Why You’re Getting the Wrong Clients (and How to Fix It)

We do not want to talk to people. We want to talk to a person so that that messaging feels targeted, it feels real and relevant. So look at your favorite clients, look at the work that you've done. Look where the revenue is coming from. Who are those people.

This is the entrepreneur school podcast where we believe you can run a thriving business and still make your family a priority. This show is all about supporting you, the emerging or early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur to CEO while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is Kelly Sinclair, and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who started a business with two kids under three. I'm a corporate PR girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life is too short to waste doing things that burn you out on this show, you'll hear inspiring stories from other business owners on their journey and learn strategies to help you grow a profitable business while making it all fit into the life that you want. Welcome to entrepreneur School.

Welcome back to entrepreneur school. I'm here with Mallika Malhotra. She is a brand strategist, an AI innovator and the powerhouse behind the brand, CEO with 20 plus years of experience, including some time at L'Oreal and oil of allay, she helps entrepreneurs ditch generic messaging and stand out with bold niche to brands. Big fan. I'm a big fan of this, so I can't wait for this conversation. And Malika is the creator of the bullseye branding formula, and she's the founder of Lumi, which is an AI powered brand messaging tool for women. And if you have been hanging out on the podcast for a while, you know that I'm all about all of these things, and particularly AI tools that can support us in getting clarity and helping us with producing content and all of those things. So Malika, I'm so excited to have you here. You're here to help us get clear on our niche and finally, stop being the best kept secret in our space. Welcome.

Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here

absolutely let's start with a big idea around the fear of niching down. This is something I hear a lot a lot of pushback. We're scared to go narrow because we think that means leaving money on the table or excluding people from our services. So because the whole thing kind of feels counterintuitive, that narrow helps you grow. So can you walk us through how niching down actually gives entrepreneurs more visibility, clarity and opportunity.

Yeah, so I hear this all the time, people are afraid to be put into a box. I don't want to say, No, I'm multi passionate, right? I have all of the different skills and strengths, and I want to just help every person in the world. But that strategy kind of gets you nowhere, right? It is not sustainable over time, and it will probably put you on the road to burnout, but it certainly did for me, and that's why I'm so passionate about this. There was a time in my own business where I was doing all the things I was doing, children's photography, brand photography, Instagram workshops, vision board workshops, brand strategy, because people came to me and I just thought I had to deliver what they wanted. But no one saw me as an expert. Nobody respected me as a specialist, and I couldn't charge what I believed I was worth. And so after doing some soul searching, after doing some audits, and really looking at, where is the money coming from, where are the referrals coming from, right? Who do I like to work with? So when we talk about niching, we're not just pulling out of the air a niche and saying, Does this fit? We're actually looking at data and trying to see where is the business growth and the opportunity. And once you do that, once you can narrow down, your marketing becomes simpler in some ways, right? Because it's so much more targeted. Instead of talking to people, we are now talking to a person. Instead of being this Jane of all trades, where you have multiple focuses and multiple audiences, and you're not really doing a great job at all of them, you're now really focusing your business, your skill set, your zone of genius in one lane, and you're owning it. You're standing in that power and that sort of feeling, that energy is contagious when you're putting a stake in the ground that says, You know what? There are brand strategists everywhere. But I am the go to furnishing. I am the person you want to work with, because I have a system. I have done this work, I have evidence, I have an expertise, right? You have everything supporting it. So yes, it does feel scary, and yes, it might not be the right time for you to niche, but there will be a time where you're hitting the wall, you're plateauing, and you're going to need to sort of pause and look at your business as a whole, look at the marketplace, the competitors, and see what the gaps are, and then do some of that self. Discovery work to figure out where can I get more focus, and that will make you stand out more will help you grow your business, because you'll be seen as an authority. You'll be able to charge premium prices because you are the expert. And there's just so many other great things that come with that once you get more focus and you get a little bit more narrow,

yeah, let's talk a little bit about the timing of when is right to start thinking about this process. And I also know that the answer is going to be like, it could also happen multiple times throughout your business, that your brand is evolving and growing, right? So does somebody do? You recommend people start by choosing a niche and then seeing how it fits, and then doing some analysis like walk us through that process a bit.

