Libby: Okay, okay we're recording, all right. Hey, they're efficient advisers, I am so excited for this interview, and I know I say that every time, but today, I mean it. In this episode, I am talking with the premier divorce planning expert in the twin cities and Minnesota, Michelle Clisinitch. Today she is going to share with us the power of mastering a niche and three ways to do it. We are going to dig into one of my favorite topics, the art of niching down and Michelle is an expert at that. In fact, if you have been to our live event, it's something we cover in detail, and I actually use the phraseology of defining your lane, but I actually use Michelle as one of the advisors that I reference who has not only found a niche but flourished in it. Let me tell you a little bit about her first. If you don't already know about her from our events. She is the founder and principal at the west end group. Michelle has professional certifications as a certified divorce financial analyst and a CFP. She speaks as a subject matter expert on divorce planning throughout the twin cities, she also trains other financial professionals on how divorce and money is different than shared assets in marriage and how divorce planning requires specialized work. Michelle has more than a decade of experience in providing transparent and holistic advice to her clients, she is fabulous. Michelle and I connected what feels like a zillion year ago now. We work for the same parent company, and I was always reaching out to other superstar women and wanting to connect. We really just developed a friendship, and then when Michelle found out she was pregnant, we started coaching together since she wanted to work a little less and make a little more, and that's my jam and we've become such amazing friends in the process. We actually are even in a mastermind together now, and her business is just a straight up force to be reckoned with. I couldn't keep her a secret from you guys, and she is masterful at how creating a niche and it's allowed her to build a business that she absolutely loves. If you're new to the efficient advisor, welcome I'm Libby Greiwe. I help financial advisors grow their business without grinding out the hours. I have built a 100% referral only practice that seven figures while working only three days a week, and I know you can scale your business too, without feeling constantly overwhelmed and stressed. I want you to run a business you love and we are on this journey together. I'm super excited to dig into this, it's creating a niche, I think is one of the most crucial steps to differentiating yourself among a sea of other advisors, and really it's a key component to becoming more referable. I know for me, when we started niching down is truly when my business made that transition to being a 100% referral only, and I fell back in love with my business. The business I had sort of started to fall out of love with. Spending more time in that area that I enjoy doing the most planning was a super crucial component for our success or in the last several years, and as always I won't leave you hanging. Once you hear about Michelle's niche, I know some of you are going to want to learn more about becoming an expert in her category. We'll have some deal details for you at the end. I will not leave you hang on, I've got you.

If you have coached with me or you've been to our live event. If you've listened to any of my calls, videos, interviews, you know how important I think having a specialty is. I think to survive today, or at least to make your business journey less stressful or less overwhelming, it is crucial to differentiate yourself from every other advisor out there. I wish I could remember the name of the book, but you guys there's this analogy you've probably already heard of it, but it's called swimming in a blue ocean as opposed to swimming in a red ocean. I know the book will come to me, if you remember it, drop it in the comments below because it's making me crazy right now, but the concept is that you have to find blue, clear water to swim in, and when you do, your swim is much more enjoyable. What means is there's also a red ocean, and a red ocean is where there's lots of competition between sharks for the same fish. They're fighting, their competition is high, their nasty sides start to come out and it's a much less pleasant swim. While the blue ocean, there's not much competition and none of the sharks have to fight for fish. Everybody has plenty for themselves and they don't have to fight. They don't have to argue because their ocean is differentiated, and just for them. The business that can find or create their own blue ocean is the one that gets to live the dream with a little less competition. If you know that book, let me know, cause it's making me totally crazy, but you get the picture. I want the advisors that I work with to find their blue ocean and to have that life that's a little bit easier and a little bit more fun over there. Michelle, let's dive in, could you start with sharing with my listeners and viewers about your niche that you have carved out for yourself and a little bit about maybe how you found it? Okay.

