messaging matches. So I think at this point here, you know, when it comes to kind of online business owners, do you have any online business owners in your current book of business that you really love working with?

[Justin]

Yeah, yeah, I do a handful of them.

[Kendra]

And can you tell me a little bit about. Because you like online business owners, correct?

[Justin]

Yeah, yeah, I like, I like intricacies. And then the conversations tend to be, you know, not just about investment returns, etc. Right. You're talking about Kind of investing in yourself, investing in your business, but then also helping them, you know, plan in their business, turn it to profit, profit to income, to wealth, et cetera. And so I think your was your question, what about them makes them good clients?

[Kendra]

Is that what you're just of your current, you know, clients that you have, what percentage of your clients are fit that kind of online business owner that you enjoy working with?

[Justin]

I would say probably that I enjoy 25%. I would say 50% are online business owners. But that really kind of narrow in on like who I really like working with would probably be like closer to 25%.

[Kendra]

Can you tell me the difference between the ones you enjoy and the ones you don't? I'm trying to understand like from a personality and client kind of perspective what you love and what you don't enjoy as much.

[Justin]

Yeah, the ones I enjoy definitely are higher revenue. They tend to have a family. So they're I think some of the single, non married, non kid business owners.

[Kendra]

Just different vibe.

[Justin]

Yeah, exactly. They're just not really ready for like that responsibility. They, they're like, okay, cool, I'm making a profit now I'll just go spend it. Right.

[Kendra]

So one quick question. When we talk higher revenue, what kind of revenue are we talking? Give us like a floor. Like they need to make at least, you know, 300,000 a year, 500,000. Do you have a floor which seems to be like, what's higher revenue to you?

[Justin]

Yeah. Let me actually switch to profit then. Because depending on the business, revenue isn't actually as important. It's more what they're actually taking home. I would say profit, you're going to at least be over a hundred, probably over 150k. And obviously there's context. Right. Is there a spouse working that's bringing more income to the household as well? That can impact that, but I would say probably at least 150 to 200,000 for household income, including the profit from the business owner.

[Kendra]

Okay, cool. And with this particular segment of your current clients, what has kept you from going down this route of online business owners? Because you've had a couple of different niches here. Have you explored and this sounds like a little kind of segment of your current clients.

[Justin]

All right, so this is actually, I think to answer that with when it comes to this. So the niche and convo for me was always easier when it was just online health and fitness coaches. Right. Cause that's a very like, I can put out content that just speaks directly to that individual. Whereas when I start to do it this way. It's just a little bit, I feel like the messaging is there, but it's a little more complicated. Right. Like who am, you know, if I go and get a, a fitness business coach to come on my podcast to talk to online health and fitness coaches, that's so simple. But it, it just, I feel like the marketing became harder for me when I, when I expanded that and so that was kind of my challenge. So the messaging I think got easier, but then the marketing was a little bit. Cause I have an interview based podcast that became a little bit more challenging of like, oh shoot, well then who do I bring on here? Like now it's not. And so that's where I think things started to get tangled in my mind.

[Kendra]

Taylor, I know you're really good at kind of carving out niches and really cutting away things. When we kind of start to look at these different niche opportunities for him, you know, what kind of questions are coming up for you? Because I feel like we probably need to get clear on who we're targeting before we start to move downstream a little bit more.

[Taylor]

Yeah, I've got a few questions here. So this, this niche of online business owners, do you have an expertise to help these online business owners accomplish very specific things or is it you just like these people as clients and like the conversations that come up with these people? Like what is it like? I just like these people and I like working with them or no. Online business owners making a certain amount of money, they're married, they have certain goals and ambitions. Like I know how to get them from point A to point B. I have a specific expertise to help them and I enjoy working with them.

[Justin]

Yeah, I mean I, I, I enjoy working with them. Obviously. I think I know more than the average advisor on some of the intricacies of, of being like a high earning solopreneur small business owner, such as, you know, self employment retirement plans and just talking kind of the business lingo and, and helping them maximize and optimize profit and then, you know, turning that into income for the family and then, you know, the rest of it really becomes a normal financial planning conversation at that point. Right. You're the, the same conversations you're having with an online business owner is the same you're having with a W2 employee. Once you kind of get over to the personal side with, you know, 529s, kids, et cetera, a lot of the business side, I, I do feel like I have an above average, but I don't have, I'm not an EA or a CPA or anything. So I don't have this like high end, you know, tax planning designation. But I definitely understand the intricacies of, of how that kind of transfers over.

