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Hey Reader,

Stop using the yoghurt brand method to define your audience, please for the love of Odin.

I know what you’ve been told: NICHE NICHE NICHE!

Niche so hard you need a candle and a shrine to the madonna.

Niche until you end up with Sandra.

She’s 38 years old, lives in a town, married with two children aged under 10, has a dog, wants to lose some weight so she can strut around in last year’s LBD, loves avocado toast and an oat milk pumpkin spice latte with extra cream and a biscotti, her favourite brand is Lulu Lemon but she’s conflicted because of the “it’s not for fat people” controversy and wants to be a good person and buy ethically but it’s so expensive and Lulu Lemon clothes are so pretty and and and oh god please make it stop.

Sophie Lee calls it the yoghurt brand method which I shall henceforth call it too.

But you are not a yoghurt brand.

When I first started my business this kind of avatar exercise was absolutely everywhere. Still is, I guess because it’s simple.

I used to use it too. I used to teach it because I thought that was how things worked.

I quickly realised it was not.

This is not how we understand what makes people tick.

I’m not saying demographics are entirely useless; of course they’re not, especially for local businesses.

But they’re boxing your business into a hole and missing the point. They should be, at best, a starting point.

Things get really interesting when you start to ask questions like, “Who do they want to be? Who do they want to stop being?”

My clients have written books about marketing and sales and business, yes.

And they’ve also written books about the Croatian philosophy of life, self care and bubble baths, freelancing, divorce, getting old, getting (and staying) rich, getting a job, buyer psychology, grief, building a speaker brand, cashflow, and — seriously — fake grass.

Trying to niche them using that mouldy old yoghurt brand method would have failed miserably.

They’re all wildly different but the thing they all have in common is this:

They have a message that means the world to them and they were desperate to put it into a book.

Who needs to hear your message and why?

We can’t understand that until we understand what’s beneath the surface of the Lulu Lemons and the PSL.

This is the journey I take every single client on when they come to me for help with writing their book.

We go so much deeper than the jobs they do and the lifestyle they have and figure out what makes them tick.

If you’re thinking of writing a book — or writing anything for your audience — you need to understand this too.

Which is what the Kickstart Your Book bundle does.

Maybe it’ll kickstart your book; maybe it won’t.

But it will definitely give you clarity on your message and a deeper understanding of who you’re writing for, and why.

Get it here.

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

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