281 - Business Building: Knowing Your Niche and Embracing Change

Building a business requires creativity, consistency, self-trust, and a willingness to try things and fail. It also means knowing who you're for--your niche.

In this conversation, we explore the importance of experimentation, embracing change, and finding outside support, like mentorship and training, to develop your leadership and unique offerings. 

Interested in exploring mentorship opportunities with me? Click here. 

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Connect with Bonnie: Instagram, Email (hello@bonnieweeks.com), Website
Listen to Bonnie's other podcast Sexy Sunday HERE

The music for this episode is Threads by The Light Meeting.
Produced by: Grey Tanner

Transcript

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (00:01.262)
Welcome to the podcast, my loves. It is a delight to be here with you. And today I want to give you a conversation about business building. Now I was just in flow school in person this past week in Vancouver, Canada. And so there's a whole group of people who are trying to own their voice, be interested in creative sequencing. And a lot of people who come and work with me are interested.

in doing something different. So if you want something different, you have to do something different. And we're really good at patterns. We're really good at staying in the flow of our thing because we know it. And staying in the familiar is often more comfortable than stepping into something new, even if we want something new. So the power of coming together as a group of individuals into a setting where we lean into that is really impactful. So I am getting out.

re-entering my normal rhythm after spending a week with other teachers. And traveling to meet them is really impactful for me as well. I always walk away changed. Changed because of the things that they brought to the room, the things that we created together that truly it is not the experience without every single person there. That everybody brings something that makes it what it becomes.

One of the times we were at lunch because we have an hour lunch break during our long days together and we visit and have conversation. And I had one of the teachers ask me about business and about branding. And she was like, okay, I want to go this direction. And, and can I ask you how, how do you approach branding and

especially because I am interested in being more than one thing. That's what she said. Like how do I narrow down all the things that I'm doing or that I'm interested in and deliver something where there's a clear message? And her reflection to me was that it felt like I had a clear message and a direction that I was going. like that's, there's multiple things I feel about that one. I love that. I love that that's the feeling that she has.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (02:29.546)
about what I'm doing that feels good to me to have that be something that can be a felt or experience thing because I do have a direction I feel like I'm going and at the same time I am holding more than one thing. I'm speaking here on this podcast. That's one thing. Being in person with full of school, that's another thing. Recording classes that are flow classes or string class, that's another thing. And at the same time there is a unifying purpose behind everything.

And that's what I wanna speak to you today. So we have this conversation about niching, right? And about, this, which really is how, I feel like we can say the word niche, right? Or to niche down. I just like the word niche instead, saying it niche. So that's what we're gonna go with here in the podcast. I think that there can be a variety of experiences that people have when they say, when they hear the word, it's got a niche down. There can feel like a constriction, right?

like you're claustrophobic, like you have a limited availability of ways to move and no freedom to move. And that is anti me. Like I truly feel like all of the decisions I make are because they give me more ability to choose where I want to move and my freedom to choose feels really important to me.

Like that is, that's a North Star of sorts. So that's important to me. So I feel like that needs to be upfront first in this conversation of niching, right? And as I was talking with this teacher, I kind of used this analogy that I wanna share here today. And I had a puppy.

And this puppy was a Great Dane Weimer on our mix of a dog, 90 pounds, beautiful. Not you. got to be 90 pounds. Of course, I her as a puppy. I was lucky enough to be her owner for the first year and a half of her life. Then she is my neighbor's dog now, and we're just so sweet. And I still get to see her and like love on her. And she got a Big Dane brother.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (04:53.358)
when she went to that home and is super sweet and a puppy is no joke. So I had this puppy, right? And if you have had a dog and if you have tried to train this dog, this analogy is gonna work really well for you. I wanted to be a dog person for a long time. thought dog people seemed like they were cool people. I was like, I wanna be like a cool dog person. I kind of wanted to want to do that.

