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Two areas that usually cause the most stress for any introverted entrepreneur are marketing and niching in your business. When it comes to marketing as an introvert, you try to do all of the things and be on every platform which can cause major burnout. Niching down or finding your niche is met with being told that you need to choose one and stick with it, but if you’re multi-passionate you don’t want to niche down too far. Once you harness the power of your introverted strengths, these two areas of your business can become fun again and help you attract your ideal clients.
Our guest on the podcast today is Business Coach, Stacey Hagen. As a certified business coach, she helps coaches and holistic entrepreneurs build businesses that reflect who they are, attract their dream clients, and make a positive impact in the world.
In this episode, Stacey and I dive into how her search for freedom coming from a corporate marketing & branding career, the struggles of niching in your business as an introvert, using your introverted superpowers or strengths to market your business, the two best visibility tips for introvertpreneurs, and much more.
On the Search For Freedom From a Corporate Marketing & Branding Career
Considering herself a natural achiever, Stacey graduated her college with two Bachelors’s degrees in the business and communications fields. She spent 15 years of her corporate career in the marketing and branding industry for Fortune 500 companies. She always had the dream of working for herself at some point, but didn’t know how to make it happen. As the years passed in her corporate career, she decided to find a way to make it her reality. While still working full-time, Stacey got her MBA and took a coaching certification training because she knew she wanted to combine her business experience with coaching to help others in their businesses. In 2016, Stacey launched her coaching and consulting business, which is what she is doing now by helping others bring their dream of building a business to life.
The Struggle of Niching in Your Business as an Introvert
Generally, a niche is being taught that by choosing a gender and age of your client avatar, like women 35 to 55 years of age, who are recently divorced or something similar is what you are to do to nail down your niche. Stacey says that’s not even the whole picture of a niche. The psychographics and wants and desires of people are being neglected, and she thinks that is so much more important than narrowing down to gender or age.
While it can be a good thing to choose one niche for your business, it’s not always the direction multi-passionate entrepreneurs, especially introverts, have to take. You are allowed to honor your desire of doing many things instead of restricting yourself. When Stacey started her business, she was told by many coaches that she had to pick one niche. She struggled her first full year of business to nail her own niche and she always saw other new entrepreneurs asking about their niche in Facebook groups. An idea came to her after seeing these kinds of posts and her own struggles with it that she created the five-day Unleash My Niche challenge to help multi-passionate entrepreneurs stop overcomplicating their niche and start doing what feels most abundant for them. If you’ve ever felt restricted by doing those client avatar exercises and saw no results, then Stacey’s free challenge could be a game-changer for you.
Using Your Introverted Strengths or Superpowers to Market Your Business
Many people struggle with marketing, especially introverts because you see people going on live videos all the time and thinking that you have to do that. Actually, you don’t have to do that. You can find more authentic ways to market and grow your business that aren’t stressful for you. The majority of clients that Stacey works with are introverts and they come to her thinking of marketing as a bad word in their business because they see others getting on Facebook and Instagram every day, going live, or getting on stories throughout the day. What she coaches people on and what she would tell anyone is that the best way to market is based on your strengths. The best thing to do is get really clear on what those strengths are, and how you can translate those to marketing activities. She has created a free quiz, What’s Your Show Up Superpower?, which is designed to help you market yourself based on the strengths you have.
Another thing to keep in mind is if you’re not doing something because it’s a fear that you need to overcome, or if it’s just not for you. If it’s fear, Stacey likes to help her clients get down to it and address the fear, so they can manage that fear and can make a conscious decision. If it’s not for you, you need to make sure it’s because it’s not the best use of your time or business goals. Regardless, there are activities that will work for you that show your personality. The long-term ability of you being able to do those activities matter because you want to be consistent to get results. Otherwise, doing activities that aren’t in your wheelhouse of strengths will lead to burnout.
Persistence and Staying Connected to Your Vision in Entrepreneurship
Each entrepreneur has their own version of success and there are two areas that contributed the most to Stacey’s success in her business. She says that one of the top-ranked qualities of an entrepreneur is persistence, so being able to stay the course no matter what happens during the ups and the downs. Along with that, it’s helped her to keep in mind the vision that she has for her business. If she has her vision in mind, it makes it easier to show up every day to do the work and to work through the hard times.
In terms of Instagram, she has realized that entrepreneurship is viewed through the lens of being amazing all of the time. It’s important she says to know that you will have highs and lows and to stay connected to your vision no matter what someone else’s highlight reels show online. Instagram especially can be a cause of a newer entrepreneur getting stuck in comparison and comparing themselves to someone else’s highlight reel or their journey when they are five years into it. Two other great things to keep in mind for social media and comparison are to work on your mindset and to curate your feed when someone’s topic drains or triggers you. It can be too much sometimes and it’s okay to unfollow someone.
The Two Best Visibility Tips for Introverted Entrepreneurs
Visibility goes hand in hand with marketing for Stacey because often the people she works with want to help people, but they don’t necessarily want to put themselves out there. Do you want to stay in your little cocoon and serve people that come your way? This was true for Stacey in the beginning, too, but you need people to come to you in the first place. It’s wonderful when you can build your business to a place of being referral-based, but usually at the beginning, it requires putting yourself out there. If you’re trying to scale your business, it will also require putting yourself out there.
The advice Stacey has for introverts on being visible is a combination of the mindset work and finding ways that work for you to be visible. Don’t force yourself to put yourself out there but uncover some of the thoughts or beliefs you have around putting yourself out there. Many times you may have some limiting beliefs that come from as far back as childhood when it comes to being seen. Start addressing those beliefs because they can be so transformative in your life and business. For the second visibility tip, you want to find your strengths in marketing and use those to incorporate marketing methods that bring you joy and make it fun for you again. All introverts are different, so finding what works for you whether it is going live, public speaking, writing, or being a guest on podcasts.
Stacey gave so much incredible insight on niching and tips on marketing your business as an introvert on this podcast episode today. She shared about her search for freedom coming from a corporate marketing & branding career, the struggles of niching in your business as an introvert, using your introverted superpowers or strengths to market your business, staying connected to your vision as an entrepreneur, and the two best visibility tips for introverts online. Don’t forget to take Stacey’s free quiz on finding your strengths to help you market your business. If you want to find clarity around your ideal clients, then sign up for her five-day Unleash My Niche challenge. She is a branding and marketing powerhouse, so be sure to follow her on Instagram for tips, as well.
What is your strength as an introvert based on Stacey’s quiz? Use your strengths to begin marketing your business in a more fun way!
a breakdown of this episode
[1:17] Stacey’s background and journey to becoming a certified business coach
[2:43] Stacey’s Unleash My Niche Challenge, and the struggles of multi-passionate introverted entrepreneurs to niche
[5:25] Using marketing methods based on your strengths or superpowers as an introvert and Stacey’s Find Your Marketing Superpower quiz
[10:50] The two things that contributed the most to Stacey’s business success and how to gain visibility online as an introverted entrepreneur by tapping into your strengths
[17:48] How long it took for Stacey to feel successful in her business and how everyone’s version of personal success looks different
[21:42] Where to connect with Stacey and how she typically works with her clients
If you enjoyed this episode, I invite you to take a screenshot and tag me on your Instagram stories @introvertcoach and tell me your biggest takeaway!
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