[Taylor]

Okay. Because one of the reasons that we like talking so much about pain points of your ideal client is because once you really uncover those pain points, you might start to learn that those pain points apply not just to online business coaches, but also, you know, fitness coaches, personal trainers. And all of a sudden you find, well, I don't have to just niche down on the fitness space because these pain points that I'm really good at solving and enjoy solving apply to maybe, you know, five different sets of people. You know, I work specialize in working with high net worth retirees, $2 million or more. Well, it could be a dentist, it could be an orthodontist, it be somebody working at Qualcomm. It doesn't have to be company specific or industry specific. There's three or four pain points that we're really good at helping people solve. And we do have some, you know, certain criteria that need to be met in order for us to do our best work. But we're not pigeonholed into a specific company or industry necessarily. Not that you can't. Right. We have, you know, friends out there. My good buddy Adam Schmala, who specializes in working with optometrists, but not just optometrists, private practice optometrists. They own their own practice. They want to sell their practice and use the proceeds to fund retirement. Like that's hyper specific to the optometry world. I don't have that expertise. Like I'm not the right person to hire. So there is a case to be made for going all in on one specific profession. But I see a lot of advisors start to get stuck and I think that's maybe where you're starting to get stuck with the podcast and you're interviewing this, this fitness person. But this conversation with this fitness person isn't going to apply to my other online entrepreneurs. So if we go back to just the pain points of our ideal client, it might be helpful for us to hear from you. I mean, you already kind of rattled a few of them off, helping them kind of maximize the profits in their business. But what are some of the other pain points that you like helping people solve for?

[Justin]

Yeah, reduce taxes. I work with the younger generation, so honestly it's usually starting investing. So a lot of them may have a good foundation in if they're really good at what they do. And they're bringing in a lot of money. A lot of them have a lot of cash just sitting there because they just, they don't know how to get started investing. So we haven't actually mentioned the generation that I help, but it does tend to be millennials, millennial online business owners. Right. So we're not talking like, pre retirees or them. Like, I'm talking about people who maybe haven't started investing. They have a lot of cash in the bank, and they just, they need help getting started as well.

[Taylor]

What if, what if I'm 55 years old, I'm married, and I have a really cool online business, it's generating half a million dollars and, like, you and I would have a killer conversation and you could actually really help me.

[Justin]

I'm probably not the one to help you. I would refer you out to another advisor.

[Taylor]

And why is that?

[Justin]

I just, I honestly, I don't really do the retirement planning conversation at this.

[Taylor]

Point, but I don't need, I don't want retirement planning. Like, I, I'm 55 years old. Like, I'm really passionate about working. I've got this, like, really killer online business that I just started, I'm having success with, and I need some financial planning help.

[Justin]

I mean, I guess it would, the context would, would depend there, but if I had someone coming in with that at 55, I'm guessing most likely they're pre retiree, thinking about retiring the next five, 10 years. And so you're doing that. Pre retiree? My background, I worked at a retirement planning firm, pre retiree. And the reason I launched my own business was I wanted to work with my generation. If I want to work with that individual, well, I'd probably be in a much more secure position right now because I'd still be at that firm and probably doing pretty well. I have close relationship with the founder of that firm, and we're still very close. But ultimately that was why I launched my own firm, is I wanted with the younger generation.

[Taylor]

Cool. Then hang on. I mean, I'm really glad I, I, I pushed back on you and you pushed back again, which I love. So you're getting really, really clear here saying, like, yeah, but like, I don't want to work with an older demographic, even if it meets some other criteria. So I think you have to really take note of that, that that's a really important part of your niche here, that you want to focus more on these younger professionals. Now you can better identify what, you know, what is a young professional that somebody in their 30s and 40s, like, where does that threshold begin and end? But I love that, I love that you're, you're really clear about not wanting to work with a certain demographic there. So if we think about your messaging here and we, you know, go to your website, I know you've acknowledged that you're having a tough time with your messaging, but I land on your website here and it says financial advice and coaching for your business and your life. So it obviously doesn't really tell me much about who you help and how you help them and the pain points that you help solve for. So based on what you shared with us so far, you know, what if your, your tagline, your messaging said something like, you know, if you're in your 30s again, you're going to have to clarify this. If you're in your 30s or 40s and you own an online business generating $250,000 or more per year, we can help you lower taxes, maximize your profits and save more money. Lower taxes, maximize profits and get more of your time back. But now we're starting to get really clear about not pigeonholing ourselves into the fitness world or you have to be like a specific online entrepreneur. But like, if you're in your 30s or 40s, you have an online business that's generating a certain amount of money. There's three key things that we can help solve for and now starts to apply to, you know, some different individuals in some different industries and professions, but still meet that certain criteria. Like, how does that feel to you?

