AP 1183: How Do I Build On a Lucrative Niche without Leaving My Audience Hanging?

AP 1183: How Do I Build On a Lucrative Niche without Leaving My Audience Hanging?

Pat Flynn:
What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to episode 1183 of AskPat 2.0. You're about to listen to a coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur just like you. And today we're talking with Dr. Kimberly Reynolds, or Dr. Kimmy, as you might know her from her podcast, Productive on Purpose. It's also her brand. You can find her at ProductivePurpose.com, and she helps us overcome imposter syndrome to find peace and prosperity with the purpose that we have and have in life. And she has got an incredible story, and we help her through a lot of stepping into her purpose today, as you'll hear.

There's this incredible story related to her mom and her mother and something that she had left behind after she had passed that inspired Dr. Kimmy to go into these new directions. She herself very much suffered much like many of us with imposter syndrome. Something that when you get into something, it might be exciting at first, but then you start to talk yourself out of it. You start to believe it's not right for you, or that you're not qualified, all the excuses that you've probably made up for yourself before. This is what Dr. Kimmy has once experienced and now helps others break through. So very, very important stuff. And again, inspired by her mother. Listen in. This is a great one. Dr. Kimmy's just such an amazing personality. Tons of great energy in this episode, and I hope you enjoy it. Here she is, Dr. Kimmy from Productive on Purpose.

Kimberly, welcome to AskPat. Thanks for joining me today.

Kimberly Reynolds:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.

Pat:
I'm so excited too, why don't you really quick tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Kimberly:
My name is Kimberly. I go by Dr. Kimmy, and I'm a double board-certified physician and professor. I'm also a wife and mom, and I run a podcast called Productive on Purpose and also a coaching business by the same name.

Pat:
Productive on Purpose. So you're not busy at all. Mom, Dr., all this stuff, Dr. Kimmy, that's Productive on Purpose. Why is that important to you to share this kind of information about being productive, and what does “on purpose” mean to you in this regard?

Kimberly:
It actually really ties into my questions for you today. So if it's okay, I'll just tell you a little bit of my backstory, because I think it'll help set things up for this. Like I said, physician, always a high achiever, but always struggled with crippling imposter syndrome my entire life. I just knew that at any moment, someone would walk in, whether it was a new job or a new position in school and say, "Actually, Kim, you're not supposed to be here. We made a mistake." That was always my fear. I went through med school and residency. I did really well, but I got my first job at my medical school. And I would walk around the halls of my institution, feeling like a failure, every day. I was a raging procrastinator. I was behind on everything. I just could not keep it together.

I had already had a child at this time, but then I actually got pregnant with my second child and things completely fell apart in my life, because at the same time, my mother got sick with a very out-of-the-blue, debilitating illness. And she had been healthy her whole life. And my mom and I were really close. That was in 2016. And so for a year and a half, she was in and out of the hospital. Now, I'm the only doctor in the family, so the care of her was delegated to me. Meanwhile, I'm pregnant/I have my baby, I'm breastfeeding. I'd be at the hospital with my mom, tending to her and my hospital. This is how out of control my life was. My hospital would be calling me like, “Doctor, where are you? You were supposed to start seeing patients two hours ago.” I woke up every day without a plan and was just all over the place. Unfortunately in 2017, in July, my mom passed away, and it was the hardest thing that had ever happened to me.

But there was one day after she died. I was in her living room by myself, going through her things, trying to decide what to keep and what to throw away. And I looked over and I saw a manila envelope and I picked it up and it was really thick. I had recognized her handwriting right away. So I'm flipping through the papers, and it was like someone took the wind out of me. I felt like I'd been punched in the gut because I recognized at that moment that my mother had written a book, an entire book, a manuscript, by hand. Like, who does that? Wrote a book by hand more than 20 years prior. And on top of the stack of pages was a note to like a friend or a colleague. I'm not sure who it was. And she said, “Can you type this up for me? This is a book that I want to publish.”

