Kathy Goughenour: Hey everybody, Kathy Goughenour here for Riches in Niches, I'm going to share my PowerPoint slides and we're going to get started.

Kathy Goughenour: This is Riches in Niches presented by me, Kathy Goughenour. I'm going to do total transparency today, which means I'm going to share numbers with you. I want to share testimonials with you, and these are the disclaimers. I want to start by mentioning to you that my training is never just about training. It's always about taking action and here's why. The world is changed by your actions. Not your words. So I invite you when I ask you to type in the comments, please do. We are here even though this the training was prerecorded, we are live in the group, monitoring the comments, answering questions. So please take action. And at the end of today's session, I actually have action items for you to complete, to move forward with the training that I provide. So who am I? Who is Kathy Goughenour? Well, like many of you, I started my career back when I was only 18 years old by getting one of those secure corporate positions.

Kathy Goughenour: Yes, I worked in a little tiny, ugly cubicle, just like this at a fortune 500 company for almost 20 years. And then something profound happened. I stopped getting promotions. I stopped getting raises. My career was at a dead end. I went to my boss and I asked him, why am I not getting any more promotions? At the time I was 40 years old. I didn't think there was anything for me outside the corporate workplace. I'd never done anything but work in a corporation. And my boss said, you laugh and smile too much. Unless you change that you're never going to go anywhere in this company, you will not get any more promotions and only, you know, required raises. No more laughing and smiling? I was devastated. I went back to my little cubicle and cried. And then luckily I decided, no there is life outside corporation. And I was very lucky that I found out about becoming a virtual assistant. Because as you can see from these pictures here, it offers you the freedom, flexibility, and financial security that is missing from the corporate world. And yes, I did say financial security.

Kathy Goughenour: So I not only started a virtual assistant business, but I went on to very quickly build a six figure virtual assistant business. Then I discovered that I couldn't find enough virtual assistants that were of the professional proactive problem solving level that I wanted to hire to help me build my team. So I developed my own training that I now call Virtual Expert Training. And that all started because I personally needed to hire more VA's to be on my team because I had that six figure and growing VA business to support. And by the way, I developed the Virtual Expert Training. It started in 2008, and it's still going strong today. My mission and passion is you. It is helping you, the professional woman, whether you're a professional, because you've worked in a corporate job, because you've been an office manager, because you've been a teacher or any other career where you learned how to be amazing. Even if that is a home schooling mom career, because you learn how to project manage and teach, and all of that. My mission is helping you become the superhero of your own success. And if you've already started a business, but you don't know how to grow it to six figures and above, my mission is to help you achieve that. Whatever success means to you, I want you to, I want to help you achieve it.

Kathy Goughenour: So I want to start now that you know a little bit about me, I want to tell you what a virtual expert is because I've used that phrase a couple of times now. You already know what virtual assistants are. They are service-based support professionals who work anytime, anywhere they prefer, and services they provide include things like tech support, graphic design, website design, bookkeeping, writing, editing, proofreading, social media management, calendar management, yada yada. Whew! Just to name a few. So what is a virtual expert? Virtual expert is a virtual assistant who has up-leveled her knowledge and expertise to become the top of all service-based support professionals in the world. So why does it have a registered trademark behind it? That is because I registered that phrase. So you can only use the term virtual expert if you go through my training program and then you get a license to use it. That is because I teach you in my training program and I will share some of that knowledge with you today. How to up level your knowledge and expertise to become the top of all service-based support professionals in the world. What does it mean to be at the top? Well, it means a number of things. Number one, it means you earn more money than anyone else in the industry. And you're able to command that higher level of income because you have the experience and expertise behind you.

Kathy Goughenour: It means that you are the best of the best at what you do. So I want you to think right now, have you ever thought to yourself, Wow, I would really like to get really good at something to become a true expert at something. And then go ahead and type in the comments and let me know. What, what does that mean to you? How would that feel to you to be able to tell people? Yes, I am one of the top virtual experts in the world.

Kathy Goughenour: How would that feel?

Kathy Goughenour: Go ahead and type in the comment I look forward to reading your comments when I'm done here with the training.

