Ultra-Niche Positioning: How to Find Success By Going SUPER Narrow

Why Going Ultra-Niche Reduces Risk Instead of Increasing It

Louis: So a lot of people, especially, you know, when I say people is like folks listening to my show, like freelancers, consultants, agency owners, entrepreneurs, whatever. If there’s one thing that they challenge me on or they resist the most, is this feeling of, you know, the more you narrow your opportunities or your markets, the more it’s a risk. What do you say about that?

Heidi Weinberg: Meaning they say it’s risky to go too narrow. Yes, I firmly believe that more narrow the better. And I’ve learned a hard lesson recently about that. And it’s something that I work with my students very extensively on and we see direct correlative results with the more narrow they get, the better success they see.

Louis: So what do we mean by narrowing down? Right. Maybe you can give a quick example of, you know, in your field. What do we mean by like narrowing down? Going to ultra niche type level.

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah. So I have a student, for example, she is a freelancer fashion designer and she designs cashmere sweaters. That is ultra niche. I have a lot of people that come to me and I’m like, okay, what are you thinking about your services or whatever? Or they may be in my program and we’re on coaching call and they’re like, I’m going to do women’s ready to wear. I’m going to do menswear kids wear. Like that is the broadest market in the world. Right. Or they’re like, I’m going to do knits or wovens. And so for people who are listening that might not know a ton about that, like knit is essentially something that’s like a stretchy versus woven is like more like a button down shirt. Right, right. And those categories still are massively, massively, massively broad. So, you know, we have other students, one of our very successful students also. She does, I always have to think about her niche because it’s like all these little qualifiers. She does pattern making. That’s her one service for women’s small slow fashion brands. That is it. She turns away all other work and she’s booked out like three, four months in advance and she keeps raising her rates and it’s like nobody turns away. So we, I see this happening over and over and over versus the freelancers who are like, doing these big, broad categories, are just kind of taking any project that comes to them. And people get so scared of, like, well, I’m going to, I’m going to push projects away. Or, you know, what if, like, people just don’t think I can work with them? Because I haven’t said I can do all the things for all the people. And I’m like, that’s fine. You will push people away. But the people that really want to work with you are going to be so hyper excited to work with you, they’re not going to be able to find someone who is as niche as you. And as a result, they are willing to pay more premium, higher prices because of your specialty.

Louis: So you mentioned that, like, very broad category, like quite naturally, because you know the, you know your market and all of that. So can you give me back an example of what you said would be like a very, very too big of a market?

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah. Like, I have. I hear people all the time say women’s ready to wear. And I’m like, that’s basically all women’s clothes.

Louis: So what, that. Yeah. What does, what the fuck does it mean, women’s ready to wear?

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah. RTW is just like a term in the industry for, you know, it’s not bridal, it’s not couture, it’s not the stuff you see on the run. Right. It’s just sort of. It’s like ready to wear. Like it’s everyday clothes for everyday people that you find in pretty much every store out there.

Louis: Okay. Yeah. Okay. And so, yeah, how would you know, apart from instinctively, that it’s too big? Right. Let’s say we’re talking about a category that may be a fashion thing that you haven’t heard before. I don’t know. How do you tell this is too big?

The One Service vs One Category Niching Formula

Heidi Weinberg: I think you kind of need to think about, like. I mean, I always challenge people. I have a little bit of like a formula for niche. Right. And so it’s, it’s. There’s two different formulas you can use. One is like one service, multiple categories, or one category, multiple services. So this might look like I do pattern making. Like I actually am drafting the physical patterns to cotton sew the garments. And I might do that for a variety of categories. Categories, right. I do pattern making and I do women’s, men’s and kids. I would argue that that’s still quite broad, but that’s a way to get started. You can also look at it as like, I do multiple services, but for one really niche category. Right. So like the. The cashmere sweater designer that I mentioned earlier, she does. She does the design, she does the technical portion, she specs the garment, she does the sourcing, she helps them with all the fitting and everything. And so she’s doing like this hyper niche category, but then she’s offering a multitude of services. So that’s like, initially one qualifier that you can look at, but then I think you just have to sort of. It’s a little bit of a gut check. And this is something that people really struggle with is, like, figuring out their nation and thinking like, oh, is it too big? Is it too small? Da, da, da, da. I tend to say, err on the side of too small. Like, if you’re almost like, it’s uncomfortably a little bit too small, I think you’re probably getting in the zone. You just need to think of, like, if you. If you say this category like women’s ready to wear, I’m like, how often are you seeing that type of garment? You’re seeing it all day, every day in every single shop. Right. Versus another example is a woman who does small back large cup lingerie. So we’re talking like 30, 32, 34, like small around the rib cage area, but then like D, D, double D and up. That’s her niche. And I’m like, you’re not seeing that everywhere, all the time in every single store. Right. But the person that wants that and needs that is like, yes, you are my person. There’s a lot of nuances to, like, making sure that fits. Right. And all that sort of thing. So just kind of using your gut a little bit of like, how often are you seeing this product out there? And it’s likely you’re not seeing it everywhere, all day in all the stores.

How to Know If Your Market Is Too Big (The Gut Check Test)

Louis: Gotcha. Okay.

Heidi Weinberg: If that makes any sense.

Louis: It does, it does. I don’t think I’ve ever met a freelancer, consultant, agency owner, whatever else, who told me, you know, what? The niche I picked was too small. I should have went. I should have gone bigger. Right. It’s right. It’s never. It never happens. Right.

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah.

Louis: If you trust your guts and if you have some experience in the field, you know that, yes, it’s uncomfortably small, but you know that there is more than enough, you know, people to serve. So have you met anyone like that before saying that?

Heidi Weinberg: No, I’ve never met anyone that said it was too small.

Louis: Yes, me neither. But in the context of niching, I mean, so.

Heidi Weinberg: Right. Got the memo.