And she never told me, she never told my brother, she never told her siblings. No one knew. And the fact that the note was on top means that she probably didn't tell that friend either. So she had this amazing book. It was on faith and weight loss, a book that many of us need, that I probably need right now, right? And she never put it out into the world. And so I sat there in her living room that day with tears streaming down my face, and I knew I needed to do something different in my life. I could no longer wake up every day and go to bed at night, not living out my full purpose, so I actually made a commitment that day that I was going to walk fully in my purpose. And I didn't know what that meant, and I didn't know that it would lead me here, but that's really where this entire thing comes from. It came from that moment.

Pat:
Wow. That is a powerful moment and an incredibly powerful story. And what an incredible way for your mom to still continue to communicate with you and share and guide you as a mom would, even after she had passed. I'm so sorry to hear that she's no longer with you, but she is still with you and you are a part of her and she's a part of you and you can continue to, with her, move forward and help others at the same time. That's incredible. I mean, to me, there's no stronger why than that. That is so important to have something like that, because it drives you through the messiness, it drives you through, you know, “Why am I even doing this?” You have that answer always with you. So tell me about where you want to go. Where is the future and where you're striving to be?

Kimberly:
Right after that, I was like, “I want to honor my mom and start a business,” and I went through a lot of different things. I did an MLM. I sold different products, and I eventually landed on a blog. I had a blog and I was just kind of blogging inconsistently about my life. But then I started talking about my procrastination because after she died and after I had that moment, I started building systems and processes into my life to tackle the procrastination. And it was just trial-and-error things that I was doing. But I was just sharing on the blog what was working. My blog went from, no one was reading my blog, Pat, to now there were 10 people reading it and 20 people reading it. And they were writing me saying like, “Wow, you're a physician and you've dealt with this and you've overcome it. Like, can you talk more about this?”

And so I started getting excited because I was like, “Well, if people are reading and they're actually writing back. This is amazing!” And so what I would do, I live an hour away from my hospital. I would drive and dictate my blog posts. And I was like, “Well, that's kind of like a podcast, and I love podcasts. So why don't I just start a podcast?” So I started a podcast. I named it Productive on Purpose, launched it in February of 2020. I would talk about procrastination, how I've been able to overcome it. That's what I sort of started building a community around.

I've already mentioned to you that the focus was on purpose. I always wanted to help, especially black women professionals just like me, because my mom was a pediatric nurse. And so there's probably something else, there could be something else that you want to do in your life. What are you holding back? Is there another element of your purpose that you want to walk in? But I recognized that the procrastination was getting in the way. So I was spending a lot of time talking about that. So I sort of became known for procrastination. I would get tagged on posts about procrastination, but I really wanted to help women do some of the things I was doing. Like, do you want to launch a blog? Do you want to launch a podcast? Do you want to start a business? I want to help you do that.

So what I've found was that my messaging of procrastination and like helping women overcome that, wasn't really translating into people seeing me helping them to start a business or a podcast and get clarity on that. So I would launch programs, and I always had women say yes. So I'm fortunate. I'm really thankful that every time I've launched a coaching program, I've always had a small cohort, but I would do these amazing challenges. And I would call them “procrastination to purpose” challenges. And I would get sometimes 50 women, a hundred women. For a community as small as mine, that was a lot. I was super excited. People would give me the most amazing testimonials. And then I would present my offer of, “I can coach you and help you fully walk in your purpose,” and it was like... crickets. When I first wrote into your show, it was right after a launch just like that, in December, where I did this amazing challenge. I had women showing up every night for five days, and it was so great. But then I presented this offer of, “I will help you overcome procrastination, get productive, but also take the first steps to figuring out what your purpose is and starting to take the messy first steps of walking in it. And I can help you do live videos and show up and start building a community.”