Yeah, so every case is different. I've had some clients that have a very unique skill set, and it's just natural for them to kind of niche down because they have this expertise, these credentials, this work experience that is already pretty narrow. But if you're new, let's say you're new to coaching. You just graduated from life coaching school, right? You might need to experiment a little bit. You might need to do all the things for a little bit, at least six months, I say, where you work with a lot of different people. You have a lot of different projects, and you keep an open, curious mind, right? And you collect the data as it goes. We all know when we have that really bad client experience, right? And it is taking the energy out of you, and you are having that imposter syndrome because you don't feel like you're in that zone of genius. Take note of that. That is a lesson there, and that might mean these are breadcrumbs that should take you away from maybe what your niche is, right, and then they're the clients and the work where you're in slow right, and it is natural, and you are feeling so good, and it comes easy, and people are referring you over and over for this certain type of customer, or this certain type of season of business, or this certain type of job or expertise. Take note again, that is data that is pointing you in the direction of what your niche should be. So I think if you're new and you're a newbie, it's okay, you can try different things, but keep track, right? Make those audits, and, you know, make sure that you are pausing and relooking every three months and every six months. But if you have signs that you are getting the wrong clients. You're getting the wrong referrals. You're not getting those opportunities in your inbox right? That are for those specialists and those experts. If people want discounts, those are also signs that it might be time for

Yes, thank you for those red flags, because sometimes we just are trying to focus on anybody who will pay us is a good client, right?

Yes, and boundaries are good, like you will grow your business, sometimes you say no, and it opens the door of the window for a better opportunity, right? And so there's a point in our entrepreneurial journey where we should be selective. We should be positioning ourselves as a specialist. We should be optimizing our skills and strengths in a way where we're creating a system, right? All of these things happen to create that niche brand, and that's kind of what I call that Bullseye branding formula, when you can kind of figure that out that will help you become a more distinctive brand.

Yeah, let's walk through what some of the core elements of that framework are and how people can think about applying it,

yeah. So you know you could be feeling right now that you're more of this mainstream, generic brand, where you're just blending in and you're like, I need to make a change, right? I know I have an audience, I have an offer, I have skills, but for some reason, I am still invisible. What do I need to do? So I've created a framework that I use on my own brand and with all my clients, and so it's called the bullseye branding formula, and it has four distinct pillars. So the first is getting specific in your audience. We've talked about this. We do not want to talk to people. We want to a person so that that messaging feels targeted, it feels real and relevant. So look at your favorite clients, look at the work that you've done, look where the revenue is coming from. Who are those people, right? And try to create a profile around them so that you can clone them, find more of them, right? So you want to get very specific in that audience. That's step one. Step two is to kind of find that zone of genius. What is your specialization? If you started communicating just, I am the go to expert in people would look at you differently, rather than, Hi, I'm a nutritionist, period. I have no idea who to send your way. I have no idea what you do, what value you bring. Instead of saying, I'm a nutritionist for women who are over 40, navigating menopause and midlife, and they are doing all the things, eating all the right foods, but that meadow belly is not coming off, right, I'd be like, raise my hand. That's me, you know, right? So getting various. Specialize in what you do really well, and using that in your messaging is going to help you. The third part is that stand out quality. We all have it, but are we articulating it right? That competitive edge? Do you know why someone chose you over somebody else? Have you read your testimonials lately to get that goal to really, you know, go through, put them in chat GPT, all those testimonials good chat GPT, help you figure out what that special sauce you have. You need to know what that is, and you need to bake that into your marketing, your strategy and your messaging. Then the last part of helping you find that niche is your solution. Do you have a methodology, a formula that you do on rinse and repeat over and over, that's going to help differentiate you, that's going to help you get results faster, that also is going to help you really create that, you know, hyper focused on point, laser focused brand.

So I love that you are talking about a variety of different aspects here. Because I think when we hear the term niche, we typically just think about ideal client and like, who the person is that you're serving, but you're also acknowledging the need to have that same level of clarity on the service that you're providing or the offer, like, what you're actually doing for the client. Like, what did you call that? Your your secret sauce, your expertise, right?

Specialization, yeah,

specialization, as well as, as well as the ideal client. Give me the summary of your framework. Again, I'm sure. Yeah,

specific audience, specialization, stand out quality and unique solution.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's all of those things, rather than just who's the person, because that gives us a little bit more space to evaluate and kind of connect some pieces together to create this niche, rather than just thinking about an audience, because you can think about an audience, but then you still, you'll still lack in your messaging and your marketing if you don't have the other pieces there,

it has to be layered. I think in 2025 you know, customers are sophisticated, there's so much competition we have aI at our fingertips. We need to get our messaging, our strategies, precise and focused. Can't just be in one lane. It has to be in multi lane, so that as soon as you say what you do, people are like paints a picture in their head. I know someone for you, or you're for me, or they can remember it. It's so sticky that they can remember it that when they meet someone later in the day or two weeks from now, they'll still remember who you are, what you do, how you're different, and if you had this, like, cool solution that elevated the brand, yeah.

