One of the hardest things to do is find clarity about your ‘ideal client’. Your niche. Your target audience.

Perhaps its better to call them your future friends. It’s true that sometimes we’re surprised by who becomes our friends. I like C.S. Lewis’ definition of friendship - someone who says “you too?!”

That’s your audience. Call it what you will.

Years ago, I was working on a marketing campaign at a company I worked with. We looked to the CFO for guidance, and asked “Who do we want to target with this ad in the newspaper?”

He literally said: “If they’re breathing, they’re our customer.”

That’s an instant recipe for all the forgettable ads we ignore, calls to action that everyone passes on, and a standstill.

Humans don’t do well when things aren’t clear. When things get muddy and indistinct. We pause. We need to find a focus. Focus creates action.

Sometimes the very nature of your product is generic. And sometimes there’s nothing you can do to ‘niche’ down.

A few years later, I decided to take my own advice and 3x my niche. I wanted to find that ‘blue ocean’ that marketers told me was out there somewhere.

A blue ocean is a metaphor for a space in the market with low competition. It’s blue as opposed to being ‘red’ from over fishing. Competing in a red ocean is almost impossible.

So narrow it down. And there are real benefits to this - because not everyone wants the same thing.

Sometimes it’s not about age range and location. It’s about psychographics. What’s their mental state? What do they want out of life? Where is their heart at?

These kinds of answers cross age ranges and local boundaries. Just like the internet does.

A long time ago, I decided that I loved working with super creative people. I loved the back and forth, the banter, the support, the brainstorming.

As a kid, I loved writing novels. I had a brother who would spend hours with me on car trips, brainstorming novels together. I felt so alive my fingertips tingled. Later on, I decided to setup shop as a Developmental Editor, to help others with their novels. I made a few tiny sales - which stunned me - but nothing too big. At the time, I didn’t have the reach, or the focus, or a community to sustain me.

Then I went and started my freelance business, and decided that this particular audience didn’t need my services. Why? Because they’re creative and self-motivated, and they probably won’t hire someone else for graphic design or websites.

I wanted a shoe-in client base to start a pipeline.

So I focused on hassled, harried clients over a certain age range who would need the grunt services I offered. I tried to giftwrap the services with my special skills. But for whatever reason, it rarely worked.

And that’s why I started so many creative sideprojects… to skirt my burnout.

I confess… in 4 years, I never made a pipeline work. It seemed I couldn’t create a pipeline to save my life. So far, at least. I’m sure a good business coach could have turned it all around faster. I just couldn’t afford anything.

And it was only in the last few months that I began to get really, really sick of it all.

I was in the middle of hosting an online fiction convention for LegendFiction, my community for Catholic and Orthodox fiction writers.

And I realized a 5 year loop had just closed for me: I love working with creatives.

Maybe I was doing this wrong.

Maybe it was no ones’ fault, and I was doing the best I could with the information I had at the time. I needed this journey through the darkness.

I had starting by looking at my own services, and then tried to go out and find an audience who would buy them from me. I built websites, pushed ads, asked for sales, hired outreach marketers, and played multi-tiered marketing chess games.

Maybe I should have looked deeper, looked into who I am first. Creatives like you and me can teach ourselves almost any service. But we can’t change our core starting point. The world needs that specific spark that is you.

I tore up my plans and started again.

I started by imagining my friends - the ones who had been telling me they loved what they heard - and their needs, and then built a plan around that.

And this project was born.

Suddenly I feel I can breathe, and move.

I’m still unnerved. And don’t have all the answers. But I’ll learn by doing.

So maybe that’s a question for you.

Maybe you’re not just stuck because your services are wrong. Or your pricepoints are too high. Or too low. Or you haven’t advertised enough, or send enough cold messages in LinkedIn.

Perhaps you’re going after the wrong kind of person, or doing it in the wrong place.

Perhaps you’d feel more energy and insight if the audience changed.

Perhaps the audience is you.

Maybe the people you want to serve are not strangers out there, somewhere. Maybe they are just exactly like you. They feel like you. Think like you. Want what you want.

Maybe they have different fandoms, and different cliques, and different interests.

But the underlying energy and heart is the same.

So try putting yourself as your target audience. Write your content, or make your podcast, to convince yourself in the past to join you.

I love that piece of advice. Don’t write to inform. Write to convert.

Write to inspire and invite people to do something - like join you.

Because information detached from a human is a fossil, memories, leaves falling from trees. The internet is glutted with it. And groups are glutted with information-hoarders who don’t do anything.

So create to inspire, and invite people to join you. It’s in human contact and connection that we challenge each other. Talk with each other. Grow and evolve.

Some of us can go it alone.

Most need a friend. Friendship makes everything easier.

Do you have an kind of person you’d love to work with, but aren’t?

Comment here who they are. Why?

Maybe owning that, sitting with that, will open up a new idea.

Who do you enjoy working with most?