And people were like, “I'm not there yet.” I can't even get out of bed in the morning. You want me to start a business? I'd love to do that in the future, but I can't even quite see myself there. So I just found myself in this place where I didn't know how to get my messaging aligned with what I was doing. What I did was I said, well, cause I listened to your podcasts all the time. I'm like, well, “Maybe I'll just start a membership and help people with the procrastination. Apparently that's what they want.” So I launched this membership program, and I did a founding launch almost. I got like 11 women in, and I was really excited. It was as the most women that have ever said yes to something that I want.

So, that's great. But again, I'm helping them with productivity and their procrastination, but I really, really wanted to also help women build their business and walk in their purpose in that way. So then what I did was I started niching down in that area. I started getting women saying yes, and I started actually making a good amount of revenue. So in the past two months I've actually brought in, this is blowing my mind, just from niching down the podcast and getting really specific and saying, “I want to help you build a business; this is about purpose.” I've made like $50K in revenue in the past two months, which is just like crazy.

Pat:
Yo.

Kimberly:
Yeah I know!

Pat:
Congratulations.

Kimberly:
Yeah, I don't even know the words that are coming out of my mouth. It's crazy. But now I’m at this point—I have two communities, I have, I guess a crossroads? I don't know. Where do I put my energy because I'm still, you see me in my scrubs, I'm on call right now. And I have two kids, I have a husband, and he has a business too, and he's also a professor. So where do I put my energy?

And I want to help women with the procrastination. I love when women say to me, “I woke up this morning for the first time, and it's like I knew what I was going to do for the day and I didn't feel overwhelmed, and that's because of you.” And that makes me feel great. But then I also love when I get to help clients. And I have a client who just launched her podcast and launched her own coaching business. And I was able to help her do that, and that lights me up. At this point, I don't know that I can do both, because I just don't know if I have the time and the capacity. So I'm just sort of torn, like what do I do?

Pat:
Yeah, the hard thing is you want to give your full self to two different things. And if you were to do that, you're either going to burn out, or other parts of your life might suffer, or you're just not going to show up as you had hoped in these places. And so something's got to give, right? Or else something's going to happen. What I really love that you did is you found this niche, right? And the riches are in the niches, as I always say. And what you did was you started to transition from trying to find an audience for your product. Instead, you now found a product for your audience, right? “This is the audience I choose, and now I build a product for you,” versus, “Hey, here's the audience I have. Let me force a product on you.” I love that you did that.

And you're seeing the results of that. When you niche down and you find the product for your audience, you start attracting those kinds of people and they start referencing each other and referencing you, great things can happen. But I understand the idea of wanting to be on both places at once. But like I said, the truth is if you are trying to be fully in both places at once, it's never going to happen. I'm not saying you necessarily need to give one up, essentially. But I think what might need to happen is you need to set the expectations for what each of these things are and how they bring you into it. So, for example, the community with the procrastination, that's such a big thing that you're helping people with, but it doesn't a) pay the bills for you and b) you have seemingly more interest to help these women create businesses and have purpose.

One can lead to the other. The productivity might get a couple of people to get interested in what you have there. The truth is, in order for you to fully help those who might need help with their business, you're going to have to fully show up there, but it's not to say you can't still help and be present every once in a while in this other spot. So long as you say, for example, “Hey, women. We're going to build this community. I want to help you with procrastination. There's already this information here. These are the things that I already have that can help you through that process. And maybe once a month, I or somebody can come on and help guide you. But that's all I can provide here. I am fully focused, just like you should be fully focused on the thing that lights you up. And the thing that lights me up is this thing over here. And so if you're interested in that, you can find more of me there. If not, it's okay, but here's what I would do if I were you, and that's all I can do for you here right now.”

And you have to be okay with that. So long as you know that, okay, if a woman comes into this community, you have given them the tools. You have given them the resources to get what they need out of it. You just are over here now, focusing more of your time and effort and also having the money come in as a result of that. How are you feeling about—I know, it's going to be hard. You have to kind of let go to grow, though.

Kimberly:
Yeah, I know I do. And I’ve already—since shifting the podcast to more business and helping women really get that part of their purpose off the ground, I've lost listeners, and I've actually been up front about that. I've done episodes where I'm like, “I know that the way I started, you're not hearing the same content anymore. And I'm really sorry if you feel like—I don't want to leave you behind.” So I just feel, am I leaving people behind? It just breaks my heart a little bit.