Michelle: Absolutely, so for those of you that don't know me, I am the divorce lady in my world, both for my clients and my friends and everybody that knows me. I am happily married, but divorce is my thing. My niche is working with women who have been married a super long time, 20, 30 years, and helping them navigate through their divorce process, walking alongside the client and their attorney and helping them get super sound solid advice as they navigate their divorce. This niche goes back to 2011 when I personally experienced divorce, and at that time I had just gotten my CFP six months prior. I don't know about you, but when you get a new designation, you feel super excited. Like, I am so smart and I know so much, and then after you passed you realize, but it doesn't generate revenue, It just makes you look really cool. Fast forward six months after I got my CFP, I'm going through divorce, and as I'm navigating through my divorce process, I'm asking all my people where I work going. Hey, you have way more experience than I do, what do I do go through divorce? They'd all tell me, hey, Michelle, hire a really good attorney or hire a really good mediator, and so I did, and I went through the process realizing, even as a CFP and a trained advisor out there, I was really scared around the money stuff and divorce, and I thought, hey, if I'm feeling like this, what are people out there feeling that have no financial knowledge or even some

Libby: Right, right.

Michelle: That's where it all started with another personal friends.

Libby: I love that, Okay. I love that you had your CFP, you think, you know, your hot stuff, right. You know, lots of stuff, you've got cool little designation after your

Michelle: I got a plaque on the wall.

Libby: Yeah, well, I love that. It comes from such a really unique personal experience that ties, and I think that probably makes a really good story when you're building that rapport with your clients, how has having a niche helped you grow your business?

Michelle: Great question. Having a niche, I am very confident to say has helped me grow more than 20% per year in the last four years. I know the numbers and the numbers are that 40% of my business, new clients coming in the door today are in this divorce niche. I very much expect that my growth rate will increase as a result because I'm hoping that my practice will be about half divorce and half normal retirement cases. So, having a niche at first was I was dabbling in it and maybe not doing it full force. Now, that I really am promoting it full force, it's helped me exponentially grow my business and grow business with people that I really, really want to work with too.

Libby: Yeah, and the work you enjoy doing.

Michelle: Absolutely, just like you said, like I'm swimming in a blue ocean and there isn't that much competition. It makes my heart super happy, and I was at a point in my business seven years ago where I was getting bored, not super challenged, and that has changed.

Libby: Yeah, no that's fantastic and I love what I heard you saying in there is, I know a lot of people and I'm sure we'll get to this talking about that fear of niching down and the anxiety that you're limiting your potential client base from people who have a heartbeat in a checkbook down to like a very, very specific niche. What I heard you say that I thought was really interesting is that you help women who have been married 20 or 30 years. So, of the divorce in market, you've narrowed it down to half and then narrow it down even further. Is that something that you kind of set out initially or was that a progression?

Michelle: Great question, and in fact, I'm so glad you asked because it's something that I want people to avoid is not doing what I was doing. I was focusing on anyone in my niche divorce, that was going through a divorce, that was living, breathing, going through divorce. I thought I was doing a great job. It was before I was getting coaching before all of the professional development that I had done, and I was telling, hey, if you know, I was telling everybody that I know if you know anyone going through divorce on your gal, have them call me, and so they did, and everybody was calling and out of the people that were calling out of 10 people, maybe one, maybe two were my ideal clients. It really, when I was looking at my business revenue a couple of years after I had started in this niche, I realized, wow, I was so frustrated with the referrals I was getting. I was feeling so grateful, but yet so frustrated and then what I realized was that it was all me, it was me that was communicating the wrong thing. Then I started to figure out, well who do I really love working with and who also can drive revenue to my practice to align the head and the heart, and what I realized was that women who have been married a long time, usually have more complex situations. They have the means to pay for my time and my advice and drive my revenue at the same time.

Libby: I love that, so it kind of reminds me, when we think about niching down, that it seems like it's scary, and so it is a progression of being a niche generalist and continuing to get to kind of work your way in there. Really what you need to change it to is, I work with wealthy women, who have been married for 20 to 30.

Michelle: Libby is, I know is a coach of mine, yes. Coach Libby, yes.

Libby: Coach Libby says, say that it's wealthy women that you prefer.

Michelle: Wealthy women, yes.

Libby: No, but I love that. I think about that example all the time, when people ask you the question, do you know a good attorney.

Michelle: Yeah

Libby: Yeah, I know lots of good attorneys, but tell me a little bit more when, what do you specifically need? And then one person pops to mind. If someone's articulating their situation and they need an attorney and it's real estate specific.

Michelle: Yeah.

Libby: Immediately I have one gentleman that pops into my mind because that is what he does all day, every day. He's not doing a divorce on Monday and then defending DUI case on Tuesday and then writing your trust on Wednesday and then messing with your real estate on Thursday.