Louis: I was googling ready to wear market size and all I can find is blank reports for some reason. So let me try to find something because I’m going to share how I think about it in terms of the size because so there’s two ways to think about it broadly. There is the top down approach and the bottom up approach. Right. So top down would be what is the global size of that market in term of number of people that you could serve or number of revenue being shared, what’s the percentage you could get inside that realistically, right. As the capture and then therefore how much you can make based on your target. Right. Based on what you think you could be making. Now for the type of people you’re serving, we’re talking about freelancers, so we’re talking about solopreneurs and you know, they realistically don’t need that much money per year relative to the market. So when you think about it this

Heidi Weinberg: way and that data like that, if I would never send someone on a goose chase like that, be like, go figure out the market share, like that would very much overwhelm them. That would just be something that like it’s going to be hard to find if I’m like, okay, go try to figure out the market share for small back, large cup lingerie.

Louis: Oh yeah, that’s difficult.

Heidi Weinberg: It would be a goose chase. Right. So like.

Louis: But yeah, yeah, it’s a good. I use it to do the opposite which is like see how big it is and see how impossible of a task it is.

Heidi Weinberg: Right, gotcha.

Louis: So for example, the market size in 2021 of custom made clothes, just for the sake of the argument, is 51 billion per year. Right?

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah, that’s big.

Louis: It’s just way too fucking. Yeah, it’s way too fucking big. And you’re talking about like Ralph Lauren and whatever, whatever. So that’s the top down approach. And then the other one that is actually easier is the bottom up, which is you start with what you know and the audience that you have. And you start, you know, if you have an email list, let’s say of like, let’s say 10,000 people, if you sell to 1% of them every year, how much you know, do you need to sell to get, to get somewhere near where you want to be or your LinkedIn following or whatever else, you know.

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that I would argue you could look at it that way from my audience. I think they also might like a lot of them don’t have, they don’t have emails, they don’t they might be a little bit on LinkedIn, but they’re not necessarily building presences in the way that like you and I and some of the people I think in our circles of like this online marketing sphere are. Some of them ultimately do grow to that, but most of them are the. They’re these small solopreneurs. They don’t need or have a big following. And it’s more of like just finding this unique niche customer based off of. Yeah. What their experience is, what do they really love and how can they niche that down? I always talk, I talk a lot about like putting quality qualifiers on it, right? I’m like, okay, you want to do Women’s Ready to Wear. Okay, right, that’s first. That’s huge market. So what kind of qualifiers can we put on that? Can we say petite, maybe inclusive sizing, maybe also sustainable, maybe also low, like small batch production. Right. Then we can start to like, look at like, okay, now we can narrow this down. And so, you know, I think there’s all sorts of ways to take. Okay, if you’re really interested in Women’s Ready to Wear, how can we actually make that work? Right. We can just put these little qualifiers on it based off of your experience. Experience and based off of what you’re really interested in. Passionate and excited about. Some people are like really into inclusive sizing. Some people are very passionate about sustainability, et cetera, and so making sure that they’re really excited about it and based on their experience in the industry. How can we make something like this work?

Louis: So let’s imagine I’m one of your clients. So I’m into. I make shoes. I make shoes. I’m gonna stop here because I know roughly where I want to go, but I want to see. So let’s say, okay, I make shoes for like everyone, you know, custom made shoes, and that’s it. I want to, I want to start out more. I. I want to make more money. What do you. What do you tell me?

Heidi Weinberg: What do you ask kind of shoes are these like running shoes, tennis shoes, high heels? Like what kind of shoes? Boots, Winter shoes.

Louis: They are shoes that are like, look like everyday shoes, like sneakers and stuff like that. But they are for people who want to increase their, their height a bit, you know, to have this extra padding.

Heidi Weinberg: Okay.

Louis: Yeah.

Heidi Weinberg: So this is. You’re a designer for. I guess I don’t know what exactly it’s called, but there’s like lifts, right? I think shoes with lifts or something. Go out and find brands that are targeting petite people, right? Go out and find footwear brands that maybe are already doing this, but they want someone specialized in, like a freelancer who’s specialized in this service, go out and find brands that are, you know, maybe some type of like, specialty shoe. I. This could be a stretch, but, like, seeing, like, is this a market that they want to break into? It’s a really unique example you gave me. And I’ll parlay that into. We have another knitwear designer, sweater knits. Not specifically cashmere, but just sweater knits. And she’s had good success with going out to companies that have knit accessories. They have like gloves and scarves and hats, but they don’t have sweaters yet. And she’s pitching to them. Hey, have you thought about introducing sweaters? And she’s gotten clients that way because they’re like, yes, we do want to do sweaters. We just didn’t have anybody that knew actually how to do all the fitting and all the stuff like that. Right. So I think there’s opportunity to look for brands that are doing things that are kind of adjacent to what your specialty and your niche is. Like with the lingerie, Right. You could go out to brands that are doing maybe inclusive sizing, but they don’t. They haven’t broken into that like, small back, large cup category. Right. So things that, that are sort of adjacen are complementary to what you’re offering. But there might be a hole in their offering that you can go and say, hey, I can fill that hole. I can add those sweaters to your. To your line plan. I can add these shoes with lifts or what have you. Right. So there’s a lot of opportunities to do something like that.

Louis: So here we’re talking more about the acquisition of the clients. But what I’m curious about is how do you. How do we decide whether the niche is worth pursuing? Because let’s say I’m thinking of doing this. I haven’t done it before. I just think it’s a good idea. And I’m starting here, right. I used to design shoes, but for everyone, you know, whatever. And I’m starting to think this, right? So it looks like when I do a bit of research, there’s. The category seems to be called Elevator Shoes. There’s a company called Mario.

Heidi Weinberg: This is a category I don’t know about.

Louis: Right? So Mario Bertulli, which is why it’s a good example, which, which gives you, like, invisibly taller, 5-10 cm longer, without losing any comfort. And so they look like normal shoes, but they have this kind of Hidden thing. And I know for a fact the governor of Florida right now, at the time we’re recording this. Use those.

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah. There’s a lot of speculation that he’s got listed.

Louis: It’s not a speculation. It’s for sure. It’s for sure.

Heidi Weinberg: Is it fact.

Louis: It’s so easy to see.

Heidi Weinberg: Anyway, I watched some videos and, yeah, I was like, I don’t know.

Louis: But anyway, so what does it. How do we know if. How do we know if it’s a valid kind of niche?