Pat:
Yeah. I mean, I understand that fully. I mean, you are kind of like me, you're a people pleaser. You want to make everybody happy. But the truth is you're not able to fully help a person in the way that you can with your superpowers, if you were to try to help everybody. If you try to help everybody, you're going to help nobody. And that's a hard thing to realize. Again, you could say, “Hey, if this is the community you want to be a part of, I have all the tools there. I've given you everything that you need. I'm just not going to be in there as I once was because here's the truth: what got you here, won't get you there. You have a new there now.” Sure, you're losing listeners, but you're also gaining new listeners that have a new understanding of the new journey that you're on and what you can provide for them.

So it's not a one-for-one, but for every listener that had once been a part of the community who now leaves, you're also now stronger in what this thing is about, right? The same thing happens with emails. It's like, a lot of people get upset. “Oh, I just sent an email and I had a hundred unsubscribes.” Well, this is your messaging now, and the people who did receive that message are the ones who are going to want it. It's okay if you don't also want to lead people on.

That's the other thing. It's like, let's understand what this is about now. And if this isn't for you, then go find somebody that is for you right now. This is where I'm going to focus. And if that's not for you, then that's okay. And I don't want to let you think that this is for you either. I need to be really clear with what you're going to get here, because the truth is, if you're not clear with where you're going, other people are going to be sort of on the fence. And you know, they're maybe going to expect help from you that you can't give them. And it's of service to them to go, “You know what? This isn't what you're here for.” And that's a good thing because now they can go find somebody that would help them, and you're helping these other women.

Kimberly:
It's absolutely true. And I knew that that was going to be the result of this conversation.

Pat:
See, I'm just kind of giving you a) permission and b) validation that that’s true. The thing that could help you is, “Hey, for anybody interested in learning how to get out of procrastination, I've built this three-day email course,” or “I have a PDF file for you.” It's like, “Hey, I'm sorry I can't help you the way that I once did, but I put all my best information for procrastination and solving that problem here for you. Here's the answer. This is it. So go and use that. And if you happen to be interested in this other stuff I'm doing, cool. If not, no worries, but this is for you. And here it is.”

Kimberly:
Okay.

Pat:
Does that feel good?

Kimberly:
That does, because I was actually in the process of building a course because I did want to try to get some of that procrastination stuff, digitize it, so I can see if I can help women with that. Even with that, I'm a procrastinator, and I know how I used to be. Did I make it through my courses, and 90% of people don't make it through their courses. So am I still doing what's right? But you're right. I can't do it all. I literally can't. Do you think I should completely—would the best-case scenario be that I let the membership go?

Pat:
The best example would be having a friend or a member of that community, step up to be the face of that community or to be, kind of like, play that role or liaison between you and the community. Maybe they check in with you once a month, just to kind of see how things are going. Maybe they start to take a little bit of ownership in it. That way it's still there, it's still feeding people in, it's still able to help. It might help that person in their career and where they want to go. But you are not there as you once were. And you've still stepped up to find somebody who can still help these women in that way.

And again, it's this idea of a mini-course or a challenge. The challenge could still be there, right? The challenge, it can be run on more autopilot. And then from within there, be like, “Hey, you've done this. You now understand how to crush procrastination and get rid of it or deal with it. And if you happen to be interested in starting a business, that's where you'll find me coaching women and helping others who want to get rid of their procrastination to open up that part of their life and have more purpose in that way. If not, no worries. You have what you need now. You can be a part of the community and hold each other accountable, and you have Janice there who's the community director.” You can give a nice title or something. You could share a little bit of the membership costs with that person to help them out too, to keep it going. And then you could say, “Hey, and I have this coaching program and this other resource here. This is where my passion is, and if that aligns with your passion, I'd love to help you. If not, it's all good. I hope that this procrastination challenge has helped you.”