Michelle: Totally.

Libby: All the time, It's the same thing, if somebody says I need an attorney and I'm going through a divorce, I can think of one or two specific people. Do you find that articulating being a female divorce expert for wealthy women, who've been married for 20 to 30 years.

Michelle: Right.

Libby: Do you find that that makes you more, referable?

Michelle: A hundred percent, totally hands down, and I wish I would have done this when I first started in the career, because like you said, when you're networking with people and you say, who do you work with? If you say pretty much everybody, not that we say that, but if you say I really want to work with anyone and their financial picture, people look at you like deer in the headlights going, okay well A, you sound desperate and B, I can't think of anybody.

Libby: Right, right.

Michelle: But when you niche down and you're so specific, like you said, you have these light bulbs that go, oh my gosh, my neighbor just told me she's going through divorce or everybody knows somebody going through divorce, unfortunately. It's a hundred percent true, yeah.

Libby: Yeah, well, and I think about too, do you find, so I know for us personally, when we started saying that we work only with individuals who are five to 10 years out from retirement, getting ready to make that transition into retirement. What we found is it also, not only did it help people go, oh gosh, I know someone who is getting ready to retire, or I know somebody at Proctor and gamble that was just offered a package, they should talk to you, but what we also found, and I will never forget a meeting where a client said to me, gosh I really wished you worked with young with young people because my daughter's just graduating from college, and she could really benefit from sitting down with an advisor like you, and I just remember thinking like, oh, I just totally dodged a bullet. Like, those are not the kind of clients, and I know some people work with millennials and that market and do young families and kids getting right out of school, and their passion point is helping them build budgets and get set off on the right foot, that's just not my passion. It's nice to, because I feel like having that specialty also tracks.

Michelle: Boundaries.

Libby: Yeah, it sets boundaries and I mean normally this was a great client, if under any other circumstance she would have said, can you work with my daughter? I probably would have kind of felt obligated to say yes but having her kind of self-select that for me was awesome, and I know if I would have worked with her, I'd have been like the whole time, like kicking myself going meeting meetings.

Michelle: Bum, bum, totally.

Libby: Yeah, so I love this. You went through a divorce, you realize that was a huge need, it aligned with, so that's kind of the passion component, and then you realize you could actually make money doing it. It's a profitable passion, which is good, because we either run a business, a charity, or a nonprofit. We want to run a business and you have an aptitude for it. You've got all these cute little letters behind your name. What was kind of the tipping point for you taking that desire to be a divorce planner really, to the next level? Like what was that tipping point?

Michelle: Yeah, and this all relates back to coaching. Libby, you have an incredible coach to me, and you don't know what I'm going to say this, but.

Libby: No, but I'm totally, I'm sending you 20 bucks or something.

Michelle: Thank you, I need it now. The one-on-one coaching that you and I have done honestly, was a huge tipping point for me. As you know, I was dabbling on the divorce niche for quite a few years. I got my divorce designation, I thought this is amazing, just like my CFP. I'm going to start to get clients flooding in the door, like look at me, and then like this high, like went down and I was wondering, what am I going to do? Do I market myself? What do I do? And what boil is down to me, at least for me personally, is that I needed more confidence that I was really good at what I was doing in divorce planning, and I find confidence comes in teaching other people. Libby you might remember a handful of years ago, three, four years ago. I got asked by my parent company to talk at an upcoming conference, and this happened to be Women's Only conference, and they said, hey, do you want to speak? We know that you're good at speaking, I said sure, and then they said. Well, what do you want to speak about? And I thought, well that's interesting, and I thought you were going to tell me, but okay, let me talk to my coach. Anyway, you and I chatted and what you really helped me come to the realization was why wouldn't I talk about my passion around divorce planning? But the thing that was totally, just a huge moment for me was this idea that I've had for a while, and I shared with you, I love to train other advisors and what's different in divorce planning, and you totally inspired me too. When I was speaking, you're like, well, what's your ask going to be? You can't just speak, get paid out lower than you should be speaking fee and not get anything as a result to build your business, and you were so right. You truly inspired me to create a coaching training program, and to announce it in the speaking events. Literally I'm speaking to these 300 women. Little do they know the training program isn't really built, but I...