Heidi Weinberg: Like, okay, so you’re talking more about validation, right? I jumped to acquisition. You go and you talk to people. You talk to brands. First of all, you see, like, are there any brands doing this, or are there brands that are doing things adjacent to this? It’s just general market research. Right? You go out and you have real conversations with real people who are doing something along these lines, and you try to understand, like, is there enough of a need in the market for someone like me to come in and help as a designer doing these elevator shoes? Right. Which I guess that’s where you thought of. This is from the. I can’t remember his name right now, but the Florida governor, so. Ron DeSantis. That’s right. I’m impressed with your U.S. political savvy. I don’t even follow this stuff very closely.

Louis: Yeah, that’s a problem. I need to stop. But. Okay, so are there any brands doing this? Right. And something that people struggle with when I ask them to do this, which is like, is there any evidence in the market that there is, like, there’s an actual market for it. Are people paying money for this thing already? Or are you completely hallucinating? And what people would tell me, some at least would be, yeah, but then I can’t be. Then it’s. My idea is not original. Or, like, then I’m not the only one. Therefore, it’s saturated, therefore I shouldn’t do it.

Heidi Weinberg: I mean, some competition is good. Right. It shows that there’s already a need in the market. I am actually in this unique little niche of, like, freelancing just for fashion. And there’s very, very, very, very little out there in terms of freelancing for fashion. There’s a lot of freelancing advice in general. Right. But as. As far as it goes specific to the fashion industry, a few people have crept into the market, but I’m talking to, like, a handful of people, and it’s. They’re not making a huge splash online in terms of, like, having a podcast or having a YouTube or having, like, any type of big presence. And so, you know, it’s funny, I’ve talked to my husband extensively of, like, is my market too small? I’m making money. It’s working. So, like, you know, it’s working on some level, but we have questions of, like, how much can we scale this based on the market size, based on. There’s no competition. Right. How valid is this? And so, yeah, some competition is good competition. You know, in this space, as far as we’re talking about, like, going after freelancing, it’s not really looking at competition because you’re. If you’re going out there doing market research to be like, are there brands doing these elevator shoes? Yes. Then there’s cli. There’s potentially clients out there for you if you didn’t find anybody. And maybe you wanted to start a brand, like, that’s a. But that’s a whole different thing, like starting your own brand of like, I want to make my own line of elevator shoes. And arguably there could be nobody out there doing it. You do first need to validate that. That idea, see if anybody’s even interested in buying elevator shoes. But that’s a whole different thing of like, starting your own elevator shoe company versus, like, going out to freelance. And going out to freelance. Yeah, of course you need to find that there are companies out there doing that specific thing because those are ultimately going to be your clients. Right.

Louis: Gotcha. Yeah.

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah.

Louis: So there is a book called I don’t know if you read it by David C. Baker, who wrote the Business of Expertise alongside a few things. And he has a couple of tests to see if your positioning is tight enough. So he said you need to have roughly between 10 and 200 direct competitors in the world, or at least in the area that you are in, like, if it’s a geographical area. So direct competitors, like, you know, are there any other, like, you ID that do exactly the same thing? And then a market size of around 2,000 to 10,000 customers? Again, quite difficult to know. But one of his. One of his trick to do this is, are you. Can you buy a list of people who exactly fit that group? Not actually going through and buying the email list, because that’s illegal and stupid. But is there a list available how. And then. And then the. The conference event test, which is like, are they. Are there any events or conferences out there, albeit small, that target. Exactly that group as well. Right. So to see if there is any

Heidi Weinberg: evidence of that one before. Yeah.

Louis: Any evidence of any of this. So just to recap what you said, because there’s a few interesting stuff you said already, which is like, you tend to look at it in two ways. One service, multiple categories, or multiple services on one category. So, like, you slice it and dice it this way. And then you would use qualifiers. So you would use qualifiers for both. Both the service and for the categories. Right? So you’d go. Let’s say you do. To go out of the fashion world. We’ll talk about, you know, marketing advice. That’s the service, which is extremely broad. For butchers, the qualifier would be like, instead of marketing advice, it would be go to market plans. I mean, although butchers would fucking wouldn’t say that. But, like, is it you just drill deep, deeper into the. Into the specific category or service? Is that it?

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah, you can. I think there’s a certain. I think you do reach a breaking point, right? Especially when it comes to the service component for the fashion industry. So, like, big bucket, I’m gonna say there’s like, you got design, you’ve got technical as far as services go, and then you’ve got, like, production, like, actually getting the garment made. And then within each of those, you can break down into, like, arguably three different services each. So I’ll. I’ll give one example, which would be tech packs. That would be in the technical component. And tech pack for a garment is basically like, you need a blueprint to build a house. You need a tech package to create a garment. Okay? So that’s the parallel. So. And we have students that exclusively do tech packs. That’s all they do. They don’t design. They don’t source the factories and manage production. They just create the tech pack. They’re essentially like an architect. Right. Although architects do design, so they just do tech packs. It would be really hard to put a qualifier on that tech pack service. I’m trying to think what something. Huh?

Louis: Why. Why would it be very. How.

Heidi Weinberg: I can’t even think of one. I can’t even think of, like, what it would be. So. So then you can look at the catego. So the category would be like, for example, when our students does tech packs for sort of active lifestyle stuff. So she does a little bit of swim, she does a little bit of, like, yoga lounge, athleisure wear, like that. She doesn’t also do, like, handbags and shoes and all the things. Right. So her categories are. They’re complementary, but they’re a little bit broader. And so she could put a qualifier in that. Like, maybe she’s doing just sustainable or inclusive sizing. Or small batch manufacturing or something. But I literally can’t even think of a qualifier that you could put on a tech pack. It’s just, it’s this sort of cut and dry document that you need to create. You know what I’m saying?

Louis: Yeah, yeah. So there’s a point where you can’t zoom in further.

Heidi Weinberg: I correct? I believe so. Yeah.

Louis: Yeah. So. So then when you’re done on that side, then you can apply the category, like so flat back only for. Right. I don’t fucking know.

Heidi Weinberg: For small batch active and loungewear. Like they maybe are so passionate about like the, you know, the overproduction in the fashion industry. All the things that are getting created and not sold and getting marked down and all the waste and all that stuff that they’re so passionate about that they’re only. They only want to work with brands that are doing small batch production of like, you know, 50 or 100 pieces or something. So there’s a lot more room for qualifiers on the category side than there are on, like, the service side.