Kathy Goughenour: So, I have some bad news to share with you and a reality check. So if you're the kind of person who's like, I only want good news, don't tell me any bad news, you might not want to listen. But if you're like me and you're like, I need to know everything. I need to know all the good, the bad and the ugly so that I can make a good decision for myself. Because quite honestly, if you don't have all the facts and figures, how can you make good choices for yourself? Right? So I've got a little bit of bad news that I want to share with you here. And then of course I'll share with you how to fix the problem. So here's the problem. Most VAs failed to achieve their income goals. And this is a cold, hard fact. The reason they fail to reach their income goals is because they have not been taught how to find, get, and keep high paying clients.

Kathy Goughenour: And I say taught because this is something you can learn. You already have skills that you're good at. This is one of the number one mistakes that I see VA's make time and time again. And why they fail to achieve their income goal. It's because they continue to take training that teach them new skills. You don't need new skills. You don't need to learn how to do another service. What you need to learn, how to do is find, get, and keep high paying clients. Because the skills you have can translate into a well paying virtual expert career, but only if you learn how to find, get, and keep clients and you narrow your niche. And that's the focus of today's training is how to narrow your niche. So you can have riches in those niches,

Kathy Goughenour: Virtual

Kathy Goughenour: Experts, that phrase, I just taught you, they are professionals. They are experts. And thus, they command the respect and the income like other professionals, like architects and lawyers. So would you like to be a professional at that level?

Kathy Goughenour: Keep on listening because to become an expert at that level, you must niche down. So what does that mean to niche down? Well, I like to use this image as a representation. On one hand, you think about what your skills are that you already have. And on the other hand, you think about what your passions are. And where those two collide, where they intersect, that is your sweet spot, where you could niche down. Now let's say that you have a lot of skills in a particular area, but you really don't like doing those skills any longer.

Kathy Goughenour: Guess what?

Kathy Goughenour: Let go of the old skills that you don't like. You can easily transition into new skills and transform what you do from what you don't enjoy doing to what you love to do. So let me give you an example of somebody who had skills in a particular area, passion in another area and how he was able to find that sweet spot. David came into my program as a bookkeeper. He loved bookkeeping, but he was struggling to find clients just like most VA's. He didn't know how to find getting keep clients. So I got to know David, had him go through an assessment that we have and discovered that his true passion is dogs. He absolutely loves rescuing dogs. He volunteers at a lot of dog shelters. And so my recommendation for him was to combine the skill of bookkeeping with the passion of dogs. And when he did that, he narrowed his niche to become a bookkeeper for dog

Kathy Goughenour: walkers.

Kathy Goughenour: And his business exploded. Within six months, he went from one or two clients to 50 clients he loved working with.

Kathy Goughenour: One more example

Kathy Goughenour: of somebody who came in with skills of doing finance work. That's what she did in the corporate world. And she really loved writing, but her corporate job wouldn't allow her to write. So she honed her financing skills. So when she came to me and said she really loved writing, I said, let's move you to that as your specialty. And her passion was ghost writing books. So now, her name is Allie, and she ghost writes books. In fact, my book that just came out, you can go to Amazon and just type in my name, Kathy Goughenour and Leaving The Grind Behind is the name of the book that will come up. Allie ghost wrote that book for me.

Kathy Goughenour: So you might be wondering what are the benefits of narrowing your niche? Because I know one of the biggest challenges that many of you will be already having, or will have very soon while we're talking about narrowing your niche is that you're thinking, "but if I narrow my niche, if I narrow who I work with, then won't I be missing out on a lot of opportunities to work with people? No, just the opposite will happen. So instead of thinking about it in that way, I want you to think about these five benefits. Number one, you will increase your earning power. Think about this. Do you pay more to see your general practitioner doctor or to see the expert in gastroenterology? I think I said that, right? I wish I would have picked a different, easier word to say for a specialist, a dermatologist let's do that, a specialist, right?