Libby: That's not important details,

Michelle: But as I'm speaking, I'm sharing with people, hey, I have the passion to train. If you want me to train you in divorce planning, let me know if you're interested. I had one third of the room contact me that they were interested in training, and that helped me for a training program. That's a side business that I have that really helped me really sharpen my skills and get out there and say, hey when I'm talking to clients, not only do I work with you clients, but I'm also training other advisors on how to do this. It really helped me increase the confidence, which is increasing my case size of the results.

Libby: Yeah, so let's talk really quick. I want to talk about how you help others identify their niche, and we can talk about that in a second, but when. We're talking about proven competence you're increasing your own personal confidence in that building acumen. How do you position it with, I just kind of want to hear some language, I think that would be helpful for people. How do you position your specialty with existing clients who are just your typical married, retiring couple, and how do you position yourself in all of your marketing collateral and just in the general marketplace?

Michelle Absolutely, good question. It took me a while to figure out what I was going to say. I try and remember almost every meeting with anybody, whether they're an individual or a couple, and I tell them at towards the end of the meeting. Hey, I know we've known each other for us super long time, I just wanted to share with you that I'm constantly getting educated and credentials in getting out there, and I want you to know a niche that I have that you may not know that I have. I am super passionate about working with anybody who is navigating divorce, and they've been married a long time, and I'm working mostly with women and have really empowering them and educating them, so they can see light at the end of the tunnel because it's super scary, and what I find is that women don't always know that people like me exist. I want you to know if you know anyone going through that, please keep me in mind, I'd love to help them.

Libby: And I know the answer to this, but does anybody ever think that you can't help them because you have a niche?

Michelle: No, you're right, and that is a legitimate fear, but I tell them I practice it with half my practice is working with people like you and the other half is this knit. Yeah, it doesn't exclude me from working with them, yeah.

Libby: Yeah, and it's funny. I care if I've talked about this on a podcast before, but I had a friend who was doing; she had a product and she was selling it on QVC. She went to QVC school where they teach you how to sell live, and she said it was just a fascinating experience because their big thing was, they have an exact ideal client. It's a, I don't remember the details, but it's like a 34-year-old married woman who lives in the Midwest and has 2.5 kids and blue eyes and brown hair. I mean, they had it and they have a name for her, like Sarah, and they're like, when you're selling, you sell to Sarah. Even if your product is for men, even if your product is for married people, even if your product is for single people, old young, doesn't matter, you sell to Sarah. If you speak to everyone, you will appeal to no one. If you speak to someone specific, you won't necessarily alienate everyone else, and she said that was one of her biggest sales takeaways, was how important it is to language yourself for someone specifically, without fear that you're going to alienate. She made the comment that she had a very female oriented product, and the first person that called in live that said they bought, it was a dude. She was like, totally like flabbergasted, like, oh my gosh, talking to Sarah work a dude.

Michelle: Yeah, well even on my website, I have a video and it's geared towards divorcing women, and I have done call me all the time about divorce and yes, I will work with them. I just don't promote myself to guys.

Libby: Sure, well I like we talked about it makes you more referable, and if you have those clients who are couples that obviously, were probably friends with the couple, or you know them on both sides, they're probably going to refer to the female. I would imagine, they would probably prefer to refer the female to you.

Michelle: Absolutely.

Libby: Let's talk about marketing your niche, I know people will be interested. Once you've gone through that process, you've identified it you're credentialed. You feel good about it. You're confident you've got your language and you’re marketing now what?

Michelle: Yeah, so my biggest aha was that when I was; I hired a speaking coach, I worked with [22:16-22:17 in audible] the, and I realized I needed marketing support. So, around all the same time four years ago, I hired a marketing director and that's a little side note, but I truly feel like to execute a robust marketing plan, you absolutely need support. I was doing it myself for a while, but that was huge. About marketing your niche, if again, sort of like if we get designations and we sit there, twiddling our thumbs going, I hope people call me. It's up to us to generate and attract the right clients, and some of that marketing is going to be organic. Those one-on-one conversations and sharing truly where your heart is and who you want to help using maybe similar scripting that I used, but getting out there and marketing your niche, I really truly feel like does even though we were joking about all the letters, meaning it doesn't always mean you're going to get marketing, but I really feel like if you want to stand out as a true expert in a certain niche, you do really need a credential that speaks right to that niche.