Louis: Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, that’s interesting to hear from your specific industry because I think they’ll help people to kind of try to apply it to their own. I think what I kind of extract from what you’re saying is, is that either like both the service or services or category or categories that you’re going after need to be something that people understand already. It’s already something that is in demand, that is understood in some way, shape or form. If not, then this is when it becomes. So I want to kind of switch gear to something else, which is your podcast. The way you’ve changed things around. It’s still talking about niche, but now it’s for your own podcast and what you’ve learned. So, yeah, before the name of the podcast, which is now Fashion Designers Get Paid, what was the name of it?

The Three Podcast Name Changes and What They Reveal

Heidi Weinberg: The title of it, it was called Successful Fashion Freelancer.

Louis: Okay. And you had. You have this podcast for the last, what, six years now?

Heidi Weinberg: Six years, yeah. And before Successful Fashion Freelancer, it was called Successful Fashion Designer.

Louis: Okay. So you can tell you the full circle. Yeah, we changed it three times. So why did you change it from Successful Fashion Designer to Successful Fashion Freelancer in the first place?

Heidi Weinberg: Okay, let me see if I can make this succinct. So my business used to be structured a little bit differently, and I used to have multiple courses on technical skills in the fashion industry, like how to create a tech pack and how to use Adobe Illustrator for fashion. And we had six courses at our peak of offerings. And the podcast was a little bit more broad. I interviewed people that worked in fashion as employees. I interviewed people that had their own fashion brands, and I also interviewed freelancers. And it was just sort of about working in fashion in general. And so successful fashion designer felt like a little bit of, like a broad enough umbrella to encompass all of those things. Fast forward to 2 and 21, and I decided to, in general, niche the business down more. I had originally started back in 2009. My YouTube was started solely off of how to use Adobe Illustrator for fashion. And that’s sort of how I got my break. And I was known a little bit as, like, the illustrator girl in the fashion industry. And we got a little bit bloated and, like, added all these things that. And I was like, it’s too much. And even though we’re still, like, niche in the fashion industry, I go, it’s just too much. We’re talking about 8 million different things. We’re talking about tech packs and Illustrator and freelancing and starting your own brand and finding a job. And I was like, literally getting out of breath, overwhelmed of, like, it’s too much. So I go, I don’t want to do all this other stuff anymore. I just want to do freelancing because that’s where I’m most passionate. That’s where I had the most success in my career. I had a brand, I worked in house. Neither of those worked out for me. And freelancing was where I found my success. That’s where I am the most excited. That’s where I think I can offer the most value. And it was like, there’s nobody else really talking about it. There’s other stuff on tech packs and Illustrator and all that stuff. So I said, we’re going to retire five of these programs and we’re just going to keep our freelancing program. And as a result, well, the podcast is going to shift to be just talking to freelancers. And so I said, oh, the simplest switch. And it just made so much logical sense in my head was to say, successful fashion freelancer. We just changed one word, right? And I was like, that makes a lot of sense. That encompasses everybody. The problem that I didn’t realize or learn until here we are, fall of 2023. Two years later, I took a course called Podcast Marketing Academy with Jeremy Ends. I think, you know, you guys are budd. He’s phenomenally smart, especially in marketing in the podcast space. And he challenged me. What we discovered was that when you searched for fashion design, podcast Inside of like Apple Podcasts or anywhere. I. My show did not come up. That was a big problem. And what I realized, like hindsight 20 20, I realized that I had called my show Successful Fashion Freelancer. And in my show, in my, like, the blurb about the podcast itself, I said I would always say fashion freelancer because I didn’t want to exclude. By saying fashion designer, I was excluding a technical designer or a pattern maker or a textile designer. And so I thought if we zoom out and we just say fashion Freelancer, that’s like a big umbrella that encompasses everybody. Well, the problem was we weren’t showing up because the word fashion design or fashion designer was not in the description nor in the title. And so he goes immediately, what you’re going to do is you’re just going to change, like, go into the show description and add fashion design, fashion designer. Like, that’s your quick 8020 fix right now. I did that within three weeks. Inside Apple Podcasts, we show up number two, if you search fashion design, brain explodes. And then we ultimately did wind up changing the show name. And that was more around, less around to get the word fashion design fashion designer into the show name, but more about. We did extensive sort of brainstorming on, like, meetings my customer, where they’re at, and I can go into detail on that if you care too. But it was calling the show Successful Fashion Freelancer was not meeting them where they were at. I did a little bit of market research and some quick tests on Facebook ads and we found that winning name.

From Six Courses to One: Why Too Much Becomes Overwhelming

Louis: Okay, so let’s stop here because there’s a lot of. No, no, it’s great. A lot to unpack. So to go back to the beginning, you said you started on YouTube with Illustrator for fashion, right? Like Adobe Illustrator for fashion. And you started to become known this way. And then it became too much. Can you describe folks who might not have experienced this feeling of this is too much, what it kind of feels like. And when you knew, you know, your gut feeling that. That knew we need to fucking remove 80% of what we are doing.

