Episode 72: How to Find Your Niche Without Picking a Service or an Industry I Personal Branding Pacific Northwest

Host Kimberly Gayle tackles the question every woman entrepreneur eventually asks herself — to niche, or not to niche? — and reveals why the two most common answers, pick one service or pick one industry, are both wrong. The real answer isn’t something you have to invent. It’s something you already know, because you’ve already lived it.

Episode Highlights

The Niche Question, Reframed

• “Niche” gets used, abused, and confused.
• Camp one says pick one service and cut the rest.
• Camp two says pick one industry and stay in your lane.
• Both narrow the wrong thing — your offer page or your Rolodex — instead of your message.

What Staying Vague Actually Costs You

• Showing up consistently and still feeling invisible.
• Doing “everything right” by conventional visibility standards and still not landing.
• A message built for everyone lands with no one — and nobody takes action off a message that could be for anyone.

The Real Answer: Niche to WHO, Not What or Where

• Niche was never about your services or your industry — it’s about a specific woman, her stage of life, and the exact problem she’s living.
• You don’t have to invent a stranger to serve — you already know her, because you were her.
• Whatever problem you solved for yourself in a past chapter is very likely the exact thing you now guide other people through.

Proof From Kimberly’s Own Story

• Thirteen years ago, Kimberly left corporate and moved from Minneapolis to the Pacific Northwest, knowing no one, and had to build recognition from scratch around who she was.
• Eleven months ago, she sold Final Draft Taphouse — a transition she actually began back in 2023, because she knew the change was coming.
• Both times, she niched to WHO she was serving, not to an industry or a service list.

Proof From the Hot Seat

• A woman in one of Kimberly’s masterminds spent twelve years running a brick-and-mortar business before hitting a wall in her own health, hormones, and relationship with food.
• She solved it for herself, and now helps other women through the same thing — but she was stuck trying to pick a service (nutrition? hormones? health coaching?) instead of getting clear on WHO.
• The real answer: niche to the person and the problem — a woman facing midlife weight gain or digestive issues, for example — not to the service.

More Ways to Get Specific on WHO

• Beyond the problem, you can layer in location, phase of life, or — especially for B2B — the type of business she runs.
• Example: not just “women entrepreneurs,” but “women entrepreneurs in transition, based in the Pacific Northwest, moving into legacy work.”

This Week’s Challenge: Find the Woman You Already Know

1. Write one sentence describing who you were in a previous chapter — it doesn’t have to be immediately before this one.
2. Name the actual problem you were facing in that chapter.
3. Name how you solved it for yourself.
4. Look at what you do today — that discovery is likely the exact thing you now guide others through. That’s your WHO.
5. Write it as one sentence, without naming a service or an industry.
6. If it’s still broad, sharpen it with one more layer: location, phase of life, or business type.
7. Read it out loud. Would she immediately think “that’s me”?
8. Share it publicly — post it, story it, or comment it.

This Week’s Mantra
“I don’t have to invent who I serve. I already know her — because I was her.”

Key Quote
“You are not too unfinished to have a niche. You are the single most qualified person on the planet to serve the version of yourself from a few chapters back.”

Key Takeaway
Your niche was never missing. It’s not a stranger you have to study or invent — it’s the woman you already were, living the exact problem you already solved. Stop narrowing your service list or your industry, and start getting specific on her.

Ready to get clear on exactly who you’re for? Kimberly offers free personal branding strategy calls for women entrepreneurs ready to stop guessing at their niche and start building from who they already know.