Libby: Right.

Michelle: For me, it was confidence building the certified divorce, financial analyst designation it's called, and I was networking with a couple of different family law, divorce attorneys, and that's the first question they would ask me is, hey, are you a CFA? And I had to say, no, but I'm a CFP, and they're like, we don't care. That was really a fuel to my fire, if you will, to just put my pride down a little bit and go get the stupid designation, knowing that it will help some clients, and for some it doesn't, but it was worth it.

Libby: Yea, I love that. You do a fair amount of marketing with other professionals in that field?

Michelle: Yes, so that's a huge point too. Yeah, so I have what I call a divorced team concept that I teach to my clients, but I'll tell you on the marketing side and I share with people when I'm sitting down networking and there are other divorce professionals and I'll tell them, hey, I'm referring my clients to this list of people and you're one of the types. I'd love to share with you about my practice to see if we'd be a great fit because my clients need people like you, and assuming that I'm feeling good energy from them, and that they're really known for what, they're really good at what they do, and they have good reputation, I really stay in touch with them, and I will share with them very candidly that I don't refer just to them, and I also share candidly that I'm not expecting referrals back, but at the same time, if they do have a divorcing woman who's been married for 20 or 30 years, I'm their gal.

Libby: And is wealthy and as wealthy.

Michelle: And is wealthy has tons of money, yes. I try and stay on top of them. I have, what's called a top 50 campaign and my top 50 referral sources. Most of these divorce people are on there, so I'm a couple of times a year sending them goodies in the mail, something physical to get in front of them, to stay present, and it's nothing usually business-wise, it's more hey I'm thinking of you kind of thing.

Libby: I love it, give us an example of little goodies that you send.

Michelle: We are actually the marketing director, and I just talked this morning. We're doing a spring mailing and it's, the subject is going to say, here's something to brighten your day and it's going to be a candle for the women, and it's going to be this little flashlight you can put somewhere handy on your key chain or something for the guys. Last spring, we did something about springing into the new season, and we gave tickets that are super cheap to a flower to show in town that were under our gift limit, which was kind of cool, and then some cute flower theme. We do something for the guys different from the girls.

Libby: Oh, I love that. That's really cute.

Michelle: Yeah, we did a s'mores theme in the fall too, which was kind of cute. Just warming up for the fall season and we gave a little some smores kits in the fall.

Libby: I love that because, it's funny, I say this all the time to people when we're coaching and I'm like look a coffee mug with your logo on it is not a gift for them. It's a gift for you, a gift them is a coffee mug with their Alma mater on it, not your logo. I love the personal touch and the kind of cute whimsical kind of themes behind it, that aren't money-related, because I’ll say that all the time, like, oh, I did this really amazing gift, and it was my company backpack or a bag or reusable grocery bag

Michelle: Like they're going to use it

Libby: Is that really for them or is that really just marketing for you? I was thinking of you, and I got you a coffee mug about me, yeah.

Michelle: And I talked to invite these divorce professionals to professional things I'm doing. Let's say I'm hosting a gala table and does that my favorite charity events. I really try and plug those people into so they can see that I'm more than just about managing money too.

Libby: Yeah, no that's fantastic. Do you, when you're marketing, let's say social media, web presence, is all of your language surrounding your niche or is it a little bit of both?

Michelle: A little bit of both, good question. In fact, we were getting so far away from my niche that lately we've been infusing a little bit more of my niche. I would say it's a good mix of 50/50. I know that social media, LinkedIn, not everyone's doing LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is the biggest example I can give. As I see a lot of people saying they have a niche and then their title on LinkedIn is financial planner or something super generic, and most people are getting the drift and getting coaching from LinkedIn social media experts that, that's not cutting it anymore, and that being super specific. I can't say mine is like the best, it says divorce planning and retirement planning. It's not super sexy and fun, I'm trying to work on that, but at least it speaks to the two niches that I focus on. The more we can tailor and actually practice what we preach, because if we're going to tell clients. Hey, I'm the top divorce planner in the twin cities. If you know any woman going through divorce, been married a long time, they've got to call me. If my social media doesn't speak to that, I'm going to look like a phony.