And I also love that you brought up, kind of like the whole, don't just use your label of what you like, category of the kind of work that you do, because we get so trained into going to networking events and being like, you said, I'm a nutritionist, or I'm a lactation consultant, or I'm a whatever thing that you might understand what it is, but when you speak to that in a different way, that creates, like you said, that picture, that creates those memorable moments, that helps people to identify whether they are in need of what you have, or whether they know somebody else who might be in need of what you have. And that's really the whole purpose of creating strong messaging, right?

Yeah. I mean, we need context. Just think about all of the noise that we're bombarded with every minute of the day, right? And how crowded the marketplace is. There is a lot that we're asking our audience to remember, and so we need to be better at providing them the value articulating who we are, how we're different, what transformation, why it matters, right, in a way that's real and relevant, not in clever speak, not in like professional speak, but in a way that a fifth grader will understand, and that is, like the biggest challenge a lot of my community come to me is like, they hate that question, what do you do? Right? Because they don't know how to answer it, or they say too little, or they say too much, where it's like the kitchen sink and everyone's like, faces are glazed because you're telling me your origin story from fifth grade, and you're like, Whoa, this is like, you have, like, 30 seconds, right? So, you know, we have to give our audience a context. We have to read the audience. We have to make sure that we are sharing what is relevant. There's a lot of pieces, and I know it can feel confusing, but that's where that work has to come in. And

so tell me how this connects with the AI tool that you built with Lumi, because this is a brand messaging tool. It helps you, I'm guessing, to answer that question. What do I do?

Yes, 100% so like I said, everyone would come to me and help, ask for help. How do I answer this question? And so I had this framework that I worked. Of my clients, you know, one on one, or if I was teaching a workshop that goes through all the different pieces of, you know, a powerful brand message, but it's hard to get that clarity and put the pieces together and then create flow, and then deliver it in a way that, like flows off your tongue, right? And so, you know, using AI and custom chat GPT, I was able to kind of pre program the bot with my framework so that it was a an automated done with you experience. So what Lumi is, is it will ask you 10 strategic questions, and you can brain dump your answers. You know, the more detail, the more specifics, the better. And then, because it's trained on my IP, my framework. It'll take that information and it will create for you your brand statement. It will create for you your elevator pitch, as well as a business bio, which are honestly three essential pieces that you need you know for your business, for your brand, like you need to know your brand statement, which is, you know who you are, who you serve, what's the problem you're solving, what's the desired benefit in this way that is easy to share and for people to easily understand, right? It's all about articulating your value, and that's where people really get caught and stuck.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I work with clients on this as well, and it's such an important piece before we get to Well, how am I going to get more visible? How am I going to find more clients? What are the marketing strategies that I want to lean into? Because if you don't know this, you're kind of going out there not knowing what where the audience would be like. If you don't know who your audience is, how do you know what platform or what event or what strategy is actually going to help you reach them? If you don't know how to connect with them through the language that you're using, it doesn't really matter if you are posting on social media every day or showing up and networking events, because you aren't making that, that connection. It's not about the volume of the marketing activity. It really is about the clarity in this piece of what what you're sharing here.

Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up, because I think often people make the mistake and they jump right into marketing like social media website. Let's get, you know, logo colors. Let's get it all done. But you got to start with the strategy first, right? You got to start with your messaging first. You have to know what your brand, story essence is all about. And once you do that, and with Lumi, you can do that in minutes, honestly, once you do that, then it's easier to then create a content calendar, right? It's easier to figure out what the social media posts are what platforms you should be on. You know, all the other marketing, your email marketing, all that you need to have those foundational pieces first, otherwise, you know, I just find the people that don't do it, they're throwing spaghetti at the wall, and they're just kind of changing and changing and shifting and evolving, and they're getting frustrated and they're not seeing any return.