Kathy Goughenour: Which, which are you going to pay more, more for? A brain surgeon who has specialized in that or your general practitioner? There we go. That's a better example. Of course, you're going to pay more for the brain surgeon, for the specialist, right? Just like doctors specialize, you specialize to earn more. It automatically increases your earning power. Number two, it increases your happiness in your work. How does that happen? Well, what are you going to be happier doing? Everything and trying to figure out all of it? Or, remember back when I asked you to think about what it would feel like to be an expert in what you do? That is the level of happiness that you're going to find, because you are not going to have to learn everything. You're going to get to, instead of going broad and shallow, you're going to get to go deep into the thing that is the most interesting to you.

Kathy Goughenour: So you will be happier in your work. Number three, easier to market. You know, when you think, I don't know what to write a blog post on. I don't know how to write my homepage on my website. I don't know how to write a social media post to my audience. That's because you don't really know who your ideal client is or how to speak directly to them. When you narrow your niche, you're able to speak directly to that one person sitting there and you know, a lot about them. So you speak right to their heart, right to their pocket book. That makes it so much easier to create your marketing and develop your marketing. And to find those people you want to market to, Right? Number four, it's easier to become and stay an expert. Imagine that instead of narrowing, for example, let's say you want to be a social media specialist.

Kathy Goughenour: And instead of saying, "Oh, I'm a social media specialist" you narrow it down to "I'm a LinkedIn marketing specialist. So instead of having to know LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest, and anything else new that comes up, you only need to dive deep into LinkedIn marketing. How much easier is it going to become, is it going to be, to become and stay an expert in LinkedIn marketing than in every social media platform that there is. And to take it even larger, imagine that you haven't even specialized in social media, but you're a general VA, a general admin VA. And so you have to do all those different types of social media. You also have to do all kinds of other things that your clients might ask you to do. That's overwhelming and you're not going to get paid as well for it because you're a generalist.

Kathy Goughenour: So it's much easier to become and stay expert when you narrow your niche. And five. This is my favorite one. It's so much easier to get referrals because you become known as an expert in a certain area of specialization. So using that LinkedIn marketing example versus a general admin, how much easier is it going to be when somebody out there in the online world posts or ask someone, do you know of anybody that can help me with LinkedIn marketing? To be able to say, yes, I have the exact right person for you. That's what she specializes in, right? You're going to get lots more referrals when it is that easy, when it is that easy for people to share what you do. So I hope you agree with me that there are many, many benefits to narrowing your niche. Now, I want to circle back around to that thing

Kathy Goughenour: I said in the beginning of this slide, which is, if you're focusing in now on the negative aspect that you believe there is, which is not accurate, let me tell you it's not right, that it's a negative to narrow your niche because you won't be able to accept everybody. I want you to know this. When you go ahead and narrow your niche, if somebody comes along before you have really deeply specialized and love what you're doing and know, Oh my gosh, I'm so glad I did what Kathy suggested because it's amazing, and I'm making so much more money, for all of that amazing that happens to you, if somebody comes along, who wants you to work for them and you really want to work with them, even though they're not in your niche, you can go ahead and take them on as a client. There's nothing saying you can't, all right, but it's not who you're going to market to. It's not who you're going to speak to, it's not who you're going to tell, what you're going to tell people to refer you for. Okay. You're going to focus all that energy on your narrowed niche.

Kathy Goughenour: So let's talk a little bit more and get specific about how much you can earn when you specialize. So research shows that virtual assistants are perceived as administrative assistants and administrative assistants' perceived value is $15 to $25 per hour. And it is capped at that $25 per hour. This research was done by going out and asking business owners and entrepreneurs worldwide, if you were going to hire a virtual assistant, what would you pay? What's the max you would pay and why? If you were going to hire a virtual expert, what would you be willing to pay? What's the max you would pay and why? Literally no explanations given, just using those two different terms. This is the results. So a virtual expert is looked at as a professional expert and their value immediately goes up from the $15 to $25 to $45 to $55 per hour and up. And there is no limit. No limit to how high it can go. So, which do you prefer now? There's nothing wrong with staying in admin. If that is where you really love to be. And if $25 per hour, max is what you want. Okay. But when the time comes, and hopefully for a lot of you that time is already here, that you're like, no, I don't want to stay there. I want to earn lots more. Then consider becoming a virtual expert.