[Justin]

It feels good. Cause I, I think I once went that route and then just didn't give it enough time. Like I, I'm, I feel like I'm self aware enough to know that I've just been flip flopping too much over the last 12 to 18 months and I've actually expanded it to very similar to what you're saying. And those were kind of the three highlights and I actually had a section pretty close to the top, kind of like that if you're in your 30s and 40s and owning on like very similar, not as well articulated, but very similar to what you said. And so I think that makes sense. And then kind of circling back to earlier, what I then ran into was then like the, oh shoot, the messaging feels good. But now how the heck do I market this? Because now I gotta blow up the rest of my marketing, you know, activities at this point. You know, the podcast is directly talking to online health and fitness coach. I mean it's called Dollars and Dumbbells.

[Taylor]

If the messaging is right and the service model that's supporting your practice and your messaging is right, you know, it's priced properly. You have a great service model in place. So, you know, like, if you attract the right people, you know, you're. You're off to the races. If those things are right, the marketing becomes really, really easy. So I'm not concerned about the marketing. Look, I had way back when in the. In the beginning of my firm, I had a podcast called Stay Wealthy San Diego, and I was interviewing local business owners and entrepreneurs and CEOs, people. I had no service model to support, and I was just doing it for fun, trying to find some traction with something and. And I had to, you know, make a major pivot. That podcast was not supporting my growth goals. And, you know, I really liked what I had built. I thought it was creative and fun and I was enjoying it, but, like, it wasn't supporting my growth goal. So I had to make a big decision to, you know, cut that podcast and pivot to something that was more appropriate for what I was trying to achieve. So you might have to make some decisions where I'm going to can this podcast and either start a new one or find a different marketing strategy. But if your messaging is nailed down, the marketing strategy and path should become pretty easy and clear. Now, it might not happen overnight. It might take a year or two. You might need to give it time. But I'm not as concerned about the marketing once we nail down the messaging.

[Justin]

Yeah, that makes sense. I think you're probably right. And I just have to put some big boy pants on and probably ax some things that I've been doing that haven't been working because I think it's.

[Taylor]

A really interesting niche. You know, I don't know much about, you know, online business owners and how many there are and, you know, what their pain points are. But, I mean, you already said one thing that, you know, you know, helping them maximize their profits. You had said, like, I might be targeting people that have a certain profit. And I, I don't know if you want to or not, because part of your value add might be if you have an online business that's generating $500,000 per year, I can actually help you improve your profits. Right. If your profit margin is this, I can actually help get your profit margin to this. So you may not want to focus on profits. It might be some other things because that might be part of your expertise and value add. So I think there's a, a lot there. It does broaden your niche a little bit because we're not pigeonholing ourselves into fitness professionals, but we are getting more clear on age and income or business revenue and then what those, those pain points are.

[Justin]

Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. And the profit does tend to be an internal conversation, like kind of something I'm looking for internally. But business owners don't usually communicate in terms of like profit. Like they're like they're thinking revenue first. So if they go onto the website and they see X amount of profit.

[Kendra]

So that's, that's a key point right there. So their words are revenue. So you might change the word to revenue. And what's really interesting, let's just talk about this, you know, this niche of online business owners in their 30s and 40s who are making at least 250k per year. You help them lower taxes, maximize revenue and get more of the time back. I fit that. And what's interesting are these the exact three pain points I hired my financial planner for. Now had I looked at your website and the heading said that versus my financial planner who's a little bit more general, I probably would have hired you because it was more clear. So the thing that's really interesting to me here is one getting clear in the niche, that's a challenge. But what you actually already had this pain point. So one quick question I have to follow up before we move on to like maybe some of the marketing is like what has kept you from actually really focusing on an itch like what are those fears or those internal things? Because you actually did identify this without or how help Taylor really packaged it well. But what are those kind of issues that you're bumping up against when you're by yourself?

[Justin]

I think I just needed it to work quicker, which obviously is. Doesn't work that way. Right. But I think I just needed some more short term wins just for where I was at being a couple years into the firm, not really growing as quickly as I would. I would have liked it. I had a kid about 18 months ago so you know, life things just started coming up where I was like, ah, I kind of need this to work a little bit quicker than it is and just kind of made some quick short term decisions with the messaging and the niche which ultimately then you know, become more hindering than they did. Helpful. You know, to be completely honest.