And then eventually I was like, okay, I want to do it. And they're like, okay, then I can just get a full send and get a big dog. And it was so much work and a puppy is so much work. And I would have a trainer that came over like every two-ish weeks and it just be me and the dog. And this was years ago now. And I would spend the first five-ish minutes feeling really emotional and definitely cried more than once because the trainer is there to help me.

figure out how to help this dog, right? And how to like help this flow of the house because this puppy doesn't know things. But if we wheel it back a little bit, and this really is gonna loop right back to business, who is dog training for? Is dog training for the dog? There might be a yes in this. But if you just train the dog, if you send the dog off

to boarding school, where it's gonna learn all the things and you pay whatever the cost is for the dog to live at boarding school for two weeks, a month, whatever it is to get the patterns of this is how you act in these certain circumstances. But then the dog comes home and you don't follow through, you don't speak to the dog in a certain ways, you don't hold the boundary. What happens? Dog training, yes, the dog learning the patterns.

is important, but it's so much about the dog owner. Dog training is about the person more than the dog. I learned how to do left-hand turns and right-hand turns and you're trying not to let the dog walk in front of you. And so how do you do that? How do you guide that dog? This about me holding it, holding the training, holding my stance, being confident in the direction that I want the dog to walk. It's about me as the dog owner.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (07:20.278)
This is what the conversation about niching is actually about. I say this because there's, and I think I've said this here on the podcast before, but when I am loud enough that you know that I'm for you or not for you, it's a win for all of us. Because you don't have to waste your time because time is finite. You have things that you wanna build, things that you wanna create.

ways that you want to exist in the world. Am I somebody that can support you or not? You knowing that is going to be hugely impactful for your time and presence and where you want to spend it. And if I am that person, then you could say like, great, this is where I want to spend my time and energy. So there is that draw that's important in our messaging and in our communication. And this conversation of niche in my experience, about two years ago, I had a moment where I

realized that I truly was for yoga teachers. And I was holding, straddling a little bit the world of saying, I love teaching students and I still teach students that are not teachers. And I love it. Like I love it. And two years ago, I really started filling the centering in myself that I was really here to help support teachers.

and their ability to stand in themselves and to create and call themselves movement artists and call themselves leaders and to help them show up in the room and be confident in their ability to be seen. And it's not small work and it's not fast work, but it is work that ripples the world, one person, one community at a time. And I felt that call in me to really that that is part of my purpose.

with at this moment in time. And so two years ago I felt like this slight death I want to say of saying, I thought I was going this direction of really teaching students. And that is still in existence, truly. And I also deeply grounded saying I am for the teachers. And I remember the moment I was walking down my stairs and it washed over me and I thought,

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (09:46.21)
This is what I'm doing. And it was a grief, also a celebration in me. was like, okay, okay. This is what I'm gonna do. And in the past two years, I have over 100,000 followers on Instagram. This was very organic. This was like, I started Instagram 11 years ago. And that's like a whole story of like why I started or how that started going, but it really has just grown over time.

and not been part of any plan. And two years ago, I probably had like 60,000 followers and I have always been focused on who's there, not who's not there. It's not been my mission to grow my Instagram social media account to any certain number. That's not my mission. And when I started showing up on Instagram two years ago,

centered in myself, knowing who I was for and who I was not for, my account has grown by over 40,000 people. And by business numbers, the business that I've done, the things that I have been able to create in the world, ways for people to participate in what I'm doing, the different offers I've made and the different yeses that people have given to those offers has also increased, my business has grown.

And by business, I mean by revenue. And so in the relationship of talking about dog training and that dog training is really for the people, not necessarily for the animals. While there's also like this, does, does, what's the phrase that means which thing, right? A dog is, is, is the word sit is the word sit down. Like, what's the phrase, right? Like we're going to have some phrasing the dog's going to learn.