Yeah, and to kind of go back to the whole concept of, you know, testing and iterations and how your brand evolves over time and all of those things, this is something that you kind of like hone in on and then try it on for size for a while and see what kind of results it creates. And the results like, maybe talk a little bit about what we could actually measure in terms of after we've got the clarity and we're talking about our messaging, because if, again, I think one of the things you said earlier is you're getting the wrong clients, well, then you're saying the wrong thing, or you're saying it in the wrong place, or you're saying it in the wrong way, right? Yeah,

I think you will know if your message is working. You know the simplest way, if you're at a networking group and people's body language, they're leaning in, right? They're they're interested in what you're saying, you can see that immediately. Then they're asking you afterwards, tell me more, right? You're going to get in the chat, in the zoom. I want to connect with you because something resonated. You'll know if your messaging is working, if you're getting better clients, right, the clients that are actually there for your expertise, you'll know your messaging is working if you're getting better referrals, people are now super clear on what you do, so that like pipeline is continuous. More and more people are going, you'll know if your messaging is working when you get the opportunity to be on a podcast and someone is saying, I want to talk about niching. Who do you know? And someone says, Oh, I know Malika. She does. You know, she's passionate about niching, right? So you want to find that niche. You want to try it on for size. You want to go out there. You want to promote it. You want to market it. You want the messaging to be all around it. You want to commit to it for six months to a year, unless it's really doesn't feel in alignment, right? There is a gut feeling you have to measure, and then you're gonna hopefully see some traction in terms of clients, in terms of you know, better offers that are more strategic and more on point, more opportunities for speaking and podcast collaborations, right? I or, just like I heard of you, I heard that this is what you do, right? And it honestly takes about six months to a year that kind of momentum to build. It doesn't happen overnight and so and you have to be consistent and cohesive. It can't just be on my LinkedIn is my niche profile, but Instagram talks about something else, and my website. No, everything has got to be the same and cohesive and consistent for this to work.

Yeah, absolutely, that's such a good reminder. Remember that you have a presence in multiple places and ensure that you're showing up the same way there. And then there's another AI opportunity to do an analysis on what that looks like, run all of your profiles and your website and everything through and get it to spit out what it believes that you do, and if there's any inconsistencies, because that does get confusing. I know I currently have that issue, because I haven't updated my website in a long time, and it doesn't reflect me anymore. Like,

yeah, and we've all been there. I mean, we're all works in progress, so there's no shame in the game, right? But it's just like that acknowledgement. And then I'd say one more thing is owning it, like not being afraid to introduce yourself as I am the go to I'm the expert, or I specialize in this. So many of my clients, they feel like this broad or imposter syndrome. You have the credentials, you have the experience, you have the expertise. Now you got to step into that role and act like that. You know, it can't just be written on your website or in your bio. You have to be saying, Hi, my name is Malika Malhotra. I'm a brand strategist, and I specialize in building bold, niche brands. Just own it, and you might not be for everyone. That's okay, right? The more polarizing, the better, because polarizing means that you're going to be memorable, that you're going to be differentiated. And so we don't have to create these businesses that are for everyone. I hear so often, like especially women. I help anyone and everyone. No, you should not be helping anyone, everyone. Okay,

this is my biggest pet peeve. Anytime there's advertising that's like something for everyone. I'm like, Why? Why would it be that? No, it can't be, literally can't be. You can't have karate for everyone. Because what about people who are in wheelchairs or whatever? Right? Like, it's not. It really isn't. If you ask yourself that question, enough, I'd love to just play out a couple of examples before we wrap up. I one time watched a live kind of hot seat coaching thing happen, where the coach was asking the the guy, like, more questions about his niche, right? And the one thing that he said is he's like, Well, I'm a I'm a business coach. And he's like, Hey, you're a business coach. But are you a business coach for, like, startups, or for businesses that are trying to grow, or for businesses that are trying to sell? And like, every single time he answered this question to get more clear and more niche, you could see his confidence skyrocketing, right? And also, because the opposite of that is like, well, if you just say you're a business coach, and then somebody shows up and it's like, well, let's go through my SLPs and blah, blah, blah, but that's not what you do, like you now, literally, like struggling to serve the client that you've attracted because you don't, didn't have the, you know, proper clarity in your messaging. So I'd love if you would give, like, say, three or five examples of, like, taking something broad and getting, like, really narrow with it, because I'm sure you have most recent clients even as examples. So I'm working

with a client right now who is an interior designer. Okay? Interior Design so broad, right? You could do so many things. You could, you know, go all in an esthetic, if you wanted to, you can kind of go all in on a certain type of house if you wanted to, so be personal or commercial, right? It could be residential or commercial. So she actually wanted to do residential and commercial. So like, Okay, so now you have these two not very specific audiences. So what are we going to do that will get you specific in terms of your approach. So she is very into biophilic design, which is like, the beauty of plants and science, and using that so that the space not only looks good, but it feels good. It's called neuro esthetics. Biophilic design. What

I like that. I'm like, Yeah, that's so funny that you picked this example right off the bat too, because I'm like, redecorating my house. And I'm not skilled at this, but I do love plants. And so I'm like, How do I use all my plants in my decorations?