[Taylor]

Yeah, it's so counterintuitive. We feel like if we start to niche down it's going to take longer. But it's the complete opposite you know, you might get some short term wins by casting this really wide net and those short term wins feel good, but long term they are not benefiting you, they're absolutely hindering you. Over a long period of time. You might build up a decent practice, but it's gonna end up being this kind of chaotic practice. I mean, your website here, you've got a different plan for, you know, the personal side, a different plan for business side. I work with busy professionals, I work with business owners. Like if you start to attract all these different people, it's gonna get pretty chaotic, you know, five years from now. So it does feel counterintuitive. But I'm confident that if you really nailed down your messaging and nailed down those pain points and nailed down one single service model for those people, you would grow a heck of a lot faster and grow faster with the right people and have a more sustainable long term business.

[Justin]

Yeah, I think you're right. I don't, I don't have like any pushback on that. And by the way, the website's an absolute mess. But I left it that way because I wanted you to like, see where I was at, right? Like there's so many things and actually kind of pareded down as I flip flopped. Like things started being all mishmashed on there and I was like, all right, let me just like get this down to bare bones and that's where it's at right now. But I wanted to leave it that way before the call because, you know, I didn't want you to log in and see this like, you know, completely different picture of the reality of like, where things, things are at. And because the website's a reflection of my scrambled mind at this moment, I think it's fine.

[Taylor]

And it, it, it's actually a beautifully designed website, all like. And I don't want you to take away from this that I need to go revamp my entire website. This is just purely messaging here, right? That heading at the very top, financial advice and coaching for your business and your life. Like that just needs to go. We just need to rework that sentence. And I, I gave you an example of what that sentence could look like followed by three key pain points that you help solve for. Like, make it your own. Don't just copy and paste what I said because there needs to be some more thought that goes into that. But like, that's just a. I'm going to replace the current words here with these new words right down below. We work, we do our best work with 30s and 40s business owners and busy professionals. Well, we're probably going to choose one here, right? You know, it's going to be online entrepreneurs, online business owners, online coaches, however you want to frame it. But it's not we work best with these people and these people, it's we do our best work for these people right here, these exact people. Like if that's you, here's how you get started. So it really is just starting to eliminate some of these things and just get more clear and refine some of the messaging.

[Kendra]

One thing there too is if we are targeting business owners who make 250k per year, even something as simple as are we targeting business owners or coaches? You know, would a coach think of themselves as a business owner? Because like, I know as my business grew, as I got to, you know, certain levels of income, it changes a little bit in how you describe yourself. So really, you know, I think that that floor of 250k per year and it could be anything. Just what is that point where it makes sense for someone to hire you that they're willing to invest because you're going to bring enough return? But I think even the element of coaching, you know, if you like working with online business owners, I would even just simplify it to that. Because an online business owner, a coach can be an online business owner. It can go back and forth, but I think getting really clear on that. Does online business owner feel like that works for you? Are you still struggling between coach and online business owner really quick?

[Taylor]

I think a really simple solution here because Kendra, you're bringing up a really phenomenal point here is like, what word do I use? And Justin could certainly go to those, you know, five or ten of his favorite clients that fit this mold and kind of ask them some questions and hear how they explain what they do. But you could keep it really broad and say, you know, online entrepreneurs or online business owners, right. We do our best work with online business owners in their 30s and 40s with top line revenue of X dollars or more. And then right below that, you could just have three case studies. Here's an online fitness coach generating, you know, this amount of money. Here's a, you know, an online entrepreneur that builds and sells courses. Again, I don't know, like exactly your type of person, but you have three or four different case studies highlighting those kind of different online business owners that you specialize in working with. And now we're not trying to find the right words for it. We're just, we're just documenting and, and bringing to Life, some of these avatars that we enjoy working with.

[Justin]

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Um, I actually, I've. I've used online business owners before. Like, that was. That was kind of the. When I broadened it, that's what I went with. So I'm comfortable with that. And I really like that example, the case studies of, like. I'm not saying I work with online health and fitness coaches, but it's very implied right here. Right. Like, and I think that would work because obviously I still have good clients who fit into that. And then you actually use, like, a course creat. One of my best clients actually has made all of her money off of a pelvic floor therapy course, which is, like, hilarious, but she has rushed it in that niche. And so I think that's a really good example of how to use case studies to kind of show the different types of, like, online business owners, because that is a more broad term.

[Taylor]

Yeah. You know what's crazy about that is, you know, I would call myself an online entrepreneur. I build marketing courses for financial advisors. But guess what? That example of that pelvic floor course, like, that's fascinating to me. I'm like, if he works with that type of person, is interested in working with that type of person, it sounds like he would be interested in working with me because, like, I'm interested in other online business owners that have really unique niches that are having success. I'm not trying to go compete with that person, but I can learn a lot from that person, and I'm fascinated and interested. So just because I sell courses to financial advisors doesn't mean that I would feel alienated.

[Justin]

Yeah, no, that makes sense.

