How To Find Your Niche

Welcome to the eleventh episode of #peekintoprocess. Erin meets with Anna Bordner of The Dwell Society to discuss how to integrate your skill set to create a unique and targeted business.

Anna gives a look into how she successfully stepped out of the work force and started her own company using what she knows and growing her knowledge along the way.

Or simply read the highlights below

Erin

This is the 11th episode of #peekintoprocess which is a look behind the scenes of branding. For those that don't know, we are here to talk about how to find your niche. I really am excited about this conversation because I've had the opportunity to get to know you and get to work with you and it's only through these wonderful connections that any of this even happened. 

I wanted to mention something. A lot of times people talk about Instagram, and finding leads on Instagram. But I found such an incredible network of people and resources and partners on Instagram, who just so happened to live down the street not.

Anna

I know, we have such a cool network of female entrepreneurs locally and I think that's just one of my most favorite things about living here. I think sometimes when we think about finding your niche, a lot of times it's trial and error and

Erin

I've always been a writer, but it's been through a series of of experiences...my career moves different jobs, and I've been able to hone it into writing for brand and more specifically, I really like b2b and I like tech. Tell me a little bit about who you are and what it is that you do.

Anna

I recently, within the last few months, launched a company called The Dwell Society. And what I do is I support niche engineering and construction business owners or their employees with virtual project support and website design, and copywriting, I am an engineer by trade, but was always able to write which is an interesting combination.

Erin

You have an engineering background. Tell me what that means to you. What type of thinking does an engineer employ? 

Anna

I want to say everything's black and white. I had this professor once who told me that engineering is the art of approximation. I love that because you have to make all these super educated guesses, as you're creating whatever it is, that you're creating, but there is that artistic side to it as well. 

Erin

I'm going to talk about the niche. There's obviously an audience and a target audience for your niche. Marketing, copywriting website development. For whom are you doing this for?

Anna

It's kind of interesting, because when I wrote out my brand story, my target audience is older men who are now passing on their businesses to millennials, and maybe their website has been up since 2008, and needs to be changed, and they do awesome work, but it doesn't match what their presence is online. Or they're not getting jobs because they're not doing beautiful presentations. That was our target audience. But what's been really interesting is the first few clients I've been working with have been female owners of these niche businesses, which really has been blowing my mind. You Google like engineering or whatever type of construction companies say Palm Beach County. 90% of the websites are all antiquated. And they're coming in with that same problem.They do great work, and it doesn't match what it looks like online and so I was able to use this engineering voice.

I've been in the construction industry since high school and even more recently, and to be able to use that experience, in that voice, and mix it with like these technical aspects that they need to portray in a way that makes sense to the general public, really. And I’m able to put it together in a way that makes sense.

I'm not stereotyping engineers.

Erin

I have best friends that are engineers, but you know, it's a special breed and to have the duality or almost polarity, mindsets, I think must create a really beautiful product.

Anna

I actually have an undergraduate and a graduate degree in engineering class and a minor in business. I know we're talking about this but I learned, basically taught myself marketing. There's like a deeper reason why no one tells you kids that your whole life is gonna change. You don't want to be stuck in a cubicle. And basically felt like I was living someone else's dream in exchange for a paycheck. In 2015, I had my son, and I have my daughter and it just was a huge change. No one told me I was gonna want to be with them for the first couple years and change the diapers when my daughter was born. I quit my nice cushy engineering job and it was very scary. Then I taught myself a whole new reality, 

Erin

What were you exploring? What were you learning from? 

Anna

Being a new mom, my older sister was a chiropractor and a functional medicine doctor. I would ask her...What can I take? What can I do? How can I take care of my child without taking something I'm not supposed to - enter with essential oils. I attended my first essential oil basics class. I don't know if I can look at something and see it 10 years down the road. There's so much opportunity here. I'm gonna buy these anyways. I ended up partnering with doTERRA and I still have this business. Network Marketing business doTERRA and it was so life giving, and it still is. I traveled and went to the events and learned from people. I did all the training. I did my homework and then I implemented it, which I think is a huge difference in some people, because I was over training, and they're like, “Oh, this is such a good idea”. You can learn all you want, but to do it is another whole other thing. 