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah, there was, I would say there was two things that happened. First, we had six courses and you gotta sell your courses and we were launching them. So in order to launch each of them like twice a year, we were literally launching every single month. And I was like fucking exhausted of launch, launch, launch, launch. And I felt that there was no space in. And all of our launches are via 98% of our revenue. And everything comes from the email list. Right. So we’re launching Launching, Launching. And I, I felt that we were just on this launch hamster wheel which was burning me out. I also was like, this can’t feel great for the people on the email list, right? And so it just, it felt like there was not even room on the email list to like have some conversations and just talk and like nurture and just be casual. It was just always this strategic, like, okay, well now we have to build up and we have to build up the Runway and the anticipation towards the launch. So that was thing number one. And then thing number two was I lost a lot of passion for some of those topics. I have grown in such a way and like the marketing and the business sense of things over the last five, 10 years. And I was like, this is the content that I’m most passionate about. And I’m kind of done talking about Illustrator. I’m kind of done talking about tech packs, like these topics. I used to be able to nerd out on Illustrator and get really excited about it. And I was like, I’m not excited about it anymore. I don’t. I stopped freelancing in 2019 and was running the businesses in, in parallel for a couple years and I, at some point like reached the reach the breaking point, like time and, and financially wise, I was like, I don’t have to do this freelancing thing and I’m just sort of done right? And so I wasn’t using the software on a day to day basis. I wasn’t creating tech packs on a day to day basis. And I’m still very qualified to teach and to talk about this stuff, but I just, I lost the drive for it. And I, I firmly, firmly, firmly believe I do this demo on whenever I do like live trainings. I talk about your excitement for something or your meh sort of for something is like a drop of red dye in a glass of water. And if you hold up, I literally do this live. I’m like, hold up a glass of water. I’m like, this is your excitement or this is your eh. And you drop it in, right? And it just, it bleeds into everything, literally. And I firmly believe that when you write emails, when you write social media posts, when you show up on a podcast and you’re talking about a topic that’s sort of meh, it bleeds into it. And people feel that on the other side, as intentional as you might try to be to like fake that enthusiasm, I don’t. I mean, but you can be really good. Sure. And I’m sure some people do, but Most people, it’s really, really hard. And I was like, this is bleeding into my content. I don’t want to write emails about Illustrator anymore. I don’t want to create tutorials about Illustrator. So it was just like a shift in my passion.

Louis: So you, you took a big swing and just selected the one course that you were genuinely excited about and that you wanted to dive in into. Okay, yeah. So, so then the podcast, you rename it from Successful Fashion designers to Successful Fashion freelancers with that in mind. Right. Because you were talking about freelancing, which makes sense.

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah, yeah.

Louis: On the surface. But then you realized that you could grow more, you could grow the podcast more. You felt like it wasn’t really necessarily hitting the right notes or that it wasn’t found as well. So you see said, before you moved on and decided on the new name, you said you did some market research. You asked some, you know, sent some surveys. So tell me more about that step.

Market Research That Actually Works: Survey Questions That Matter

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah, so I wanted to learn. I mean, I understand my audience’s pain points and I do a lot of market research and stuff, but I was like, I want to get a fresh take on this. And so as I was going through Jeremy’s course, I sent out a survey to my email list, which is about 20,000 people. And I said, I just went really high level generic with it. I didn’t say, oh, we’re name the podcast. What do you think are good names? I said, I think I just sent out two questions. One was, what are your biggest challenges and frustrations about working in the fashion industry? And then I said, if you. We. I think we all know these questions, right? The other one was like, if you could have a magic wand and create a dream fashion industry for yourself to work in, like, what would that look like? Right? So we got hundreds of responses. So we did a bunch of analysis. I think I might have used your tool at this point. What’s it called? The Buyer Insights. The fucking Buyer Insights tool. Fucking fast.

Louis: Buyer Insights.

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah, yeah. Anyways, and two things floated to the top. They wanted. They were fucking sick of horrible bosses and they. They were fucking sick of not making any money. The industry is very competitive, right? And. And it’s highly desirable creative industry to work in. And so brands underpay because they can. So I looked at like exact verbiage that they were using. Horrible bosses came up a lot. Like literally that exact phrase. And so. And then the other phrase that came up was, I just want to get paid more. Something like that. We had so many versions of that type of phrasing. So we kind of worked those into some titles. I think one was Fashion without Horrible Bosses. And then one of them was Fashion Designers Get Paid. I can’t think of any of the others. And then we just turned those into basic graph, like literally just like a color and text Fashion Designers Get Paid, Fashion without Horrible Bosses and a couple others. And we ran them as click tests, click objectives on Facebook just to say, like, what are people gonna click more? Everything else was the same. The headline, all the other things, the targeting, all this stuff. And by far, way more people clicked on Fashion Designers Get Paid. So I was like, boom, there’s the title.

Louis: Nice. So thank you.

Heidi Weinberg: That’s.

Louis: That’s super interesting in the way you’ve done it. It reminds me of how hotjar did it at the very start, when they started the company, which is like a web analysis company. Before I joined them, they were. They did a Facebook ad to test the tagline they would go after on thing. So that. That’s like, that’s really pretty clever to do. Now what I want to zoom in on is something that I really love. You said that a few minutes ago. You said you need to meet people where they are.

Meeting Customers Where They Are vs Where You Want Them to Be

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah.

Louis: So you’ve realized. Let. Let me try to, like, analyze what you said. I mean, and tell me if I’m saying anything stupid. So you realize that basically when you were. The name of the show used to be about freelancers. That. That most people are actually not freelancers just yet. Right. That’s the first thing. So when you’re sick of a horrible boss, apart from, you know, if you’re sick of yourself, which very much happens, but that means you’re employed, you’re not freelancing, Right.

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah.

Louis: So that’s the first thing. The second one that is even more interesting because I was listening to your podcast about this. This episode where you’re showing the shift is how people perceive the world. Freelancer, or the thing about freelancing in the fashion industry to be. Yeah, you work with a company, but you’re not fully employed. And so you’re like double.

Heidi Weinberg: To summarize, I call it temp job. A lot of people call it permanence. It’s basically like. And jobs are advertised this way in the fashion industry. And so when you say freelancing, and people will say, I’m a freelancer, I’m like, but are you. And they’re like, yeah, I just got a gig working for Ralph Lauren for three months, and it’s on site 40 hours a week. Like, you look and act like an employee. Employee, but you’re not getting all the benefits of being employee. And yes, you’re like doubly. And the brand is reaping massive benefits. I have. I’m extremely passionate about this topic. You is very advantageous to the brand. Right. They’re not paying unemployment taxes on you. They’re not paying your taxes at all. They’re not paying your health insurance or paid vacation or da da da da da. And yeah, you’re required to look and act and show up like an employee. Some people like this arrangement. So I don’t mean to like totally poo poo it, but I think it’s actually very, very destructive for our industry. And I know it exists in other industries as well. And so call the show successful fashion free answers first. Like a misperception. And what exactly is a freelancer and what exactly are we talking about on the show? And then also, like, that’s not really meeting them where they’re at. They’re not a successful fashion freelancer. And so I’m like more like painting this dream versus meeting them where they’re at with either fashion without horrible bosses or fashion designers get paid. Like those are two pain points that they are currently feeling. The ideal person is ICP is working in a job burnt the fuck of out out, sick of their bosses feeling like they’re not getting paid enough. Da da da da da. Right. And so these, these other titles that are show names that we played around with were much more meeting them where they were at versus this successful fashion freelancer dream I was painting over here that they didn’t even maybe quite understand what the dream I was actually painting. And I talked about that a lot in the show, of course, about how, like I don’t talk about permanencing, I talk about true remote freelancing. But right. The first hurdle in the podcast is getting someone to actually click through the show to look at the list of episodes. So, like, I was likely maybe losing people on that first. Be that first, like very, very, very top of funnel.