[Kendra]

So I feel like we had some really good conversation here around the first part of your question, which is how to really dial in the niche. It feels like we've gotten more clarity there as far as we start to kind of lean into messaging. I feel like there's a couple things we could touch on there just to give you some examples of, like, how do we find effective messaging? And then that flows downstream to your marketing. So I think that's a good place to go next. Justin, unless you have any further questions around, like, the niche kind of clarity that we talked about there.

[Justin]

I guess the last thing about the niche is would you include any type of, like, psychographics at all? Or just keep it, like, you know, like I talked about, like, my best clients tend to either have a family or, like, thinking about starting a family, but we didn't really talk about that in terms of like the online business owner niche. And then obviously there's the overlying, like clearly fitness, you know, is something I'm passionate about. Would you just ditch those completely or like, any thoughts on that? And if you don't have any thoughts, we can just move straight to the messaging.

[Taylor]

I think there's a place for it. You just need to determine, you know, where you might want to include some of that messaging. It might be after they schedule the first intro call, you start to share more about some of these psychographics. It might be the way you frame the user journey and your messaging on your website. So I gave you an example of, you know, the hero space of your website. The very top, that very first message that somebody sees. Let's. We don't need to get, we don't need to get every single word perfect here. We don't need to capture our entire niche with this one single sentence. We just want to put enough so that within five to seven seconds I know if I'm potentially in the right place or not. So I mentioned, you know, 30s and 40s, top line revenue, you know, online business owner with top line revenue of X dollars or more that needs help with these three things. Like that can be, you know, you can cut those words down and that can be displayed at the very top. Now directly below that, you might have a few common questions that your ideal client asks. Danny Michael does a really good job of [e-mail] Financial and retirement planning for soon to be and recent retirees. Replace your paycheck, minimize your taxes, invest smarter. And then, you know, you have these questions, how much money can I spend without running out? How do I create tax efficient income? So you can use these kind of questions to drill even deeper around your niche. So when I'm on Danny's website, I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm assumed to be a retiree. I want some help minimizing my taxes. Oh. And I'm asking myself these exact questions like it's that nice flow in that user journey for me to really determine if I want to go ahead and schedule that call with Danny. Now you don't need all that, but you might just think about the user journey and how they're going to consume this information on your site and the flow of that messaging and kind of determine where that information fits.

[Justin]

Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like it can also just kind of be a part of my personal brand, but doesn't necessarily need to be part of the Niche, Totally.

[Taylor]

Yep. Okay, Justin, so you know, now we've talked a lot about the niche and the messaging and you know, how we might want to communicate that through our website. You know, assume you make a lot of these improvements and you start to really narrow things down and create a really good user journey and path for people that do end up in your website. Let's start to talk about how this might impact and shift and change how you approach your marketing. So you already acknowledge, hey, I've got this, this podcast, this interview based podcast that is more or less specifically for people in the fitness world. But if we're going to broaden out from the fitness world, you know what that might this mean for your different marketing strategies? I think maybe my first question here is what, what is your favorite marketing activity? Right. Needs to feel good. It needs to be authentic to you. So do you love interview based podcasts? Is that something that you want continue with or is that something that you're second guessing through all this kind of niche conversation and niche improvements?

[Justin]

I would say the thing that I'm able to be most consistent with, so I'm kind of pivoting what you actually asked there is the interview base. I, I don't enjoy doing solo episodes like they, I just, I will push them off to the last minute and then they're just rushed. And the interview based for me is the most fun. I love having those conversations with other business owners. And so for me that's what I can be most consistent with. And then I take the clips from that, I put them on social media and then I sprinkle in some like scripted short form videos in between. Instagram has been my main platform. I know that's not really usual for a lot of advisors, but with online health and fitness, coaches haven't been my niche. They live over on Instagram, so that's really where I've lived and for the most part for the last three and a half years. So video based clips from the podcast and then just some scripted short form in between has kind of been my bread and butter.

[Taylor]

Okay, so let's narrow that down and call it a video podcast. Interviewing successful online business owners. Is that, is that fair to sum that up?

[Justin]

Yeah, that. Yeah.

[Taylor]

Okay, just to be clear, like you are recording video with these interview based podcasts. Is that accurate?

[Justin]

Yes, I've been historically pretty bad about putting the full video up on, on say, YouTube, but I, I've consistently been clipping them up and putting them on on Instagram.

[Taylor]

But in a perfect world, you've got everything dialed in. You've got a great team behind you. Would you want to go all in on video podcasts for this? For this niche?

[Justin]

Yes.

[Taylor]

A hundred percent full length video podcasts.

[Justin]

Okay.