Right? And so she would say, it's not just about plants. People think you add a couple of plants and all of a sudden the space is supposed to feel good. There's more science behind it. It's about color and texture and being very intentional, right? She has her solutions called the wired method, which goes through wellness, and I don't even know what the other things, lighting, there's all these different components. But the whole umbrella, the niche, it's not just interior design. Time, but it's wellness driven interior design for homes and workspaces where you want to not only make it look good, you want to feel good. So you want to feel good at home. You want to feel good and perform better at work. It is a mixture of the science of using some of this color psychology and nature based that is changing how you feel and function at home, so not for everyone. So specialization is probably the leading part of the bullseye formula. The specific audience is residential and commercial, but it's also people that don't just want to follow fads, they don't want cookie cutter, they do appreciate nature, right? So there is a little nuance there. And her, her stand out quality is, you know, she used to, if she has a few things, she kind of wrote some books, and she used to be really part of culture and organization, a leader in that field. So taking that expertise and baking it now into interior design is totally differentiating her from other interior designers, because not only does she understand building culture, she also understands designing the workspace to support that right

and then value of it, not just it's not just it's not just about what it looks like,

yes. And then she has her solution, which is this wired method which kind of goes through different components. So she could have just said, you know, I am an interior designer that loves nature, right? And that may have been okay, but now we're really getting into more of the science, and we have to be careful, because we can't make it so that it's not real and relevant. You know, that's my big pushback, because we can't be talking about biophilic, this, this that, like nobody understands that, but they understand I want my space to reduce stress, to increase connection, to improve motivation in the workplace, like, those are the benefits that people understand. So that's one example of, like, going from what could be really broad and mainstream to something that's super specific and niche. Yeah, I love

Do you have a B to B example? Like, in like, somebody who works with, like, business owners, like, as a service provider of some kind, maybe just for a different perspective,

B to B, let me think, okay. So, yes, okay. So I have another client who is, she's a business strategist, but she really wanted to go all in on email strategy. So for a long time she was and she works with E commerce. She works with, actually everyone, and that was the problem. So two things that we did. One was, when you looked at her website, it almost looked like she was an email copywriter. She's not an email copywriter, she's an email strategist, so she's dealing with click throughs and open rates and all of the back end, right? That makes that email sequence work, so that you're getting more revenue in your bank. So instead of just a business coach who focuses on email, we repositioned her as like this email email strategist who's focusing in all the metrics that kind of prove that you are making money in your inbox, basically. And instead of talking to everyone, like service providers and, you know, corporate, she's actually only talking to e commerce. So her brands are, you know, companies that are selling products, they're having launches, they're seasonal, there's Black Friday, so very specific. So that means she can partner with Shopify, right? Shopify, people who are Shopify, web designers are with E commerce, so having that specificity and that niche also is going to give you clarity on who you partner with to get the leads. Oh, yeah,

I totally, I can totally see that too, especially being able to now offer, like, oh, what kind of a workshop should I do? Well, something around, like, a black friday campaign or something, because that's only going to be relevant to specific types of people. That's kind of like the reverse way I always think about it is like, Does this help somebody identify with or against what you're trying to put out there? Right?

Yeah. So all of these are just examples of how, when you get niched, you stand out in your marketplace, you attract better clients. You're positioning yourself as an expert. And then there is this freedom and empowerment, really, with with your messaging. Then, because it's super targeted and focused, and gone is the feeling that you have to speak to everyone and do all the things, and instead, you're in your lane, that you do really well.

Yeah, absolutely. And I couldn't agree more. I love thank you for coming on and articulating all of that. I hope this was a really enlightening conversation for listeners as well, thinking about I know I'm shifting, always evolving and shifting. My own niche at the moment, too. So it's definitely been a helpful conversation, even for me. So thank you, Mallika. Is there any final words or anything that you want to share with anybody before we wrap up?

Yeah, just thank you so much for having me here. I'm so passionate about niching and helping women really find that sweet spot, because I just think it is a ticket to a sustainable business. You know, once you can find your lane of expertise and go all in, everything feels easier, and you're in that flow, and that is so contagious, and you'll just find that all of a sudden it clicks and opportunities come your way. And so, you know, don't be afraid of Niching and you know, and don't be afraid of trying to narrow your focus and saying no to people, because that's going to be kind of a way to grow your business faster.

Amazing. I love that permission slip to end on. Thanks so much.

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.