Erin

I wonder if that's a little bit of the engineer, part of you, the sort of the realization of an idea, right. You know, it's putting the pen to the paper to design it to make it happen. 

I would learn and take tutorials all day long, because I think it's fun. But you're right, like if you don't have to put it into action, you know, you're probably not it's definitely not going to make any money. 

You've taken us through you studied to be an engineer, you are still an engineer. Then you taught yourself marketing. You know some technical prowess, you know these tools... Then 2020 hits and then what? How does The Dwell Society come to life?

Anna

What I've learned, but I've taught myself in doTERRA, and my engineering background, and bring them together in a way that can support something like the engineering or construction industry. I don't ever see that going away. We're not stopping during 2020. And if it stops in one place, it's not stopped in another place. I just saw this huge need to create something that really was going to be solid business going forward. And I see that in the construction and engineering industry. That's really never going to stop where we are.

Erin

There's stability in the industry that you've chosen, which is, which is a good idea.You mentioned something, though, about sort of the sign CAD or being able to also offer additional services than marketing services. Do you see that? How is that working? Does that all of a sudden sort of feed into their business operations or are you really looking to do engineering project work? 

Anna

I see myself being able to do some project work. I loved helping create the processes. I loved helping to create the presentations a lot of them are doing now. What I love about my job, I did a ton of analysis work in spreadsheets and making them. I not only like doing the math behind it all, the beautiful, reasonable and pulling it out in a way that would speak to someone who doesn't know everything that I just did in that spreadsheet, right. I think it's really getting in front of the right people, like probably people who don't know where to start and that type of thing. I see requests all the time like I need a structural engineer to do these drawings for my house, or an architect to draw this up for me. I have to recruit some more engineers. Maybe eventually I see my husband working more with me, even if it's on a part time basis. 

Erin

So what's your secret to keeping this machine chugging? 

Anna

Coffee. I'm not Superwoman. I homeschool my kids, but I won't pretend to do it on my own so I really have to schedule myself. Two days that they're in school are my deep work days. And I have to make sure I'm not taking on more than I can handle. So I have to be super realistic about that too. I have to be really good at turning my brain on and off. Basics like Instacart. Getting Instacart, just a little time saver, having someone who I love and trust come to help clean my house. 

Erin

I have tech companies that have a really incredible engineering background and I do a lot of writing for them. And I thought, wouldn't it be nice to have somebody with an engineering mind? Structure some of this, write, rewrite headlines that will speak more directly to the benefits that someone like that would resonate where I don't really know all the time. 

Anna

I love working with you. By the way though. I feel like I've learned so much already.

Erin

You are also quite a content creator and you have a really good cadence about

Where are you looking and how are you finding these people? 

Anna

People that I've worked with already, or know in real life, the Facebook crowd. Before The Dwell Society, it was people that I knew personally. I did a lot of work with my dad. I had created a website for a business friend and it was really beautiful, and it was kind of my intro to learning Squarespace. So I created a website for my dad and a Facebook page.

…I'm kind of loving starting out with people I know as I get these systems in place. As I'm working out the areas that I really like to work in. Instagram is always fun way to connect with people.

Erin

Was there anything else you wanted to cover? Make sure that people know about The Dwell Society or just advice about being okay with sort of mixing your skill set?

Anna

When I switched from engineering to just doing doTERRA as a business, there was a hell of a lot of shame around it. I'm an engineer. But now I try to say it in a way like, I'm an engineer and I can work from home and I get to support these different businesses by using my background in what I created for my doTERRA business. I think it's so beautiful to be able to take what you already know. For some people, they're like, “Oh, I'm really great at watching children so I'm going to get started and have a whole business right here,” or maybe you had an office job, and you really know Excel, so market your Excel skills or whatever it is that you're good at. I think people know so much already.