Power Your Research w/ Dr. Sheena Howard

Having Multiple Passions

• Dr. Sheena Howard

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How to juggle multiple passions and grow your brand. 


Follow Dr. Sheena Howards' socials:
@drsheenahoward | Power Your Research

Speaker 1:

I have to be clear on who I'm selling that thing to, who it's for, who's going to resonate with this particular product or service, and I need to know how to talk to that specific audience.

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But that doesn't mean that I'm leaving it to the detriment of not being able to do my other things. I don't want my work to be stuck behind an academic paywall. I want to leave a legacy. I want to reach my potential and I want to change lives. This podcast, power your Research, is my attempt to help the smartest people in the world do that very thing. My hope is that you use the lessons I share to make more money than what your higher ed job can ever pay you. I've done it, my clients have done it, and so can you. My hope is that you'll apply what you learn here and one day join the power your research program where you can work with me one-on-one. Today I'm talking about something that I get a lot of questions about and comments about, and I get this question in various forms. Some people say you know, I have a lot of talent and passions and interests and I don't know which one to focus on. I've gotten a question recently where someone said I have these talents. There's talents that I want to focus on, but there are talents that other people want me to focus on. And what do I do? And then I get a variation of this question, which a question I had early on in building my brand and building my businesses, which was I have a couple of talents that I'm good at and that I really really like, some maybe a little bit more than others. And if I'm creating a brand, how do I do this niche down thing? Because everybody's saying niche down, niche down. You know, make it specific and make it focused. And for me, that did feel. I felt like how some of you feel, which is like, you know, if I'm just focusing on this specific thing all the time, it's to the detriment of these other things I care about. And so I'm going to share how I think about this and the strategy that I used and it's been working really really well for me. And the strategy that I used and it's been working really really well for me, and it's kind of cool to see my different audiences intersect and interact sometimes, but I still get to talk to these different audiences through the different channels I've created by being intentional and learning through the process.

Speaker 1:

So, for anybody out there that is struggling with this, you have a lot of things you like to do. You have a lot of passions. You're good have a lot of things you like to do. You have a lot of passions, you're good at a lot of things. You don't know how to niche down or focus.

Speaker 1:

Kind of the thesis of what I'm going to be talking about is to be yourself and niche down, and so let's talk about this a little deeper. First thing is, I believe when you're building a brand, you need to be yourself. You need to be who you are and you are crafting who you are for the audience and being intentional about it, but you always want to forefront being yourself. Okay, you have unique interests and if you care about things, you should feel okay with talking about those different things. Okay with talking about those different things.

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Now, the niche down part is about selling something to a specific group. So I can talk about all of my interests, but when it comes to selling a thing, I have to be clear on who I'm selling that thing to, who it's for, who's going to resonate with this particular product or service, and I need to know how to talk to that specific audience, but that doesn't mean that I'm leaving it to the detriment of not being able to do my other things. So, for example, I am a full-time professor, so I teach, I love teaching. I have an academic branding company so I talk to my PhDs and help them increase their visibility, authority and income without the expense of a publicist. And then I also have a company called NerdWorks in which I do my writing, my speaking engagements, my appearances, my comic books. You know my creative stuff underneath that business. So I have three different assets, if you will, three different passions and things that I love, and those different groups whether they are people that's focused on the creative side of my audience or people that want to know about academic branding, I talk to them on different channels and so, for instance, if I'm talking to my creatives, you're mostly going to find me on Instagram. That's where I'm giving my creative entrepreneurship advice, that's where I'm talking about my story and my journey to writing for Marvel and DC Comics, and that's where I am being the vulnerable side of myself and kind of talking more about my life and my perspective and mindset shifts that have helped me on my creative journey. So that is particularly on Instagram, and I have a mailing list particularly for that audience that cares about those things.

