Niching down is bad advice for personal brands. Here's a better alternative.

I washed up on X in January 2022 to build my personal brand.

I had 3 followers.

The first 4 months were rough.

I added 700 followers and $0 in profits despite ‘working all day.‘

Many factors hampered my progress, but at the root of them all was my inability to answer one question:

What is my niche?

8 months after, I got my answer.

Thanks to it, I attracted 50.8k+ followers and thousands of dollars in my bank account.

Today, I won’t help you find your niche.

I'll help you create something even better.

This is the first post in the Sorry Series.

Let’s dive in:

I intended to deliver this letter yesterday, but because of a power issue, you’re getting it today.

This means you’ll get two letters today.

The power issue is fixed, so this will not be a norm.

I hope you enjoy both reads.

In traditional marketing, here’s how entrepreneurs discover their niche:

Step 1: Create an Ideal Customer Profile

Step 2: Give it a name, age, gender, race, budget, location, desires, pain, etc

Step 3: Pick a market within the Big 3 Markets

Step 4: Niche down 3 levels to get specific and avoid competition

Step 5: Boom, they find a niche.

It's a fantastic approach.

In fact, it has built billion dollar companies.

However, it can never build a billion dollar personal brand.

As a person, you are multi-dimensional.

You have many interests, traits, beliefs, and experiences that make you a 1 of 1.

A company has one mission.

You have many aspirations.

Interpretation:

Niching down is fantastic advice for building companies and terrible advice for building brands.

Joe Rogan is the #1 podcaster in the world, but it isn’t podcasting that makes him unique. It’s bio-hacking, comedy, space, fighting, pop, culture, and more.

Mr Beast is the #1 YouTuber in the world, but it isn’t one style of videos that makes him unique. It’s philanthropy, gaming, challenges, reacts, stunts, quests, and more.

The Rock is the #1 fitness influencer in the world, but it isn’t only fitness that makes him stand out. It’s wrestling, movies, songs, teremana, and more.

Most entrepreneurs build boring brands because they follow the same unfulfilling script.

Create an avatar (who you’ve never met) to help them solve a problem (that you don’t care about solving) and do only that for the rest of your life.

They quit a 9-5 job they hate to create a 24-hour job that… they… also.. hate?

Let’s tie this up :

(1) Talk about whatever you want with your brand.

(2) Then, when you find a massive problem, create a niched company for it and talk only about it.

If you want to build a personal brand, what you need isn’t a niche.

You need a path to your purpose and profitability.

A business model that makes you money while allowing you to do what you want, with who you want, and how you want.

To create it (the WHAT), you need 2 things:

(1) Your obsessions (what you can do that you like to do)

(2) The market (what the market needs and wants to pay for)

Your obsessions are in two categories: your curiosities and competencies.

Here’s how to find it.

Step 1: Get a sheet of paper.

Step 2: Write your name in the middle of the paper and circle it.

Step 3: Around your name, list your topics you’re curious about and box them.

Step 4: Then, list out what you’re good at and place it in a diamond.

Here’s mine:

The WHO (aka your avatar) becomes yourself.

You, like anyone else, have struggles. (Problems)

You also know everything about yourself. (Market data)

And since humans aren’t special, unfortunately, there are millions of people like you or similar. (Large Target Market).

In summary, your entire business in a nutshell becomes you helping yourself.

Overtime, you’ll attract people who are just like you or similar — making it easier to serve them.

The HOW is your unique mechanism for helping your WHO with your WHAT.

You will probably not discover that in 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, or 1 year.

It will click eventually after you work with many people.

Gotta be unoriginal before you can be unique.

There you have it.

Later today, I'll show you how to make this guide actionable.

There, we’ll answer “what should I talk about?“

See you there.

PS: On Saturday, I’m going to share a FREE product that goes deeper on this very letter.

It’ll cover everything I know on discovering your purpose and using that to create your dream business.

I’ll share the product on X, but I’ll email you the course here on Sunday.

If you want to get it before I Sunday, turn on notifications for my X account.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did building it.