Episode Transcript:
Hey guys, this is the D S S design startup show. Today I would like to go through more of, um, on things like your niche or being a specialist rather than a generalist. I think many people get confused on. How to know your niche, right? Or niche or niche. I was confused as well when I first started, even now, I am also trying to find my bearings on, on my niche, right.
On something that I can specialize, where people will know that I am good in that certain area. And. You may have heard of many people talking about this, that you need to niche down more. Um, the volume niche, you know, the more you niche to painful it is, but the better is, uh, narrowing it down. Things like that, which I agree, uh, because I have been a generalist before and.
Niching down got me to be more focused. Right. So I’m going more into this today. Um, I think it’s, it’s difficult for, for you, if you are still starting out because you don’t know what to focus on, right. You haven’t really got your customer base, you just started. And how would you know, what kind of value can you provide to whom.
As a new B or a new business owner. Um, many people would probably tell you that it takes some time to understand this. Many people may say that, uh, you can try many things. And as the more you try, the more you gain the experience and it becomes clearer. I would say it is also possible that this could be one way to do it.
So one way is don’t think so much about a niche first. Um, what is the general service that you are giving people? If it’s, for me, if it’s, you know, I, I did graphic design. I can do graphic design for many people. So what I did last time when I first started was whenever somebody has a graphic design related at work, for example, logo, logo creation I do.
And this logo can be a logo for a. For our dish washing company, let’s say, I will do that. I’ll design, I’ll pass it on to them. And then that’s it. Maybe another company that is doing finances banking will come to me and say, Hey, could you do a brochure for me? I will do it because I have the skill that can provide such a service for anyone who needs to kind of beautify their collateral.
So I was a yes and I, um, I get to work. So now I have, uh, done a logo for a dishwashing company. I’ve done a brochure for a financing company. I, you know, if you look at it, I am everywhere. Right. I do things for industry industrial, um, um, or manufacturing industries. I also work on things for banking, so they are both very different areas.
If somebody comes to me to say, Hey, can you just do a presentation for a sports group? I say, okay, I’ll do it because I can kind of beautify their content. So now I’m also good with sports stuff. Then the problem comes when it comes to marketing myself. What should I say I can do, you know? So what I will do is if I, what I did for myself, when I at the start, when I did my, um, marketing, I would put down, I can do this guys.
I can do logo, brochure, presentation, website, book, cover. Uh, what else? Uh, seriously, anything named cards? I can do infographics t-shirts so you may have seen this before, where people, uh, market themselves to doing everything. And that’s what I did. And guess what? People don’t really get pay attention to what I’ve written, because there are too many things on the plate, right.
That does everything that, that I’ve, I’m giving them because I do anything, everything. So, uh, that is one. Problem. The second problem is I couldn’t really Mark it because I don’t know where to put my focus on if I want to do content. Let’s say if I want to write, maybe say how to the top 10, 10 things a to B to, to design your logo.
Well, um, yeah, I would write about that. And then after that, I would have to write about the top 10 things to do well in to design your bushel and then it becomes. Too many things that are of different areas, the logo should no logo creation is different from a brochure creation. And it’s also different from presentation creation.
These three things are basically different, different things already then. Yes, they require the same technical skill, but they are different things. So, um, what I’ve learned over the years is to really have to pick one. So some people may say that you have to do many things first in order to know what to pick.
And I understand why it’s, because I eventually came to a point of creating a, to, to, to serve people who need ongoing revisions and simple design is because I have already worked with like hundreds of clients over 10 years. So with that experience, I can ask my clients and I can also get them to take on my productized package.
Um, because they have really trusted me. So I know what package to create, and I know where to niche down. So that is one reason why some people give you the advice and it can work, but you may have to wait, right? It may take, it’s a long game. You may have to kind of work for one year, two years to kind of figure out, okay, I’m better at web design for sports.
And then I do web design for sports, things like that. That is one way to do it. The second way that I think is a fossil way, is to understand where your strengths are in terms of industries and verticals. In terms of, let’s say, for example, if you are really good in sports, if you are connected to a sports network or connected to a sports group, for example, you are in soccer, right?
Well, you can do t-shirts for your soccer team and other teams. There are so many teams in soccer, right? You can. Kind of on your website or portfolio, you can design, fix soccer, t-shirts for fit clubs, right. And just put them out there. And, and your blog posts me talk about things like articles on, um, uh, the, your blog, your, your t-shirt designs, anything about soccer.
Um, how do you, uh, kind of, um, Create the best soccer team, uh, based on, you know, mental toughness, uh, based on, uh, nutrition, or you can just go right into helping soccer teams and then you hone in on, uh, what can they do to, you know, put themselves out there better and recruit, recruit better players. So these are things that design can come into play and marketing a soccer team needs design as well for the collaterals.
So you can talk about marketing, uh, soccer, team marketing, um, to recruit players, things like that. So, so what I’m trying to say is, um, you gotta be self aware of what you’re good at first, what you like to do on a recurring basis on an ongoing basis. If creating things for a soccer game. Our soccer soccer team is something that you, you are sure you can face it every single day.
There’s a little bit of that passion in there. Um, yeah. And this is something you should try and never ever think that a niche has to stick on. You know, you can do soccer for one year and after that changed the tennis, right. It’s fine. But you need to have some time, like three to six months off ongoing work to see some results.
So this is my take on niche and we will move on to, um, probably further in with, with, uh, more episodes in future. So see you then. Thank you for so much. Thank you so much for listening. Bye.