Kathy Goughenour: Now let's get into some nitty gritty about how to niche. Okay. I want you to ask yourself two questions. What do you want to become an expert in? So that's the skills and the services you will offer. And who do you want to help? And just brainstorm, jot down, do some research on whatever it is that you're thinking about

Kathy Goughenour: And

Kathy Goughenour: begin to come to, and you can start with either one of these first, you can first decide who you want to help and figure out what you want to do for them. Or you can decide what you want to do for people, and then who you want to help. Right? There's no right or wrong way to do this. So for example, for me, I was a marketing manager at my corporate job. I loved marketing. I knew that's what I wanted to do. I didn't have to think about what did I want to do for people? Okay. So then all I had to do was figure out who did I want to do it for? So I really didn't have any ideas. I was brand new to this. So I went out and started Googling and looking at different people that were hiring virtual assistants and those who were using them to market their businesses. And I found real estate agents, real estate agents love virtual assistants. They hire virtual assistants all the time and they desperately need help with their marketing. So that's who I chose to work with. And so my very first six figure VA business was a VA for real estate agents, and I helped market their businesses

Kathy Goughenour: To give you

Kathy Goughenour: some more ideas, I jotted down a few of today's hot niches where you hear, and believe me when I tell you this is a very, very small list. Okay. There are hundreds and thousands of things you can do for people. So email and calendar management, that is really hot because entrepreneurs, business owners like me, very busy. Couldn't keep up with my email or my calendar anymore. So I hired somebody to run all of that for me. Well worth the money. I pay her a thousand dollars a month to do all of that for me. And again, I charge a thousand dollars an hour. Okay. So a thousand a month, that's just one extra hour of work of billable work I need to do to pay for that. Okay. So you, if you're, if, if you want to work with, for example, well, coach, I'm a coach and let's say they charge $500 an hour. As long as you're less than $500 an hour for what you're doing for them,

Kathy Goughenour: you're in a good spot. Okay. Okay. Social media specialist. Again, I would narrow this down to Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram or any of the others. Because the further you can narrow the better and you can dive deep on that. I have somebody working for me on my team. I have a whole team who does Facebook because I run Facebook ads. I have a LinkedIn marketer and I have an Instagram marketer. And those three people are not the same people. They're all different people who have specialized in those different platforms. You could be an author assistant. An author assistant, you can narrow it down even further, depending on what you enjoy doing, but unless you happen to enjoy doing all of them and are good at all of them. Let me name a few, a graphic designer to design the covers front and back covers. A ghostwriter.

Kathy Goughenour: Like I mentioned, Allie. An editor. Cause after Allie writes it, she needs to have somebody edit it. A proofreader because after it's edited, it needs to be proof-read. A formatter to format the ebook and format the print version. A marketer to market the book. So can you see how, even as an author's assistant, if you narrow to that, how you can narrow further. You could be a techie guru specializing in one, two or three programs that work together. For example, Shannon Mattern, who I have the privilege of doing this training for her summit, she is a techie guru who specializes in WordPress websites. Right? Well, we all know that there are lots and lots of plugins for WordPress websites. So the one program, if you wanted to specialize like Shannon did, the one program could be WordPress websites. The second one could be your favorite plugin for WordPress websites.

Kathy Goughenour: And the third one could be a way that you set up for people to get paid via that website. So, do your clients use PayPal or Stripe or what are they going to use with that website? Or you can specialize just in one thing. But I wanted to give you an example of how two or three programs could work together. You could be a virtual or live events specialist. Events are hotter than they have ever been. They need lots and lots of planning. They need a huge team. So if you enjoy planning events, I highly recommend that one. A video or audio editor. Again, super hot. YouTube is the hottest social media platform that there is. And it's growing. Pod-casters. That's the audio editor. I mean, you can do audio editing for lots of things, but definitely for podcasts. They are hotter than ever. I think I've seen 10 new podcasts going out daily, including mine. I have a podcast. Google Dare To Leap podcast, Kathy Goughenour, and you will find it.

