Bless me Father, I have sinned. It’s been 27 days since my last confession. I have one thing to confess…StevenRoddy.com started because I wanted to become a world famous motivational speaker. There I got that off my chest.
In an effort to get my name out to the world I wanted to create a site that got lots of traffic. My thought process was this (see if you can relate): “If I talk about personal development and lots of people come to my site than people will want to hire me as a personal development speaker.” So I wrote about every topic under the sun with a personal development twist to get free traffic from Google. But the site, though it started to get traffic was…a disaster.
Get the Right Exposure
Now a website that receives a great amount of traffic like StevenRoddy.com might sound good on the surface especially if you are trying to get brand exposure, however, more important than getting traffic is to build an audience of people inside your demographic. How do you know your demographic? By knowing your niche.
My ego told me, “Why wouldn’t businesses want to hire you?” Much like yours might be saying, “Why wouldn’t a manager want to represent me?” “Why wouldn’t a director want to hire me?” Then you go through your list of reasons why: I am attractive, I sign amazing, I am a great actor, I have a unique story, I work hard, and I have “the look”. Broad, broad, broad…there are people by the 1,000’s with those same qualities. You need a niche.
StevenRoddy.com was a disaster because companies would not hire me just because I can talk about personal development…most everyone can. Companies hire niche specific speakers…mangers represent niche specific artists…In this article I am going to show you how to find your niche.
Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I will give you a man who will make history. Give me a man without a goal and I will give you a stock clerk ~ J.C. Penny
Your brand is birthed in your niche.
Building a brand is more important than gaining traffic because the end result of a brand is a business…that will bring to you residual traffic of faithful followers who believe in you and who will purchase your products. Translation: when you have a brand you have the power of influence and with influence comes money.
Now when I speak with singers, actors and models on how to market themselves to managers and agents I always talk about niche marketing. When they hear my pleadings about niche marketing I usually receive the response that “I don’t want to limit myself to only (insert niche)”. But, what creative types do not realize is that until you define yourself to a niche you will never be known for something therefore, people will not know what to hire you for.
Finding Your Niche Marketing Advantage
Can you tell me your niche in one sentence? Your niche is who you naturally are. If you are punk…that flavor is inside your niche. If you are prep…be prep. Your niche is you. If you are a drama queen do not try to be the star comedian. Operate out of what is natural. I am creative. I think of ideas ALL THE TIME. So being involved in the world of marketing is so natural for me. My niche? I teach people how to be famous. How do I do that? Through my ideas. What’s your niche, again? 
Let’s say that Anthony is an actor and a naturally funny guy…or should I say hilarious. However, as an actor when you ask Anthony what type of gigs he is auditioning for his response is anything that will get me in the door. His response seems like a logical one because currently he is waiting tables, trying to pay his bills and he desperately wants to get into the acting industry. So the result is he tries to take any gig that is offered to him because all he wants to do is act.
The Unfocused Actor
Unfortunately, due to the fact that Anthony takes on so many different roles he never gets the opportunity to master his skill at being funny. Therefore, I would bet money that though Anthony works hard, his strategy hardly works so he will be waiting tables for a longtime.
However, if he focused all his energies and branding on being the funny guy he could do things like: make his marketing material funny, create a funny yet professional website with funny graphics, create a laugh out loud monthly newsletter, and create a Youtube channel of some hilarious personality who does random things that are funny. You see if he focused in on his niche as “the funny guy” then when agents stumbled upon a funny role Anthony would be naturally the first person to go to because…he is the funny guy.
When you think of funny do you think of Danny Glover? Of course not…and there is a reason…he is not funny therefore he never marketed himself as funny therefore he is not even considered for a funny role. Niche marketing is vital.
I’m a dork. You don’t have to be
If I could put myself on the chopping block one more time, StevenRoddy.com has been up for about 2 years gets about 20,000 monthly views and up until recently hasn’t been niche specific. On the other hand, 1 year ago, I started another website, called ThePageantPlanet.com, that delivers online pageant coaching tips and receives 40,000 monthly views of faithful followers. When I focused on a niche in half the time I experience twice the results.
I am putting myself on blast because maybe your career has started off like StevenRoddy.com and you have been working hard to get ahead but have not been doing so…you can change by focusing in on a niche.
Find your niche, zero in and then do not deviate.
It has been said that you become an “expert” in a subject if you work for 3 hours per day for 3 years. Double the hours spent and in a year and a half you could be on the big screen.
So when you and your expert self becomes famous just don’t forget to mention this post. 
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