The Truth? I Never Really Niched Down — Until Now [2025 Replay]

In fact, I am doubling down on serving photographers inside of the systems part of my business, and I'm going even deeper by expanding the templates that I've made to include branding photographers, wedding photographers, and senior photographers. So for the last two years, I've been quietly expanding my course. Well, maybe it wasn't so quiet, but I changed it from the CRM Blueprint for Photographers to the CRM Blueprint for Creative.

But at my core, I have always been a photographer, and I feel like that is one of the parts of my marketing messaging that was so strong, you know, systems built by me for you in the same way that I ran my own photography business. So I am happy to announce that from now on I am going to be talking directly to photographers again. There is going to be a shift in photography episodes on this podcast, as well as the messaging that I put out throughout my marketing channels.

So today we're gonna go back to one of those OG questions, should you niche down? Spoiler alert, there's no one right answer, but this episode will help you make a smarter one. Okay, let's listen to the original episode. Hello, hello and welcome back to the Business First Creatives podcast. You know, I don't shy away from a controversial topic, but I feel like I've been listening to several podcasts and also seeing conversations inside of Facebook groups about the topic of nicheing down.

I've discussed the topic with a few different guests on this podcast, but I feel like it's a topic that just keeps on coming back around. And while everyone has their opinions on whether or not you should niche down, I just wanted to talk about it today. Okay. So I have primarily offered one type of photography the entire time that I've been a photographer, and that is documentary sessions.

Whether that means a family in their house or someone giving birth, or you know, a humanitarian trip to Mexico for a commercial client. Like, the type of photography that I do is incredibly niche like it's documentary, but I do offer that service in many different ways. I will come to your house, I will document, you know, a homecoming when your kid is coming from a mission or your spouse is coming home from a military engagement.

Like, I will do anything as long as it is real and I do not have to pose you. So that's my previous experience in like nicheing. I don't take pictures of families outside. I don't do babies in a basket, like I don't do any of those kinds of things. Now, when it comes to the systems side of my business, I started doing something that was incredibly niche. I helped photographers do the backend of their business, in Dubsado. So that's one specific client and one specific tool.

Now, in the idea of photographers, I even really specialized in family photographers. Um, the first few setups, and I would say, yeah, I would say the first few setups over the first few months, um, I was really only marketing to family photographers. And in fact, my course, the CRM blueprint for Photographers is technically for family photographers. I say everywhere that I can, If you are a family photographer, this is the perfect fit for you.

Every email, every template, was specifically created for you. And then I get the messages that are like, Hey, Colie, like, can I really not join your course? And I always tell them, no, absolutely you can come into the course. I just like to warn everyone, that I designed the course for family photographers because I feel like we get left out of a lot of different conversations. Like there's a lot of tools for wedding photographers. I mean, everywhere.

There's email templates, there's people giving courses, and I feel like besides the creative aspect of family photography, we don't have that many educational resources like other genres. So I did create my course to kind of fill that need, but also I did it because I'm a family photographer, guys. Like that's what I know. I sell the course as you know, this is what I've done inside of my business.

So I'm basically giving you, you know, access to all of the tools that I use inside my own family photography business. And I certainly would not feel comfortable creating a course, specifically for wedding photographers, when I have never shot a wedding in my life. Now I've done birth guys, I've dabbled in branding and commercial photography, but I have legitimately never shot a wedding.

And so, I mean, knock on wood, never say never, but you guys are not gonna see me putting courses out here and putting offers out here for wedding photographers. That just doesn't make sense. I don't have the authority in that space. To be able to talk about the wins that I've gotten in my own business to help you get those, like it just doesn't make sense. But what I will say is that when I talk about systems offerings, I specifically talked to photographers.

Now for a hot minute, guys and for a hot minute. I mean like seven months. I really tried hard to talk to all creative service entrepreneurs. I mean, you may have heard that word come out of my mouth a time or two. I was really trying to expand who I was offering my done for you services to.

I even played around with expanding the course to offer different versions for different people, but at the end of the day, guys, I am lazy and so I'm gonna do what I know, and I just felt like, creative service entrepreneurs are hiring me anyways. Even if I am talking about everything specific to photographers. I mean, they're dropping in my dms, they're sending me contact forms. They're saying, Hey, Colie, like, do you only work with photographers?

And then I tell them, no, I mean I, I'll absolutely help you with your business. But for me, doing all of my front face marketing, my front face messaging towards photographers helps me give a very clear message of who I am and what I offer and who I serve. Can I do it for other people? Absolutely. Do I do it for other people? I sure do. But if you niche down, if you talk to one kind of person, it makes your life easier, even if you're willing to do other things.

So like on the subject of birth photography, there are no birth photos on my website. I don't even think that there's a mention of birth photography, unless you land on my contact form and it happens to be, or at least it was, one of the options in the dropdown menu. But like birth photography is not something that I offer to everybody off the street. Like, you have to be one of my clients for me to go to the hospital with you or be in your birth space and photograph that amazing moment.

You know, one of my previous clients or related to one of my previous clients. All right guys, so what about you and your business? Cuz I've talked a lot about me. Have you niched down in your business? Have you seen any specific gains, from either nicheing down in the offers that you have or the specific clients that you go after? I would love to know. So hit me up in the DMs on Instagram if you wanna talk about it. Man, two years later, niching down didn't just make my marketing easier.

It made my systems smarter. But what's different in 2025, I've learned that you can expand without losing your niche, especially when you're backend is dialed in, which is why coming in July of 2025, there are going to be expanded toolkits inside of the CRM blueprint for creatives that cover wedding photographers, branding photographers, and senior photographers.

So yes, there are still the original templates well updated for family photographers as well as a more general set for creatives like website designers, copywriters, et cetera. But everyone deserves systems that work just as hard as you do, and so I am expanding the course to really talk to more photographers, while keeping the focus on photography. So if you're a photographer who's ready to stop duct taping your experience together, my course is officially open to you.

All the emails, all the automations, all the tools that helped me build my very own photography business and help hundreds of other photographers do the same, even if I am no longer shooting clients. So check the show notes to peek inside the course or DM me @coliejames if you're wondering if it's a fit. Alright, that's it for this episode, y'all see you next time.