Speaker 1:

Hey, everyone, real quick. I don't run any ads on this podcast, so I have to rely on word of mouth. If this podcast has helped you in any way, please share it with a friend and follow me, dr Sheena Howard, on LinkedIn, where I give more free content on building your brand as an academic. If you tell me you came to my LinkedIn from the podcast, I'll make sure I accept your request. Now on LinkedIn is where I usually it's mostly. If you go to my LinkedIn, you're going to see all academic branding stuff. That's where I'm talking to my PhDs and people with master's degrees around how to increase their visibility, their authority, their income, and so if you go to my PhDs and people with master's degrees around how to increase their visibility, their authority, their income, and so if you go to my LinkedIn page, it looks nothing like my Instagram page.

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I'm very focused. There's a niche audience from my academic branding company that I am trying to help and serve and get them to a better position so they are not beholden to the paycheck of their institution or university, and so we have so many of these different social media channels and outlets and you can use them to speak to different audiences based on your purposes and passions. I'm not saying that this is easy, but if you're a person, you know I care deeply about writing. Ultimately, where I'm leading at with all of what I'm doing, is a singular vision. So my teaching, my academic branding company, my writing company three assets. They make me money, but they're all in service of one singular vision of a place that I'm trying to get to. And the place that I am trying to get to is to not do any of the faculty teaching and the academic branding stuff and just get to a place where my writing is making me a ton of money and around that is the lifestyle, the life I want to live, the things I want to have, the people I want to help, the employees that I want to have, right. So there's a singular vision in which all of these assets and passions of mine gets to find their place, but they're all in service of one particular thing. And so if I'm creating a brand statement, right, you're going to see a lot of these brand people talk about, well, what's your brand statement? My brand statement is an umbrella for those three assets. So my brand statement is I create experiences for free thinkers to feel empowered when they're challenging the status quo. My writing company, my academic branding company all fit under that brand statement. So there's no confusion in my mind about what I'm doing, and so I'm able to articulate that to the people that follow my stuff.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so the thesis here is be yourself. Niche down when you're trying to sell something, because you have to speak the language of the people you're trying to sell something to. If I'm trying to help academics, I have to speak the language of academics, based on my experience. If I'm trying to help creatives and people on a creative journey, I have to speak the language of creatives over on Instagram. And so I'm not saying that this is easy. I actually think that the way I'm doing it is harder, right, because it's more things to think about, it's more things to organize, it's more intentionality on the different channels.

Speaker 1:

But if you can get it clear in your head, if you can have a documented vision of what you're doing, I think you can get there without giving up some of the things you care about, and I know what that feels like to be like. Oh, I just have to focus on this one thing, but I really love to do all of these other things. Also, keep in mind that you don't have to monetize everything, right, you don't have to. You might decide that, hey, I can really monetize this and I have a passion for this, and I'm just going to focus on this.

Speaker 1:

If I had to give you three takeaways, Niche down when you're trying to sell something, because you got to speak in a specific language to a specific person through a specific channel in order to sell something. If making money is what you are trying to do, use different channels for different purposes, right? One audience you can speak to on one channel, another audience you can speak to on another channel. Even on my YouTube, I have different lists in which I filter out my content. So I have a power your research list. I have a creatives list. I have a list where I have different lists in which I filter out my content. So I have a power your research list. I have a creatives list. I have a list where I have all of my appearances, and so even those are different. Segment it out. So if someone likes something I said somewhere, when they go to my YouTube channel, they get to self-select the content that they want to consume.

Speaker 1:

And then the third takeaway is be you, always be you. You don't want to blow up and go viral or be known for a person that doesn't actually represent the highest, best version of who you are. So I hope this helps somebody out there. I hope it makes sense because it makes sense to me in my are. So I hope this helps somebody out there. I hope it makes sense because it makes sense to me in my head. So I hope it makes sense when I'm explaining it to you.

Speaker 1:

If you're an academic, you have a PhD or a master's degree you can always jump on a free 30 minute call with me to talk through these things. You can come to the call, you can take notes, have your pen and paper out and I'll talk you through how to build a big brand for your work and your research. If you're not yet ready to talk to me, but you want to read about the Power, your Research program and the nine step system and how to go from where you are to where you want to go in terms of getting your work out there and building your platform, order the academic branding book. It is available on Penguin Random House's website. It is available on Vimbella Books website, on Amazon and lots of places where you find books. You.