Kathy Goughenour: You could be a blogger. Blogging is still hot. You could be email marketer where you write emails or send out the emails or all the above. And we already talked about bookkeeping. So what are a few of today's hot clients? I already talked about real estate agents and authors and podcasters. There's coaches, trainers, bloggers, doctors, there's e-commerce business owners. What's e-commerce? Amazon and every website out there that is selling something, selling a widget, selling jewelry, selling makeup, selling cards. Anything that they're selling that is a thing, that is e-commerce. And entrepreneurs of all types. There has never been a hotter market for virtual assistants and virtual experts. Since COVID hit, we have gone from a $1 trillion, I'm sorry, a $1 billion industry to a $1 trillion industry. You want a piece of that? I know I do. We give you a real virtual expert with real results.

Kathy Goughenour: This is Jennifer Tamborski. At her website, if you want to check her out, VirtualMarketingExpert.com, and her niche that she is in right now, and it's a hot, hot niche, is digital marketing. And I'm going to take you through Jennifer's journey. Jennifer came to me in 2017. She was earning and had never earned more than this. She was earning 30,000 annually and she had been an admin, a generic VA for 10 years. And she couldn't figure out how to earn more than 30,000. Now, Jennifer is literally a genius. She is brilliant. Her mind works in ways I don't even understand. But she didn't know how to narrow her niche to get the riches in the niches and then how to find, get, and keep clients. So after talking with me on the phone in 2017, she joined my program and in 2018, she doubled her income and earned 60,000. So she joined virtual expert training program and she added digital marketing as a niche to her generic admin work. She kept doing both of them during that year.

Kathy Goughenour: Then in 2019, she's like, why am I still doing this low cost, low value, I don't even enjoy, admin work when I could just do the better paying thing I enjoy more, digital marketing? So in 2019, she shut down her admin part of the work and she doubled her income, almost doubled her income again, or did double her income. See, I can't do math. Doubled her income again the following year, she went to 115,000. And then 2020 almost doubled again, went to 200,000 and she is still privately coaching with me. Absolutely love working with Jennifer. Like I said, she's a true genius. We have, she has plans in place to earn 1 million in 2021 with the support of her team. So can you see from this example, the difference between being a general admin VA and specializing? Do you see that there really is riches in niches?

Kathy Goughenour: So a lot of times people put on the brakes when it comes to researching and then identifying your niche, and my recommendation for you is to choose and move. What does that mean? That means just pick something to start with. You know, after you do your brainstorming, do a little bit of research online, pick one of the niches to start with. What do you guess that you enjoy? What do you already know how to do that you enjoy? Because I want you to see this roadblock. Perfection is a roadblock to progress. And which is more important to you? To start trying out a niche, to see if it fits you, to see if you really like it, or to continue to search for perfection while being undervalued as a general at whatever it is you're doing. Because even if you don't want to become a VA or a virtual expert, no matter what industry you're in, like for me, I'm a coach,

Kathy Goughenour: now, do I coach everyone? No, I exclusively coach people who want to become expert VA's and virtual experts. And by the way, I also have Expert VA trademarked. Those are two programs that I have Expert VA and Virtual Expert. I want you to start earning money faster. So do a little bit of research, brainstorm, think about it maybe a week and then choose a niche and get started. Because then after you try it on and you see if you like it or not, you can switch your niche as needed after you tried out one or two or three. I have switched my niche at least four times since I have started my own business in 2001 after quitting that corporate job. By the way, the part of that story I forgot to mention is that when I took my resignation letter in to my boss, the one who said, I laughed and smiled too much.

Kathy Goughenour: He said, you are making the biggest mistake you will ever make. You are never going to earn this kind of money again. And I vowed right then and there that I would not only earn that kind of money, but I would double it. And as a virtual assistant, I doubled my income. And then I built another business that earned even more than that. And then I built another business that earned even more than that. And here I sit before you today with my fourth business that just ended 2020 at 1 million in revenue. So the bottom line is the only wrong answer is staying general if your goal is to earn big bucks. I want to share another example with you of a real virtual expert with real results. This is Mary Hanley. I'm sharing her as an example because she switched niches. And I honestly don't know anybody that I've ever trained, who hasn't.