Libby: Yeah, no, absolutely. When I think about how a client, so let's say someone's in the market for a financial planner, they're going to ask for a couple of recommendations and they're going to Google stock you, and if they go out to three websites and check out three different advisors. Two are vanilla, vanilla, just like everybody else looks like your parent company wrote the description you copied and pasted it, you do everything. You do planning and charitable planning and divorce planning, and you let people adopt cats out of the back room of your office. If you do everything, and then there's that one person who's like, hey I specialize in exactly what you need. Saying I think about this all the time for our live events. When we were looking at audio and visual support, we went out to some event planning websites and I would open up and if it was all weddings, it was like, even if they said weddings and corporate planning. I need someone who specifically knows audio and visual needs for a corporate event, so that people in the back room can hear me, and they're not, it's not a party. It's a very different atmosphere. Although we do have a good time, I'm not going to lie.

Michelle: I've heard that.

Libby: I want someone who is so, even the ones that were half and half. It was like, no, I'm just going to go with the person that this is what they do. This is their bread and butter all day, every day, they help speakers have the best audio in the back of the room. They help them with pump up music in between sessions and all that fun stuff. I don't need the person who's got the bar mitzvah schedule down pat. I mean, but it's true, it was so easy to go through those episodes and go nope, maybe. That's the one for me, I love that. I think that's super smart, and it's interesting you mentioned LinkedIn cause tomorrow I'm actually recording a call with Lindsay McMillan-Stephen, who is a LinkedIn social media expert specifically for financial advisors. So I'm really..

Michelle: Oh cool.

Libby: Really excited.

Michelle: I'll learn something.

Libby: She works a lot with advisors at captive agencies and independent agencies and boutique firms, within the compliance rules of what can we, and can't we say about us. Let's talk about what, you know, what other marketing do you do that drives your niche? How else do you position yourself as an expert in that category?

Michelle: Yeah, I do a lot of speaking in the community. I speak at different venues, whether I get hosted to speak. A divorce attorney has an event and I get asked to speak at that event or I'm creating speaking events where I'm something where there's ongoing speaking, going through. Adult community education or different speaking venues where I consistently am a speaker at them. People see my name all the time. The speaking thing does drive revenue, it's not the only source of referrals, but it really also builds credibility. In fact, my marketing director, and I really put the speaking gigs also on the schedule so that we can promote them to those divorce center of influence as I told you about. Even if you know, God forbid the workshop cancels, not that that's happened to any of you, but it's happened to me, ever. At least we had an excuse to promote it to our divorce COI, so it looks like we're super active. Worst case if there aren't six people there, we're going to cancel it or we just don't hold it. At least I got some free marketing out of it.

Libby: No, absolutely, I think that is super smart. I love this, I have like a thousand questions. I feel like we could make this a seven-hour podcast on niching down. What would you say to that advisor? That's like I know what I'm passionate about. I'd love to do more of it, but I'm afraid that I can't make more money, or I can't make just as much money if I narrow my focus.

Michelle: Yeah, well one thing I'm going to recommend is that you watch a YouTube video. I am not a niche expert. I just have I'm living it; I'm breathing it every single day. I feel like I have some knowledge to share there's niche experts out there, but here's what I recommend. Watch this YouTube video called why you need a niche, and if you watch this for the first minute and a half, it's hilarious, it's a cartoon, and it speaks to what Libby you're saying, and what I believe too. Is that if you don't niche down, you actually could be losing money and maybe not growing at all. By having that fear, which is totally legitimately out there, is that if we're not working with the whole world that we're working now with these two focus or however many you choose, it seems like your potential could reduce, but quite the opposite I'm super confident will happen is that if you don't niche down and tell people who you're really passionate and really good at working, I think your revenue is going to go down, not up.

Libby: Yeah, well and its funny cause I always liken it to if right now someone in my office had a heart attack and I ran over to them and I was like do you want me to take you to the hospital where there's a cardiologist? Or do you want me to rush you right over to your general practitioner? Who knows a lot about everything and is a super smart dude, which one would you prefer?

Michelle: Right.