and words and if they hear the word walk, they're getting excited, right? But so there's a little things like that, but it's so much about you as the dog owner being in charge. And it's very similar when people come to a yoga class, they wanna be able to set down their decision making. We make so many decisions all day long. This is decision fatigue as human beings. They just wanna come to the mat and tell them what to do.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (12:08.77)
Like tell them what to do. So much a part of why QLab and queuing is so important to me in flow school and in working with teachers is to help us get better at telling people what to do and doing it in a way that's clear, concise, commanding, but compassionate in a ways that help people personalize their practice and know what the hell that even means. But to give them space where they can make less decisions, but also meet themselves.

where they can be met, where they need to be met according to the demand, the physical demand of what the class is. So these are important to me. And when you hold center, and I have loved in flow school different times, there was a teacher who at the very end of our time together in flow school in person, then everybody teaches their flow they've created throughout the week and...

the one of the people were was teaching and her flow had some trickiness in it. And after everybody teaches, there's a feedback session. And another teacher said, you know, I was feeling kind of confused. I wasn't certain that my body could do it, but you spoke so confidently. You weren't in a rush. And the way that you gave directions made me feel ease. I was at ease. Like I didn't have to worry about it because I knew you had me.

And because I trusted you by the tempo and by the words you were using. That's it, right? How do we hold center so that people can lean into more trust? And this is a business confo, right? You can take this from standing up in the front of room and giving a yoga class. And you can take this to all the way showing up on social media or building a business. It's more about you in the conversation niching than it is about the other people.

It's more about me training myself to sit in myself and to move from my own centered place of who am I for, who am I helping or not helping? How do I help them turn left or right? Which I never even thought of before having a dog, because a dog usually walks on one side. So you don't want the dog to walk in front of you. If your dog walks on your right, then the dog has to shift when you start to turn right, rather than getting in front of your feet. And then how does it go around to turn left? Like it's like a whole thing that I had no idea.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (14:33.578)
amongst like other things, right? So you can have all the side quests you want and it does require a certain amount of consistency and paying attention to be able to build something. And I really work with a lot of people. think a lot of people are here showing up with me or I'm mentoring people who are interested in building something. It requires some consistency and paying attention and that...

We do not have an infinite amount of time and presence in the day to give to a lot of different places and to like make things move. And depending on if you're a parent of small children, especially if you're a full-time parent of small children, that also is gonna play a piece. Like your available time and the support of family, friends around you, that's gonna play a piece. Your, what financial security you have, that's gonna play a piece. So there's several pieces in this, but truly,

when I decided who I was for, it's me moving from this heart centered. Like, this is who I'm for and this is why I am for them. It was about me and me. That is more important than who I am specifically for. I think the conversation of niching is less about who, like even identifying an avatar.

and you getting really clear on who you are. This is the self work of being able to stand in yourself. And that is a perpetual thing, right? It's a changing thing. It's a, am I today? there's not an arrival point that you will get to and say, no, I figured it all out. It's not that. Because we're gonna start before we're ready, because otherwise we'll never start. So you're gonna do that, but you have to...

Find that place in you, say like, this is who I want to be. This is how I want to support people. This is the feeling I want to give people. This is the direction I want to move in. And you being able to trust yourself first is the only way then that you're gonna be able to help other people truly trust you, which ultimately to support them because what they really want is to trust themselves.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (16:53.912)
Like for you, wherever you are right now, don't you just wanna like trust yourself that decisions you're making are right, that the timing that you're making them is right, like if you're a parent like me, like that we're showing up, that we're trusting, that we're doing that well. Like all of our relationships and what we're trying to build that there's so much self-trust that we can give ourselves over time and these small wins. And I think the conversation of niching

is that it is building a self-trust in you, meaning you and me, right? Just like a personal in the personal you, it's building self-trust in you so you can hold the direction you want to move and then other people will be able to find you because of that. So this is the dog training conversation. You are the owner of the dog. You are learning how to walk the dog. You're learning how to help the dog feel ease because when a dog knows they're not in charge, all of a sudden they can relax.