Louis: Yeah. But that reminds me of a bigger problem, which is really this idea of like every single word you use for your positioning or any marketing material that is kind of important, like your title, podcast title, or whatever matters, because the picture that people have in their head of it, you know, is something you need to play with. And you can’t like, try to change people’s mind. You have to play with what people have in mind. So I found that very interesting that in the fashion industry industry, the Word freelancing doesn’t have the same meaning or context than like in the marketing industry where we, we understand what freelancing typically means. That reminds me of an, of a completely different example with a. Someone I work with who was specializing in the menopause helping women going through menopause. Basically just to summarize, what she found was that women facing problems that are linked to menopause. We’re not calling it menopause, menopause. So they didn’t know it was menopause first. So they wouldn’t search for it. They wouldn’t like, they wouldn’t seek advice on menopause. They had like, you know, the, the signs of menopause, but they didn’t know that was it. So that the first thing totally. And the second thing was the sigma. So meaning that if it, if they knew it was menopause, they didn’t. They never thought of themselves as like an old lady with menopause. And so that kind of the world was, you know, so by just shifting, seeing the category and the way she was talking about it, it really helped her to, to have her offers land way, way more.

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah.

Louis: While the thing behind it were the same, you know, totally.

Heidi Weinberg: As a woman who went through early onset menopause at the ripe age of 30. Yeah. That cascaded into a whole other thing in terms of creating a family. That’s a whole other story. That’s okay. We got there, we have a child. But yeah, like I was having like excessive hot flashes, like waking up in the middle of the night, like sweating and went to a couple doctors, got no diagnosis. Ultimately, long run, we figured out what it was. But I was not searching for anything along those lines. I mean, I’m not sure if I was. I’m the exact Persona for this woman you’re talking about. But. But yeah, I get that fully. I mean, I get that firsthand.

Louis: Yeah. Yeah, but exactly. So, so it’s, it’s so important to try to not reinvent the wheel and to invent new words and feeling like you’re so smart, you’re like God. And you can change the entire market and the way they think. Right. You need to be meet there where they are. Right. Like you’ve done with changing the title. So in terms of the result that you got, like if you talk about tangible result from that change and maybe we can talk about a couple more changes that you’ve done, like were you able to measure anything beyond the position position, you know, the search positions.

Heidi Weinberg: So here’s where things get A little tricky and I feel like we don’t totally have any tangible results to share yet is I took six months off the podcast. Actually about seven for the first time in five years, from about February this year to, I don’t know, August. September, something like that. And so we were not publishing for six months. And then that was during the time that I went through Jeremy’s course and we came up with the show name change, et cetera. And so we just relaunched with the show name change. Let’s see, it’s November, middle November right now. When was it? I’d have to look on the calendar, but like maybe two and a half months. Two and a half, three months ago. And while we have not seen a direct correlative uptick in terms of downloads, I mean, you and I both know that the podcast game is a real long, slow game. And so I don’t feel confident that it’s been enough time to see those measurable results. Results. And we can check back in on that in like a year.

Louis: Yeah, no, I get it.

Heidi Weinberg: Maybe six months even. But you know what I’m saying, right?

Louis: Oh, I do. Podcasting is a piece of. It’s a tough game. I wish I knew that before starting. But I did the same. You know, I stopped the podcast for a while, like longer than you. Before having my, like, first child and then, you know, during paternity leave and stuff. I needed a break from. From it to. To kind of find back the passion for it. It’s. I’ve made this change recently, actually, when it. When we talk about SEO for. For podcasting, I’ve actually added to the title. It used to simply be Everyone Hates Marketers, but now it’s Everyone Hates Marketer. A bar. A vertical bar. No BS Marketing podcast.

Heidi Weinberg: I didn’t notice that. Okay.

Louis: Yeah, it’s just for SEO and actually that helped. The reason why I mentioned this is because that small change actually that lead to an increase in visibility, in particular for in. On Spotify, where now I think at number one, if you sell just marketing, it’s the first one that comes up.

Heidi Weinberg: So have you seen an Inc. Like a tangible increase in downloads like you kind of saw immediately with that?

Louis: No, no, but I do. I have a tool that I use called voxelize.com and it’s to see. It’s basically SEO for podcast to see, like where you rank. I can see an increase. Like I’m currently. For example, you can look UK Apple Podcasts top 1% of podcasts for the current week. 2413 in term of ranking. But that’s the biggest. That’s for every podcast. But you can see whether you increase or not and that what type of keywords are you showing for? So it’s, it’s helpful that way. But as you said, it’s, it’s a bit. It’s a long game, you know, It’s a fucking bit.

Heidi Weinberg: I know. I was like, oh, wow, we’re now showing up too. Actually, I’m curious if you search in Spotify or Apple for fashion or fashion design, where do I land? But I was like, boom. That alone is going to be like a massive dent or a massive bump. And I haven’t directly seen it, but I know long term that it was the right move to make.

Louis: So the first I just type fashion and I can see the business of fashion. Fashion, you probably hate them. The run through with Vogue in fashion with Glennis Trail Nash and then dressed media, whatever. And if I do, these are all

Heidi Weinberg: big shows and I can’t, I can’t compete with them.

Louis: Yeah, you’re number eight. I mean as soon as I put see all. You’re there. Fashion designers get paid.

Heidi Weinberg: Boom. Yeah, for fashion. Okay, number eight. I’m gonna take that. I’m gonna take that and run.

Louis: But, but fashion design, you’re first.

Heidi Weinberg: I’m first. Okay, that’s news. Okay. Boom.