Kimberly:
Okay. So have someone else be the face?

Pat:
Yeah, I mean just because the truth is, I think a worry for you is you might leave some people hanging. You don't want to leave people hanging, so another person can come in and help support with that. And it doesn't have to be like a full job. It doesn't have to be an employee. It could just be a person who moderates the community and maybe gets the membership for free as a result, or a certain percentage of whatever the reward might be to keep that community going and involved. It's just, again, you're not in there as much as you once were. And maybe you do pop in. Maybe you do have a moment where you can pop in and say hi, and that's a nice little fun bonus, but it's not expected because this is the other spot where you're at.

And as far as the podcast is concerned, I mean, notes of productivity will likely continue to show up. Notes of procrastination will show up. And so therefore, “Hey, women. If you're into business and you need help with productivity and need help with procrastination, well, I have a challenge for that.” So it kind of works the opposite way, and it can help out ultimately where your goal is and where you want to end up.

Kimberly:
Okay. And then, so for that, would I show up—you said show up once a month. Would that be like, I do like a masterclass once a month?

Pat:
It could just be as simple as a Q&A. “Once a month, ladies, I show up, we hang out, I answer your questions, some good vibes, and we kind of come together as a community. And that way, you don't have to prep anything, there's no presentation. Maybe you do feel like presenting something or maybe you want to use the opportunity to test something. And so you create a few slides for it or whatever. It's up to you. But honestly, just having access to you once a month allows for people to realize that you're still there, you're still helping them. It could be a great place to showcase examples of how you help your other women in the business course overcome things too, and tell their story, which can then lead some of those people to go, “Wow, that sounds interesting. How can I get involved in business?” It could actually be a lead gen for you for the business stuff too, but also it'll give you a nice sort of ear on the community just to make sure that you kind of are there for them still, but not super committed to it because you have this other stuff.

And plus, you owe this to yourself to make that decision to let go, because you have the family, you have your business, and probably what got you overwhelmed and suffering from procrastination is often saying yes to too many things.

Kimberly:
Oh, a hundred percent.

Pat:
But you got to practice what you preach here, you know?

Kimberly:
Absolutely. You're right. You're absolutely right, Pat. Oh my gosh, you're so right. So I haven’t, because I've been in this predicament of like, “What do I do?” I haven't done any marketing for the membership at all. I haven't lost anyone, but I also haven't gained anyone, so it hasn't grown. So again, this other thing is growing. I am making great revenue from that. And the membership community hasn't grown. I haven't lost people, but I also haven't grown. So, do I market that?

Pat:
I wouldn't. If I were in your shoes, here's what I would do. And again, this is just, this is just what I would do, but I'll share my thinking with you. I would tell the community members there, “Hey, I've made some big decisions to move forward so I can fully focus on the things that are passionate to me, much like I would hope that you would do the same. For the next three months, the community will still be here for you. And I'm going to show up once a month to answer your questions, or maybe even a bit more to help you. But after three months, we're going to shut the community off. You can still have access to each other in a Facebook group, or what have you, if you want to chat, but I'm not going to be promoting the membership because I'm going to be focused on this other thing, and I just wanted to be upfront with you and let you know about that. If you were interested in business, I'd be more than happy to give you a deal on the things that are going on over here.”

How would it feel to not have to worry about that anymore?

Kimberly:
That would be—it would be everything because I-

Pat:
That sigh sounded like a relief to me. Like it would be, you can do yourself a favor by "cutting it off," but doing it in a graceful way that allows these other women to not feel like you're just ditching them either. But this opens up way more opportunity for you on the other side. And again, those women likely are there because not just—not because of the content and maybe even not because of you, but because of the access to each other, which doesn't have to go away. Imagine 10 hours of marketing time spent on the business stuff and what that could do for you versus 10 hours of time put into this community that's not growing. It's kind of an answer where that time should be spent, right?

Kimberly:
Yeah, it is. Oh, wow.

Pat:
A little bit of a reality check, but...