It's not the job. They're not the leader of the pack. You have to be the leader of the pack. So how do you do that? How do you drop into that experience and that confidence? And some people are really nervous around dogs, right? And like, don't want to tell the dog what to do and think that maybe the dog would be happier if it could just run around and do whatever it wants. But I think we've all been around people who have smaller dogs that are poorly trained and the dogs are a little wild. I know that there's a whole bunch of Chihuahuas that are

kind of close to my house and I think Chihuahuas can be a great dogs probably, but I have little experience and the experience I have with them, those ones have definitely run out and escaped and tried to bite my ankles. So not a super fan of those particular ones. The small dogs sometimes get less training and we can tell the difference, right? And like, just let them be. But when we have a well-trained dog and the ease of everybody, the ease of that dog,

And have you ever seen that, a dog who feels like they can just relax, they're not the ones in charge, they're less anxious.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (19:00.536)
So don't we want to give that to people? If you're building a business, don't you want to give people that feeling of deep groundedness and of ease? And that, yeah, they could probably do the thing without you and with you. What happens with you? Does it feel more steady? Does it feel more centered? Does it feel more true coming from that they'll be able to find the thing from inside their heart that

helps them stand up tall and be willing to do the hard new thing, even if it's uncomfortable, that helps expand their freedom to move. That's, think, really what this is about. And it feels like a weird kind of sideways wiggle into the conversation of niching because it doesn't make it about creating an avatar. And when people say create an avatar, you're your ideal client.

then you're naming a certain gender, a certain age, a certain life situation. And those things could still be true. Is there a certain dog that is better for you than other? And I'm not trying to call us as humans dogs, but we're using this as an analogy, right? Are you a Great Dane person? Are you a Chihuahua person? Are you a terrier person? Like what kind of dog do you love? And you're a golden retriever. Like those dogs come with different traits. So there's some dogs that people love and there's some dogs that

that people don't love. It's the same with people. Do you love working with moms who have two-year-olds or do you like working with women who have no kids at all? Do you like working with men who are straddling, trying to build a creative business and also then trying to figure out what they do with corporate and then also have a family life? Like, and they're trying to be artists. Is that what you're trying to do? Are you trying to, I don't know, start 10 podcasts? what?

like I'm working just with podcasters people who are starting to podcast I just want to work with people starting podcasts I just want to work with people who are interested in fossils right okay cool so there's gonna be like any sort of niche out there any sort of group of people you can find them and it's wild and so you're gonna have to fail a lot though so if we don't start it's gonna require some time and presence to fail and to try again

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (21:28.748)
and to try again and to try again. And the more we start to step into ourselves and learn ourselves, the more that we can build the language of understanding of ourself and who we are and what we have to offer. But you have to do the damn thing in order to figure it out. And you have to do it bad and you have to suck at it. And it's gonna be worse at the beginning. So get the worst part over with, like just jump in, right? This is it. This is what I love to work with mentoring.

in mentoring with other people one-on-one and is helping people walk through this because it's not a fast thing to build a business. Especially because the people I'm working with building business is really centered around them. This is a solo entrepreneur sort of experience. So says, how do you build trust in yourselves? How do you stand in yourselves? How do you be the leader of the pack? And where your niche is like, what's the direction I want to face? Who is it?

that I can stand up for and then meet the people. So you're training yourself. That's really what niching is. And I think it's a really beautiful take on niching because it makes it more about you and less about the people that you're serving, which feels vital because at the end of the day, everybody will leave. All your clients, the people you love to death, to circumstance, to

choice.

In the end, we're always, always going to be left by ourselves. And it's not necessarily that anybody else is going to be dying next to us, right? We were born into the world as like a singular moment and we will die in a singular moment. And our life isn't magically attached to another person. They die at the same time as us when we die. So we are having this solo life experience together, which is very much like a yoga class. It's a solo experience in community.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (23:25.55)
And so this grounding in yourself of what you want to give and how you want to stand and who you want to be, it's you first. And like myself, you might not know what that is until you're really in it for a little bit. I was working with yoga teachers much longer than the past two years. In two months, in August of 2025, I will have been

offering flow school to the creative sequencing and queuing training for yoga teachers. I have been doing that now for almost five years and just two years ago I was like, I really am for the teachers. So for three years I was like, teacher, students, I'm here doing the thing. It felt good. It felt good. And the longer you do the thing, the more you hone what it is you're doing, how it is you're doing it and how you want to be in the world.