Louis: Spotify is quite big. Getting bigger. Definitely. So anyway, interesting.

Heidi Weinberg: So yeah, I mean even fashion design still feels like a really competitive term. Right? That’s a huge market. So for me to have number one, I. And I did not, I didn’t even Louie. I didn’t even show up when it was called Successful fashion Freelancer. I was not even on the map up. Oh yeah. It kills me a little bit.

Louis: Yeah, it’s. Yeah. No one should ever start a podcast and think that it’s gonna work. It’s the worst. It’s just so difficult.

Heidi Weinberg: It’s difficult. Yeah. But. But I will say I do a buyer survey. So after everyone gets into my, any of my pay programs, I do a survey and I’m like, you know, why did you make the decision to join? And da da, da, da da. And are you. Do you listen to the podcast and they have a couple options of like what podcast? Heck yeah. Or I listen sometimes and the majority of my buyers at least listen sometimes. And many of them are heck yeah. I’m a loyal listener and a lot of people in like the, the qualitative field where they can like write about why they decided to join. I hear a lot that people say I heard a story on your podcast and the person sounded just like me and I was like, oh, maybe I can do this. Right? So it’s like painting all these stories or telling all these stories stories and, and people listening and finding it really relatable and then believing that it’s actually possible for them. And that can also just build, you know, like the know, like, and trust. So I think that hard numbers wise podcasts are hard as fuck. Right? But I think that when you get those listeners, it doesn’t need to be.

Louis: It’s a deep relationship, right?

Heidi Weinberg: It’s a deep relationship that you do not get an email and you do not get on any social media. Arguably, maybe with like some long form video content you can get similar. But, but you know, yeah, it’s a tough game.

Louis: Yeah. Like podcasting is a nightmare for those marketers who think you can measure everything and everything must be measurable and if it’s not measurable, it shouldn’t be done. It shouldn’t be done. Right. Like we’re both examples of, of in that world. This is impossible to achieve. You can’t have a podcast and run a successful business on the back of it if you’re measuring everything and trying to, to make it fucking work. Anyway. Okay, shit, we’re already at the end of, of the time here, so clearly we could talk about that for ages. When I started the podcast, so the title has always been Everyone hates marketers. But when I started the podcast it was in my head anyway for tech marketers. So I made it for folks working in tech in marketing. And this is going to be the opposite of what you were saying earlier in terms of like niching down for the title and whatever. And I realized quickly that most folks listening were not tech marketers. Surely they were some, some. But there was a lot of copywriters and freelancers and all of that. That which completely surprised me. I had no idea. And so what I’ve done is I expanded the positioning of the podcast to be really about anyone who hates marketing bullshit. So like the qualifier was very much around the psychographic of people and all of that. But turns out that most people listening are actually marketing professionals. Yes, some are in house, but not all in tech. And a lot of them would be people like us. Right. So consultants, agency owners and stuff. So my point here, it doesn’t. The answer to niching down doesn’t necessarily mean niching down in the way you’ve done it, which is like, like job title or something, like a filmographic or demographic whatever it could be something else, but it needs to be really in line with what people are expecting and the signals that you get from your audience.

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah, I meant to mention earlier, but I will throw in one more thing that like, you know, I was doing this fashion freelancer terminology cause I was like, oh, that encompasses everybody. And then one of the things that sort of also flipped my brain on that was I implemented a survey post sign up on my email list. So as soon as you sign up on the website for lead Magnet or something, the immediate landing page after that is a quick survey. And so I started collecting data that way. And we get quite a few email subscribers every month, so we got a lot of data pretty quickly. And I was like, what, what role do you most identify with? Or something like that. Or like what do you call yourself? Right? And it was like fashion designer, technical designer, pattern pattern maker, that a couple others and it was like well over 60 or 65% and we’re talking thousands of people taking the survey were like fashion designer. And then the other five were spread out amongst that other 40%. So you know, maybe less than 10% each. And so I was like, yeah, we can say fashion freelancer and that doesn’t compass 100%. But by far our number one person is concentrated in this fashion design, fashion designer type of category. And those other 40, 35, 40% of the people, they’re not. And I know there’s just, I don’t have a hard date on this, but this is just more like hearsay. And just from what I know in the industry, they’re not looking for like a pattern making podcast, a technical designer podcast or something like that. Like they know that they’re so niche that they’re looking in fashion design as general, in general as like a big bucket. So logically I, once I started seeing that survey data, I was like, oh, okay, we gotta fix this.

Louis: Yeah, that’s interesting. I’ve done similar exercise to yourself ago. Need to redo it like a big survey. And I found that, yeah, out of the people who are business owners, 44% identify as freelancer, 37% as entrepreneur, meaning they have employees. And the rest would be solopreneur. So they sell products, not their services, but basically a lot of solos, solo people. And that’s why I’m slowly but surely updating my positioning and going even more now. Anyway, before I started remembering something else, I wanted to ask you one, the last question, which is what do you think marketers should learn to today that will help them in the next 10, 20, or 50 years, you changed the

The Google Content Update Lesson: Why Authentic Expertise Wins

Heidi Weinberg: question on me or I don’t know how recently you changed the question. You used to ask for three bits and I had to do.

Louis: It’s not done.

Heidi Weinberg: Okay, okay, okay. What should marketers learn today that will help them in the next 10 to 20 years? I think it is. I recently learned a little bit of a lesson with the Google Helpful Content Update, which I don’t know how closely you or anyone listening follows SEO, but we, like I said, get most of our. I think I said to you. Yeah, no, someone else I was talking to this morning, we have grown organically. We. Because we’re so niche, we float to the top on Google. And I got a little overly aggressive with some of the AI tools and started pumping out some content. You know where this is going?

Louis: Yes.