Kimberly:
Yeah, and I knew. I do know. I just needed to hear it. Thank you so much.

Pat:
This is pro-level advancement in your career now. You have to make these CEO, executive-type decisions, which aren't easy. If it was easy street, you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough. So the fact that you have to make these decisions, it means you are on the cusp of even more greatness. And again, if you were just like sitting and chilling, then you probably weren't pushing yourself in unlocking the next level. So congrats to you for getting there, because many people listening would dream to have this position that you're in right now. Like, this is a good problem to have.

Kimberly:
I would've dreamt it like six months ago.

Pat:
You just made $50K in two months. Let's get some more time to put more time into that, because that probably represents how much more of a service you're offering to people versus the procrastination stuff, which is good, and a great start. Now you've focused in, and that new stuff deserves you fully.

Kimberly:
Thank you so much. This is so clarifying.

Pat:
Is this an okay therapy session that we had today?

Kimberly:
Oh my gosh, this is everything. This is everything. Oh my goodness. Thank you. Thank you.

Pat:
Do you mind if we reach back out to you later to kind of check in on you, maybe six months, a year from now and see how things are going?

Kimberly:
Oh my gosh, that would be so great. That would be so great. That would be—actually, that's good accountability, cause I'm like, “Okay, Pat's going to come back. I got to make sure I-“

Pat:
Yeah. And I'm sure your mom would be proud of the decisions you're making too. And you know, imagine, I don't know if you've had plans. I thought you were going to lead to the fact that you might end up publishing this book for her one day. I mean, this is more time and ability and resources for you to do that.

Kimberly:
I am, because that's going to be a lot of like actual therapy sessions to be able to get through that publication process.

Pat:
Every chapter is going to be the waterworks, I'm sure.

Kimberly:
But it has to happen. I'm super excited about that.

Pat:
Good. Well, I look forward to that. Maybe the next time we chat, you can tell me more about that project. And where can people go to follow your journey and get access to you and see what you got going on?

Kimberly:
My website is ProductivePurpose.com, and then I am mostly on Instagram. So @productive_on_purpose. Yeah, I would love to connect.

Pat:
Awesome. Thank you, Dr. Kimmy. Appreciate you and all you do as a health worker and as a creator helping others with productivity and such. It's just so meaningful, so thank you.

Kimberly:
Thank you. And thank you for all you do for us creators and just kind of paving the way for us. It's amazing. All right.

Pat:
Of course, that's why I'm here. Thank you.

All right. I hope you enjoyed that coaching call with Dr. Kimmy. Again, you can find her at ProductivePurpose.com and of course her podcast, Productive on Purpose. Dr. Kimmy, thank you so much for your authenticity, your emotion today. You just are radiant, and I cannot wait to see who else you might be able to help out there. You are helping so many people already, and I cannot wait to hear how people who have listened to this episode respond to you and also join your community and the work that you do as well. Again, ProductivePurpose.com.

Thank you so much for your time today, and thank you, the listener, for your time today as well. If you'd like to get coached here on AskPat, you can do so by going to AskPat.com, and you can fill out the application on that page. We go through a bunch of those applications and reach out to people who are going through some stuff, but who can use the help.

We try to help as many people as possible, whether that's one-on-one on a coaching call like this, or through you just listening to the show and picking up gems along the way. So either way, I just appreciate you. Thank you so much. Again, AskPat.com, and make sure you hit subscribe if you haven't already, because we have another great episode coming next week. In fact, one of our “Where are they now?” episodes. One of my favorites we do at the end of every month here, where we have a chat with somebody who had once been on the show. We talk about how things have progressed and where things are now. So make sure you subscribe so you don't miss that. And I look forward to serving you in the next episode. Cheers. Thanks so much. And as always, Team Flynn for the win. Peace out.

Thanks for listening to AskPat at AskPat.com. I'm your host, Pat Flynn. Our senior producer is Sara Jane Hess, our series producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. AskPat is a production of SPI Media. We'll catch you in the next session.