[Taylor]

Because I do think it's an important distinction. You know, I've had a successful podcast for the last six years and I've done zero video. There are some people that have done a great job. One of our good friends, Peter Lazaroff, who has an interview based podcast. But it's a video podcast and those videos, you know, go onto YouTube and then they get clipped up. There's a lot of different marketing that he can do there. So you don't have to have a video podcast, but if you want to have a video podcast, I think it's an important distinction. What would it look like then, if we commit to this video podcast, what would the podcast look like now that we have maybe a better understanding of who we're targeting? That it's not just fitness coaches or fitness professionals, that it might be more of just online entrepreneurs, online business owners, and those fitness folks might be a part of that. But how does that start to change how you approach this podcast?

[Justin]

Yeah, so that's where I've struggled a little bit in the past. Some thoughts are kind of like the, you know, bring someone on, have them share their journey of building a successful online business. Then the other path is kind of like have someone come on that teaches something to help online business owners grow their business. So maybe hitting those topics that I'm not qualified, like sales and marketing topics or, or very specific strategies to grow a business that I'm, you know, it's just outside my realm as an advisor. More on like the business coaching side. So bringing them on, that's where I've kind of struggled. Because once you do that and it's a little more broad, then it's just like, okay, who's listening? Right. How do I get targeted enough with that, that guest interview to continue to attract people when it's more broad, I guess.

[Taylor]

Yeah. You know, one thing we have to think about here is if we want to use this, this podcast, this video podcast to drive new clients to our firm, we, we want to be pictured and viewed as an expert here, right? Yeah. If we're bringing on other experts to solve these people's problems and you're just facilitating the conversation, you can certainly have success with that. But it might not be people reaching out to want to hire you as their financial planner because they don't really understand what your expertise is you're just kind of facilitating a really great conversation. You know, it's a little bit different with somebody like Jay Clouse, who's in the creator world and has his podcast creator science, where he does interview other successful creators, but he himself is also a creator. So if you go learn more about Jay, like, it very much resonates with you. But there's a difference here where these are online business owners, online course creators, and you're a financial planner. So, you know, we want to showcase your expertise, likely in some shape or form. Does that resonate with you?

[Justin]

Yeah, it does. And I've actually, I got that advice from a podcasting coach a while back. And so in 2024, I pivoted the podcast to be less interview based. And I did a lot of these solo episodes, which is how I learned, like, oh, I tend to, like, procrastinate these. And my listenership definitely, like, tanked quite a bit. And I think the success I had with the interview base sometimes was honestly just the guests themselves. The 15 minutes before the interview and the 15 minutes after, and I had a handful of guests who would eventually reach back out to work with me just from building that relationship with them. So it was like I wasn't even necessarily looking for the listenership at that point, but it was like just building the relationships with the individuals that I got to come on the show. And the listenership was almost like this added bonus. I noticed that went away, obviously, once I was doing the solo episodes, because now I was just relying solely on listenership and not building relationships. And so I felt like that kind of hurt me in 2024. So I totally get the, like, I totally get that perspective of needing to be the expert and kind of positioning yourself as the expert on there. I haven't really figured that aspect out.

[Taylor]

Sure.

[Justin]

Of getting people who actually want to listen to financial planning and stuff. In my generation.

[Taylor]

Yeah, I mean, I think you have to put yourself in their shoes. So again, we have to get clear here. Are we. Are we just entertain, right? Are we. Are we posting this podcast to entertain people? It could be that I want to lift them up and tell their story and help get them more visibility, and maybe in turn, they'll want to work with me and hire me. I don't know if that's a sustainable, predictable marketing approach or not. Or do I want to be the expert and I want these successful online entrepreneurs to want to listen to my show because I'm sharing all this great information and a small percentage of them are going to reach out and hire me. So if we put ourselves in their shoes and what they might want to learn, what they might want to hear, and it might be they do want to hear from other successful entrepreneurs or maybe even struggling online entrepreneurs, and you're maybe helping them in a format like this kind of workshop. Some of the challenges, you know, some of the financial planning, personal finance challenges that they're having as an online entrepreneur, and they're like, oh, gosh, like, Justin's really good at helping them solve their challenges. I wonder if he can help me solve my challenge. So, I mean, there's so many different paths we can go here, but it might help to start by putting yourself in their shoes or even talking to some of them. Like, what would be, you know, what would be interesting to you to. To learn about or. Or, you know, hear me talk about.

[Justin]

Yeah. I've always been intrigued by the coaching style episodes. Kind of like these. I think I've kind of teased it a little bit in the past. It's a little bit harder to get people to come on and like, kind of air that out. I feel like. So I've had a. I've had trouble getting people to come on, but I feel like those would be really helpful. And I do feel like people like to listen to those type of shows. Right. I mean, think of the big ones like Ramsey and then there's a, like, was guys names like Caleb Hammer or something. They're a little bit more dramatic and entertainment style, but they tend to be that like, coaching style of going through someone's specific situation and kind of talking through with them, like, what to do next, if that makes sense. Yep.

