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On my webinar last night (How niching down my VA biz on a specific tech software made me over $60k in 16 months – click here to sign up to watch the recording!) I told people about my new course, Rock Your Tech Specialism.
People were loving the idea of specialising in a specific tech tool, but the number 1 question I was getting…
How do I choose a tech tool to specialise in? I love them all! I’m great at loads!
Okay, okay. I hear ya people. Let’s take a deep dive into this. Think of this as Module 0 for Rock Your Tech Specialism.
First up, I’m afraid this is the wrong question to be asking.
I passionately believe that specialising in a specific tech system should be led by your intuition.
You can’t do it rationally or based on logic. Your niche will find you. You can’t ‘pick’.
My absolute best advice is to do work that you enjoy and feels good.
Specialising is not about closing doors. It’s about following the work you most enjoy doing and see where it takes you.
Specialising is not about ‘picking’ and making irreversible decisions. It’s about having the confidence to say ‘no’ to crappy work because you’re confident that there’s always plenty of better work out there.
Maybe you’ve got 4 or 5 specific tech systems in mind that you might specialise in. Start naming them explicitly on your website. Start creating packages and services related to them.
The answer for your next steps will always be clear if you listen to your intuition and you focus on doing more work that feels good and you enjoy.
Let’s break this down a bit further…
But surely picking just one system means I’ll have less potential clients and I’ll make less money?
It can take you a little while to get your head around, and I know it’s scary, but picking one (or two) tech systems to specialise in dramatically opens up your pool of potential clients who will hire you (and that’s the only type of potential clients you want to worry about) and it allows you to charge premium pricing and attract premium clients. Premium clients are (usually) the absolute dream to work with – they don’t stress about money, they want the job done right, first time, by the best person. They want the iPhone. They do not want a crappy old Nokia (do Nokia even still make phones?!).
Loads of people already specialise in ___________, I won’t get a look in.
The more business owners who use the system you want to specialise in – the more potential clients you have. If just 0.01% of users of [insert tech software here] were happy to pay premium rates and hired you, I think you can do the maths on how many $$$$$ that would be. There are endless clients. Do not worry about clients.
But what about the other systems?!
A lot of people worry that picking one system to focus on means they’ll never get to work with the other systems again and no-one will remember/care that they’re epic at them. This just isn’t true. Specialising in a specific tech system does not mean ‘at the expense of working with any other system ever again’.
Opportunities to work with other systems:
- Existing clients
- New clients who you can offer additional services to (I’ve for reals had people hire me for ConvertKit and then go on to have me do a ton of work in OptimizePress – my secondary specialism)
- When you see someone looking for help with a different system and you feel like applying/reaching out
Do I have to go ‘all in’ straight away?
Nooo. That would be a terrible idea. Work in your chosen tech specialism will build up over time. You might start with it at 5%, and then a few months later it’ll naturally have increased to 20%, and then a year later it’ll be up to 80%. It evolves naturally. What’s important is the decision to specialise and the commitment to seeing where that decision goes. You may realise in a few months that it’s not feeling good and you decide to switch to doing something else.
What if I pick the ‘wrong’ tech tool to specialise in?
This honestly isn’t worth worrying about at the moment. It’s a future problem. And it’s one that definitely shouldn’t hold you back from picking a specialism right now. If you’ve really established yourself in a specific tech tool, you’ve also established yourself as someone with useful information and helpful opinions… if you fall out of love with your chosen tech specialism, and you can articulate that to your audience (and whatever else you’re shifting your love to), then you will navigate the change with grace and understanding.
How I think brains work
Here’s my theory about how brains work – stick with me!
We like to categorise and neatly store people in our heads. But our heads are very crowded places, and so we can only store one bit of information with each person (I’m talking acquaintances here, not actual real friends). By specialising in multiple tech systems, you’re asking people to store multiple bits of information about you – and the chances are they won’t do that, and they won’t remember you at all. This is especially true if you’re asking them to store information about you that they don’t use/need themselves – so they’re not even storing you in the ‘might work with one day’ section.
If I were to ask someone who uses ActiveCampaign and ClickFunnels to store me in their head – it’s much easier for me to just do that about ConvertKit. “Oh yes, ConvertKit. Elizabeth Goddard – that’s who comes to mind. She’s the best.”