Libby: Most people are going to say, well yeah. Of course, I want to go to the cardiologist, they specialize in what exactly I've got going on right now. Of course, I'd like to do that, and you know what, I'd actually be willing to pay more to that individual. If we look at your general practitioner physician, cardiologists make about four times as much as a GP. They only work on, I don't know, one organ, thoracic cavity. I don't know exactly what the cardiologist does clearly, I did not go to medical school, but they can charge more for a specialty

Michelle: Yeah,

Libby: Because it's...

Michelle: Good point.

Libby: Located or something, that's more. When people think about their heart, this is like a crucial thing and I'm willing to pay it just like transitioning into retirement is for the clients that we manage that for, or just like going through a divorce process or special needs planning or whatever it is that you choose to be a specialist in, and two when you ask me do you have any physicians that you'd recommend? I can think of five or six or maybe more, but I can only think of one or two cardiologists off the top of my head, which again makes them make some more referrals.

Michelle: Yeah, and maybe one thing I'll mention Lilly is that I think people when they hear to, you need to be a specialist to really grow that maybe they get intimidated by, I'm only so many years in this business, how can I really be a specialist? One thing I would just mention, and this is not technical whatsoever, but you of got to fake it till you make it in this career. You got to know your stuff, you can't just make stuff up, but you need to start somewhere, and so if you have one client that's whatever your passion is, special needs planning for families with kids with special needs. You can start saying, maybe that you have this passion to help people going through this. You don't have to tell them you only have one other family. You've got to start somewhere. I just want to share for those that that's helpful with. I think that held me back for a while and really embracing my niches. I need to learn more, and I need to be better before I say I'm the specialist. I have that much on that.

Libby: Well, and you can also part with other advisors that truly are specialist.

Michelle: Totally.

Libby: I know you do a lot of work. People will bring significant cases to you with the complexities that you are perfectly equipped to.

Michelle: Yes.

Libby: The other thing I would encourage people to think it's not a permanent decision. This isn't like a tattoo on your forehead. That once you say I'm a divorce planning expert, that you will never ever be able to change that.

Michelle: Yeah.

Libby: I love using the analogy of finding your lane as opposed to a specialty, and I love the lane analogy, because you can think about it as a highway. There is one lane highways, there's two lane highways or three lane highways. You can take the exit ramp, if you change your mind, you can get onto a super narrow little kind...

Michelle: You can do a U-turn.

Libby: You turns you can just lay them on the brakes, but I love that because you don't have to have just a singular

Michelle: Yeah.

Libby: That this is all you do every day. You're at a wonderful example that you still have a practice as well, balanced between two lanes, but they're related.

Michelle: Yeah,

Libby: I think it's a little bit more difficult to say. I have a gal that I'm coaching, who we've identified her niche as she loves working with nurse anesthetist students. I mean, you talk about niche, niching on down.

Michelle: Yeah.

Libby: And we know while she's building out curriculum to work with these nursing schools as these; well in the beautiful part, they leave school with tons of debt. They're making tons of money and she just feels super passionate about educating them while they're accumulating that debt. They can make really good decisions once they're out of school and they're making great income and how to balance saving for retirement versus I'm not going to done. By the way, I will link the video, you mentioned that YouTube video, I will link that either in the comments below, if you're watching this on video or I'll put it in the show notes, if you're watching, if you're listening to on podcasts. But with this gal in particular, she said, I can't make a ton of money off that yet. I need to figure out how to monetize it, which is what we're working on and she's like, would it be weird if I had another specialty or another couple specialties? And it's like, I mean if you were saying that I'm going to do end of life transition or something like that. It might be a little weird to be in, I also help nurse anesthetist students. She started also then working with dentists and physicians. Role secondary lane for that specialty.

Michelle: Nice

Libby: Kind of staying in a similar world, but not necessarily singular focus at that.

Michelle: Totally, yeah.

Libby: I love it. I love it. We talked about it, repelling clients that you don't want. I think that's great.

Michelle: Yeah.

Libby: Do you think is important for people to know about creating a niche?