[Taylor]

Yep.

[Kendra]

When I think a little bit about kind of content programming for a podcast that's going to attract your ideal client, Being someone in the 30s and 40s with an online business earning over 250k a year, this kind of goes back to a core component of messaging. But the first question I ask is, you know, what problems do you solve for your best clients? To me, you know, demographics data can be very helpful, like their age or their location. But I think what I find resonates most is what are those big problems they're asking you? So when I look at programming like a content calendar, even, sometimes Taylor and I have a conversation. I'm like, oh, I want to have a conversation about this. But then I realized it's not actually a problem. Our audience asks. So I would start looking at. You could probably go back through your call notes with clients who would fit this Mold of the kind of millennial business owner earning at a certain point, what are the key questions they ask you? What are the questions they should have been asking? You start to make a list of those, and then also I'd probably have a third list, which is, what are problems that are coming up that I even don't know how to solve? Because that's really good material for a guest interview. You can bring people on the show also just to add supporting information that would apply to those online business owners. So when I look at program and content calendar, it's what problems do the people I love to serve have and what language do they use to describe it? And then also, what problems do they have that I'm not even qualified to maybe answer? But I could bring someone on? So I don't think, who should I bring on as a guest? I actually think, what's a problem my audience has? And who do I know that could actually speak about that with expertise, peace, and authority?

[Justin]

That probably makes a lot more sense than what I've been doing. You know, when I talk about what I've been doing, to be clear, like, none of it's really worked. So I'm open to pretty much anything.

[Kendra]

Because really, we want your marketing to attract, you know, these millennial business owners who have reached a certain point of success and they're like, yeah, taxes are a problem. I'd like to maximize our revenue, and I'd like to get more time back. You know, so, for example, something like getting more time back, what are five or six or seven ways that. That you help people use the money they've earned in their business to get their time back? Because that's a huge pain point for online business owners. So I know that's more of a solo episode, but I also wonder if you were to cut down some of these other, you know, kind of marketing activities and just really hone in on that podcast and really think about what you're putting out there, bringing the guest on and them having a great conversation and then them saying, hey, like, I'd love to speak with you. That's just icing on the cake, because if we're going to use this, this podcast to bring in scalable marketing leads, we need the podcast to do some heavy lifting.

[Justin]

Yeah, I think the reality is I just need to, like, suck it up and get better at solo episodes. I think that would be better for the marketing and the firm and everything in general.

[Taylor]

Yeah, possibly. And I just want to clarify. I mean, anything will work here. Anything you choose is going to work if and only if we're really clear about who our ideal client is and the pain points that we help help them solve right from there. Again, that's where everything becomes easy. But if we're online entrepreneurs, $250,000 or more, 30s and 40s, these three pain points, and then we have a. I forget the name of the podcast from the barbells. We have this fitness podcast over here. Like, yeah, there's, there's. It's no surprise that we're not having much success. There's a big disconnect. And even right now, with the kind of wide net that you're casting with the website, there's a disconnect. I've got, you know, fitness folks that land on my website, and there's nothing about fitness. So it's not that, you know, the podcast can't work or Instagram can't work, or YouTube can't work. It's just if we got it really clear on our messaging first, and then we got to go communicate that messaging through some shape or form, whether it's writing or video or podcasting. 1. One thought I'll throw out there just from like, a tactical point of view here, because I heard you say, you know, I just. You are one. You said that I think maybe I need to get better at solo type episodes so I can showcase my expertise. And then you said that you just don't really have time for it, and you're always kind of scrambling to the last minute. One potential idea here, because I think there's a lot of work to be done just on the business stuff and getting really clear with your messaging and nailing that stuff down is that we could set the podcast to the side. The weekly podcast. What's great about the video world, about YouTube is you don't have to. You don't have to publish every day or every week like you do with a podcast, because one amazing video per month might just get you where you need to be, right? These videos can go viral. The number of views matters more than the number of subscribers. So if we just put all of our time and resources into creating one amazing solo YouTube video per month, that might be enough, at least in the beginning, to get you where you need to be with a podcast. We need that weekly momentum. We have to build up that subscriber base because discovery in the podcast world is really challenging. Discovery is very, very different on YouTube, where I'm fed different, you know, videos from the algorithm. I might just stumble across your amazing video, and that Video might go viral and that might be all that you need. There's really only one or two or three videos that really contribute to most people's success. It's not that, you know, weekly cadence that you need with a podcast.