Heidi Weinberg: And it was good enough. But then Google has implemented what they’ve called this Helpful Content update recently. And I’m getting to the point of my. My piece of advice here. I promise this is coming full circle and. And you’re getting penalized unless if your content is not exceptionally helpful and from firsthand experience or maybe you have surveyed your list from some type of experience. It’s not just like, like, all the affiliate sites are getting dinged massively. Like, oh, here’s why you should use ConvertKit and here’s why you should use ActiveCampaign. And, like, the people writing this, like, have not actually used those softwares. Like, all that type of stuff is getting dinged massively. Anything needs to be written from, like, a point of genuine expertise and genuine experience, or you’ve curated and gathered the experience from surveys or doing interviews or talk to people or something. Right. But genuinely, genuinely, genuinely helpful content. I hired a writer, and we’re using some AI tools and she does work in the fashion industry. She has experience. She’s not just. Just a writer that’s fluffing up this AI content. But we did get dinged because we were, like, pumping out all this content and I had to take a step back and I was like, Like, I saw a drop in. In Google Analytics, I saw a drop in email subscribers, and I was like, whoa, gosh. And I took a step back and I looked at all this content and I was like, it’s fine. It’s not exceptional. So we’re doing this massive content audit. I won’t even tell you about the headache that it is causing to, like, untangle all of this. But. But that would lead me to the answer to your question, which is at the end of the day. I think it, you have to do some serious self assessment, accurate self assessment and evaluation of like, are you leading with genuine helpful stuff that is really like user first not. Right. And that could be, it doesn’t have to be SEO, right? It could be your podcast or your social media posts or your emails, something. Right? Like, are you engaging in a way that is ultimately genuinely, in an exceptional way, going to help the person on the other side? And I think that that is like, it’s a core, like human, moral, ethical thing. Right? But we can very easily lose, easily lose sight of it. Right? We get this AI tool and now we can create all this content. And I slipped. I like went into that gray area for hot top minute and thank God Google punished me because then I went back and I looked at the content and I was like, you know what? It’s actually not that great. I don’t feel super proud of this. Yeah, we’re like, we’re writing for SEO, we’re not writing for people. And so I think it’s just this constant reminder. And maybe you’re doing a great job at that and you don’t slip. But I, I think it’s doing it not just because Google’s gonna punish you or something, but doing it because that’s like the right thing. And you’re putting your user and your customer or whoever’s on your client, whoever’s on the other side of the line, you’re putting them first. And I believe if you learn and remember constantly to lead with that in 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 years, you’re going to be doing fine. Because at the end of the day, you’re doing the right thing. And yeah, there’s strategy behind it, but really put the user and the customer first. I don’t know if that totally answered the question, but that’s where my head went now.

Louis: You fucked yourself and you learned the lesson, but no, it’s never set in stone. It’s a moving thing. And yes, sometimes I do succumb to like, oh, what if I do this like everyone is telling me to and whatever, but I think I got better and better and I never fell to that trap of the AI generated content and trying to do this. I didn’t even have time to think about it, so. But it’s interesting. Thanks for sharing that as well. That’s an interesting tidbit about your psyche. Yeah, we’re all humans and we all struggle with the kind of the tension between doing good work and making money. What are the top three resources you’d recommend listening to us today?

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah. One is a book called the Psychology of Money. I learned earlier this year after a friend of mine who’s a therapist called me out on it. And I got. I got money shit in my head. I got money issues. I think most of us do. And I started working with a therapist to really dig into it because I was like, this is hindering me in some big ways. And I. I listened to that book. You could read it, too. I listened to a lot of audiobooks, and it. I’m going to listen to it again. There’s a lot of interesting takeaways and stuff. And then kind of leading off of that, the second thing would be investing in yourself. I have very much been a little bit raised and a little bit cemented in the mindset of, like, you can figure it out on your own, you can do it cheaper, you can, you know, and. And as going through some of this deep personal development stuff, learning that, like, you need to invest in yourself, you need to spend money yourself in the right things. And this year, 2023, wherever we are, I have taken some leaps to invest in myself, and I have seen direct, tangible results. And I was, like, a year ago, before I worked on some of my money mindset stuff, I would have been like, I can just figure that out. I will watch all the YouTube videos and listen to all the podcast and. Right. And so I think it’s a constant reminder. I think there’s a balance. Right. But investing in yourself and really taking that stuff seriously. And then third is a book called how to Write Short, and I need to read a book called how to Speak Short, because I’m very verbose, as you can probably tell. Yeah.

Louis: Oh, yeah.

Heidi Weinberg: I find myself very verbose.

Louis: I would have never. I would have never, ever noticed that about you. I think it’s great.

Heidi Weinberg: Very sarcastic.

Louis: Yes, yes, yes, Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, absolutely.

Heidi Weinberg: So just learning to be more succinct in various formats.

Louis: Okay. You’re dealing well with awkward silence. Okay, cool. Heidi, you’ve been a pleasure. How can people learn more from you and get to know you more, connect with you?

Heidi Weinberg: Yeah. Yeah. You can pretty much find me anywhere online under sewhightie. S E W H G I D I. If you just Google that, I come up everywhere, whether you want LinkedIn or the podcast or my website. That is the kitschy name I branded myself with a long, long time ago. And it has kind of stuck. So that will get you there.

Louis: Very nice. Once again, thank you so much.

Heidi Weinberg: Thank you, Lou. It was a pleasure to be on.

Louis: And that’s it for another episode of Everyone Hates Market. Thank you so much for listening. I’m super, super grateful. I’d love for you to consider subscribing to my daily newsletter Monday to Friday called Stand the Out. Daily. I send very short, hopefully interesting, surprising, shocking, entertaining content to help you Stand the Out. It’s ateveryonehates marketers.com you can subscribe for free and obviously unsubscribe whenever you want. I’m just gonna read a couple of emails that I got recently. Recently as a reply, Juma said, your content attacks the mind primarily, which is such a good thing because most of us are skilled at what we do, but we don’t have the courage to do it our way. Mark, who just subscribed a couple days before, said, this is my first issue of your newsletter. Love it. Glad I subscribed. Brianna Said, I just realized this morning that my email habit is now to one. Came through the list to select all Unreal Industry email accept yours. 3. Delete and don’t think twice. 4. Quickly scheme yours. Amy said, Also loving the new content that’s coming from you. It feels really lovely. Kendall Said, I like your writing a lot. It really resonates. There’s so much bullshit out there. It’s good to touch the authentic. And Chloe said, where is the I love this email button? Brilliant. I hope you subscribe. You’ll be joining more than 14,000 subscribers at this stage, which is crazy. It’s the size of a small stadium. Anyway, thank you so much. See you on the other side.