Michelle: I don't think there's anything new, I just want to reiterate that I am confident that having a niche, whether it's a specific group of people like my practice or retirement planning. Five to 10 years out, whatever the niche looks like, it can be stage of life. It can be so many different things like something someone's going through like divorce. I am super confident that it only helps you be extremely more referable and Libby that's how you started this whole thing, was that it a hundred percent leads to referability. If you tell, I have a realtor friend of mine say, hey, I love some referrals from you. You got to just like came out and said that, and I was like, I love this guy. I volunteer with him, I know he has a good heart, I know he's a good business, but I literally was like, I couldn't think of anybody to refer them to and then the next day I met a brand-new realtor who wanted to create a referral relationship with me. She was super specific, she was like, I want to work with women who are downsizing or post-transition like losing a husband or divorce on the west side of the cities in this neighborhood, and I was like, I know two people I can refer to you. It's crazy, I was super impressed with her, and I referred her to people and referred none of the other guys. I think that happens a lot in our business, if we're not specific or losing out on clients, that could be a huge great fit for us.

Libby: That's awesome. No, I love that. We're doing a live call tomorrow with 257 of my best friends, advisors, and one of the main topics we're going to be talking about is differentiating, and you had sent me a quote that I want you to share because I'm going to totally steal it and use it tomorrow too.

Michelle: Is it the last one by Simon Sinek?

Libby: Yes.

Michelle: Okay, so working hard for something we don't care about is called stress and working hard for we love is called passion, Simon Sinek.

Libby: I love it, and it totally that this, when you sent that, I was like that totally speaks to me because when you are doing the kind of work that you enjoy. We've all taken those cases and it still happens on occasion to the best of us, and then you're doing the work hating every moment of it, because you don't enjoy that type of planning or you're having to kind of work outside your sweet spot, or maybe when you have a really great niche and you're working in it, you have all these templates and systems and processes and everyone in your office is really well-educated on all that, and sometimes when you go outside of it, then it causes so much extra work and extra stress, and then you're just.

Michelle: Crabby yeah, and then you have to work with them for bazillions of years to come, maybe.

Libby: It looked like a jerk saying, thanks so much now you're gone. I love that because you're right. When you, when you're doing the kind of work you enjoy and you find a way to monetize it and make it profitable, it, it just makes; we're all trying to build a business we love and that specialty, you’re differentiating yourself, even if it's not a true specialty yet. Finding some sort of way to differentiate yourself from every other advisor and finding that blue ocean to swim in just makes this job, which is incredibly difficult, emotionally taxing and physically draining. Just makes it easier and easier to; like I said for me, when we started specializing and we started doing only the kind of work I love is when I fell back in love with my business, because there was a good period of time where I was doing really well. I was making plenty of money, but I fell out of love with what I was doing, came to resent it. If that makes sense, it might ring true for somebody else out there, but yeah, I love that. So, thank you so much.

Michelle: You're welcome.

Libby: Oh my God, it's been so helpful. I know so many advisors that I coach or that I talk to struggle with figuring out what they're an expert at and what they love doing. I know some of these tips and strategies are going to make a difference in so many people's lives. We are so grateful to him and because you are so full of great information, can you tell everyone where they can connect with you? And can you tell the advisors about your divorce niche training that you do?

Michelle: Absolutely, so I trained advisors in how to get out there and not only have the designation. If divorce, it speaks to you as a niche, but I train advisors on how to monetize that and how to take marketing to the next level and how to know the divorce specific strategies that are pretty technical to really stand out as an expert. Connect with me, we'll put my email in the bottom somewhere and connects with me that way, if you're interested, especially if you work at the same parent company as me, and if you want to just pick my brain on concepts or just niche stuff in general. let's stay connected on social media and share ideas that way too.

Libby: That is such a generous offer, you were so kind, and I personally vouch for. I took your divorce training, and it was fabulous. I learned a ton of stuff, even though that I don't have that as a specialty, it has come in so handy, so many times. Even if it's just like the random at a birthday party, somebody mentioned something and I felt so much more educated or having clients going through that process. I was smart enough to have you work with me on the case, but I could at least speak intelligibly about it, you got involved.

Mitchell: Yeah, thank you.

Libby: If anyone out there is struggling with differentiating themselves or figuring out what it is that they love. Go ahead, book a strategy session with me, I can help you identify where your passion is and where passionate and profitability overlap. Like I always say, are you running a business? Are you running a charity or not for profit? If it is a business, you do get need to get paid for the work that you love doing. We can come up with a strategy of how to go to market with that specialty. Thank you so much, Michelle.

Mitchell: It was super fun, thanks for having me today.

Libby: Fabulous. All right, I will talk to you, all right. Thanks a lot.

Mitchell: Bye.