[Justin]

Yeah, no, I would totally agree. Actually, it leads me to one more question. I know we're going to run out of time here, so I'm hoping I can sneak it in. Traditionally or historically? Not traditionally, historically. With the podcast, it's been really hard to get people to convert to say like a lead gen and onto the email list. I don't know if we could like hit on that real quick of any like tips on how to make a good lead gen. Because I've like, I've put out different things. I have one on like business cash flow right now. I've just always had a hard time really getting conversion there.

[Taylor]

Well, we need to have the right audience first. So again, goes back to if we have the right messaging on our website and we have the right marketing activity and we're building the right audience, then again I think it becomes pretty easy. So my retirement podcast, High Net Worth Retirees, I've got the audience that I want. Now I just need to go to the audience with a compelling call to action. And it's really not that challenging. You know, hey, all the tax contribution limits are changing. Next year I put together a beautiful one page tax guide. Everything all in one place. If you want this tax guide for retirees over age 50 with a million dollars or more, you know, go here to download that thing. It becomes really easy at that point. But again, if we're not really clear on who our audience is, who our target market is, what those pain points are, then it can be challenging to convert them. But if we know what those pain points are and we have something that's resourceful and helpful for them or some sort of service model that's appealing to them, then you'll start to see those conversions happen. But you know, when there's a disconnect in our communication, our marketing and our messaging and who we help and what they see when they land on our website, then yeah, we're going to have trouble with those conversions.

[Justin]

Yeah, no, I see that.

[Kendra]

And Justin, I know that you have done some short form video on LinkedIn and you're really talented at video. So you know, depending on kind of where you take the niche, if you like video, like you could do LinkedIn, you know, video as well. Like that's an option. I've, I've seen You really excel there as well. But as Taylor said, it's less about the marketing channel. We can plug, you know, a podcast in there and we can build a funnel around that. We could, we could plug you into LinkedIn with short form video or YouTube with short term video. The bigger decisions that you have to make, and I think we've had a good conversation about here, is just how do you get clear on that niche? Update the front page of your website with those key kind of details. The design looks great, just update some copy and then you can go along the path of choosing the best channel that feels sustainable for you and interesting that you're willing to build and take that time to grow over time to bring in, you know, marketing leads.

[Justin]

Yeah, no, I like that. I think LinkedIn I haven't done a whole lot just because when I'm in the mindset of targeting online health and fitness coaches that they just don't live there. Right. So one thing I actually was aware of is that like they live on Instagram and not LinkedIn. So I had like played with LinkedIn a little bit, but then I was, as I was trying to narrow in on this, I was like, if I'm, if I'm targeting online health and fitness coaches, like it doesn't make sense to waste time here. But if I'm going more the online business owner route there is that, that is a very good platform for that and obviously easy to cross post those short form videos.

[Kendra]

We're not talking about cross posting, we're talking about dedicating to choosing a channel because what it takes to be successful on Instagram video is different than LinkedIn. So I think regardless of, you know, choosing the niche as the first piece and then we want to look at what format do you really enjoy? And we use that to inform the platform. As long as, you know, if you were going out of something like the health and fitness niche, you know, that is very big on Instagram, so that could influence for sure. But you don't need to do multiple platforms, you don't need to cross post. We want to choose one marketing channel and then really build a marketing funnel around that. And I think the confusion and kind of opportunity to get more clear on the niche front, I think once you do that, it's going to make everything downstream of that get easier, but it is still going to take time. So I think you've actually really found some clarity around the niche before. It just needed a little more time to marinate too.

[Justin]

Yeah, I would agree.

[Kendra]

Awesome. Well, today we've discussed a lot of things from how to get clearer on your niche, how to really get clear on your messaging, and how does that flow down to choosing a marketing channel? Based off our conversation here today, Justin, what might you do differently, differently going forward or kind of what was your biggest takeaways from today?

[Justin]

I would say definitely starting with the messaging. I think I've tried to put some things first that really I can't focus on until I really hone in on the messaging and who it is I serve and then everything else I can figure out and put into place. But by focusing on those things first, it's just not making sense. So I would say the big takeaway is just kind of honing in on who exactly it is I want to work with and how I can best serve them.

[Kendra]

Awesome. And you've you've worked on a few different platforms and you've, you've got some really good skills to leverage when you get to the marketing piece. But dialing those couple of things in higher up the process I think is going to really help downstream. So thank you so much for joining us today. For everyone listening, we'll see you next week. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. To get the resources shared or sign up to join us as a guest on Warner Bros. Our advice line Episodes, check out the links in the show notes. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.