So it's gonna take some time and you do not have to know exactly what it is to begin. You just have to start. Yeah? And a little bit of that stand in the middle of your heart, in the middle of your belly. Like I'm pointing to this place Rick, where your ribs come up together in the front of your chest and that center spot of you, where it's deep in you. This is where we have to stand, in ourselves and lead from this place, this true

authentic self where sometimes things feel scary and sometimes things feel hard and sometimes we don't want to do it. Sometimes it feels overwhelming and then other times it feels thrilling and so right and exciting and joyful and so happy you can cry and we get to hold all of those things all at once because we hold grief and joy at the same time right we're more than one thing.

and you can do more than one thing in the service of what you are doing and picking up different projects and different focuses of the business you wanna build and honing those for a certain amount of time might be really helpful so that you can actually have time to fail and try again, because you need to have that enough consistency and paying attention to actually build a thing. Okay friends, this is the analogy of the day.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (25:48.568)
I'm going to be opening mentorship. I have a small number of spots for either teachers and there are two different mentorships. I have a mentorship for teachers that's three months. It's going to be for sequencing and queuing where we make classes together and we meet twice a month. And so we're making classes, we're talking about the queuing. We go over that over Zoom and I can give you a flow prompt so that there's like.

you come with something and then we workshop things like it's going to be super fun. do it with teachers already and it's really valuable. Okay. So if you want to do something different, lean is sequencing, that's an option. Then I have a mentorship for people who want to build something with business. Now this is also the slant of this wellness world of bringing yoga, yoga as a part of it. So this is if you have yoga as part of your business you want to build like this is where we're going with it.

I have people who, I've worked with people who are using intuitive eating along with yoga, people who are using somatics to talk about, build containers for people and for women and specific for this person where they're building containers for helping people understand their emotions. And she, this one client has built a container called Sacred Rage. And so supporting people.

as a group experience. So these are online offerings and some of them are working one-on-one. Some of them are working online. Some of them are working at a combination of online and in person. So those are a couple things. I have some people who have more brick and mortar and building business on the ground in their communities.

and work with people who are teachers and want to build something and have an idea of something. And even if you're not ready to step into it, you need somebody to hash out ideas with and get some feet under it. Get some direction, have some accountability. I'm not here to give you the ideas, you're gonna come with them. So if that lights you up, if it would feel good to have support in this way, in a way that feels deeply grounded, in a way that feels like

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (28:04.92)
centered, like you don't have to have shit figured out. You have nothing to prove, but you have space with somebody else who wants to sit with you and talk about the things as long as you do. And you have somebody who will cheer you on in your failures. That's what I'm here for. There's a kids movie called Meet the Robinsons. I really enjoy it because if...

anybody in the movie, if they create an invention and it doesn't work, they break out in celebration. Like confetti's flying, they're like, yeah, you failed. You didn't do it right. And when that first happens, the person who failed was very disappointed and distraught and then felt really confused because in the life prior to that, that wasn't their experience. And now they're around these people who are celebrating failure because we cannot move.

without those parts first.

We have to fail, but we fail forward. Yeah. So if this lets you up, go to bonnieweeks.com, go to my website, look up a mentorship page, applications as this is going live in June of 2025, applications are live. I will take very few. I currently, just have five people I've been working with for the past six months. So it is a small number of people. So if you want to apply, if this feels like it calls you, it's first come first serve.

So just keep in mind, I've only been working with five because I am a little bit choosy. So apply and let's do the damn thing. Yeah. Okay. If this light you up, if this conversation helped clarify anything for you for niching, gave you a new perspective, I would love to hear about it. Share this on the Instagram and tag me, let me know, send me an email, like however it is and have such a lovely day.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (30:07.98)
Mwah, tack sen.