Kathy Goughenour: Oh yeah. I just thought of one. Almost everybody. It's very rare for them not to switch niches, but there are those rare few who find what they love and just stay with it forever. Mary started as a real estate VA. In fact, that's how I met Mary. I was a real estate VA if you recall, and I was charging $75 an hour as a real estate VA. A client hired me and that client told me, Hey, I need you to work with my VA Mary Hanley. And she'll teach you how to do what I want you to do. I'm like great, fabulous. So Mary and I met. Mary taught me what to do. And then that evening I got a phone call from Mary. And she was mad, but mystified and a little maybe irritated because she said, how did you get that agent to pay you $75 an hour when I'm earning $11 an hour,

Kathy Goughenour: And I had to teach you how to do what needed to be done. And I said, Mary you're in luck. This is 2008 because I'm starting a training program to teach people just like you, how to earn as much as you want. And Mary very smart woman joined my training program back in 2008. She found out that being a real estate agent, a real estate VA really wasn't what, everything she wanted it to be. And she started dabbling in social media. So she switched to social media and she has now further narrowed to Facebook. So she specializes in Facebook and today she charges $250 per hour to support people with their Facebook marketing. And she has a team of VAs who completes tasks while she brings in new

Kathy Goughenour: clients. So how would that sound to you?

Kathy Goughenour: Do you see here the riches in the niches?

Kathy Goughenour: Yes.

Kathy Goughenour: I want you to think about this. Your energy is like money. I want you to spend and invest it wisely or it's lost. So rather than spending all of your energy on low value, low pay general admin work, again, unless that's your passion. If that's your passion, you go. Cause I love passion. But I'm guessing that's not your passion. I'm guessing you want to love what you do, have the freedom, flexibility, and financial security that works, that working as a VA or a virtual expert brings you. But if you're going to put in hours of work, worth of work, wouldn't you rather it be at the 45 or $50 an hour rate rather than the 25? You literally would double your money. So instead of making $25 for the hour you work, you're going to make 50 for the hour you work. To me, that's a no brainer.

Kathy Goughenour: So

Kathy Goughenour: Spend and invest that energy wisely by getting well paid, the value that you deserve. I have a free gift for you. If you'd like what I have to talk about, I invite you to my brand new 90 minute workshop. And I know this is a long URL, but, hopefully you can screenshot this and then go type it in or you can go type it in right now. expertvatraining.mykajabi.com/mattern, like Shannon's last name, right? And this workshop, it's a 90 minute training for people who already are VAs or want to become VA's and learn how to grow their businesses by adding on an additional $100,000

Kathy Goughenour: in one year, okay?

Kathy Goughenour: That's who I'm looking to help. If you're already working, whatever your business is, and you want to become a virtual expert and increase your income by $100,000 in the next 12 months, I invite you to this program. And it's going to stop the cyclone of low paying clients that I know a lot of us deal with. So what are you going to learn in this workshop? How to get high paying clients to say yes by demonstrating your value and not by selling, we all hate selling. We all hate being sold to. You're going to learn how to accelerate your growth with a coach who has been where you are, and more importantly is where you want to be now. And you're going to supercharge your results and scale to six figures and beyond by leveraging your time. So if you're already at 50,000 and you want to add a hundred thousand, come to the workshop. If you're just getting started and you want to make your first 100,000, come to the workshop. It's free.

Kathy Goughenour: And I look forward to seeing you there. Before I wrap up, I want you to think about what were the a-has that you got from Riches in Niches, and go ahead and post in the comments now. Well, what were the things that you went? Oh my goodness. I hadn't thought of that. Love to hear about those in the comments. And I promised an action item or action items, and I have three of them for you for Riches to Niches. Because remember for my first slide, words don't change the world. Words, don't change your world. Only actions do that. So please take these three actions. Number one, register for my three 90 minute workshop at expertvatraining.mykajabi.com/mattern. Then brainstorm, research and dezide, dezide? Decide on the top one, two or three services that you want to offer or that you want to try out. Remember, don't let that perfectionism stop you. You can begin making money while you figure out your niche and then do the same for the type of clients you want to work with. So brainstorm, research and decide on the top one, two or three type of clients you want to work with. So that's your three action items I want to thank you for being here and listening to Riches in Niches. I look forward to seeing your comments. Bye everybody.