Niche Down

by Christopher Lochhead

  Fuck it.

  Don’t worry about not knowing how.

  We’ll let you in on a secret: Jordan Harbinger, the former lawyer who pioneered podcasting before it was a “thing,” began his social interaction (aka, dating advice) program “Art of Charm” on a whim in his spare time. He didn’t have radio production experience.

  Jordan didn’t have much competition for ear time: 11 years ago, there were only 800 or so podcast shows vying for attention; there are now more than 500,000. So he had plenty of room to experiment, and the uniqueness of his hosting style was what resonated with those who were listening. That became his differentiator. So, he ditched his day job in the legal profession to dedicate himself to defining the self-help category.

  Today, “Art of Charm” is widely recognized as one of the first podcasts to build a mass audience; it reached four-million downloads a month at its height. When Jordan moved on to his own show in early 2018 (a cautionary tale for another time and place), he had been a Top-50 podcast host on the Apple iTunes store for more than a decade.

  You could argue that Jordan stumbled into his niche down somewhat accidentally. We don’t necessarily disagree with that.

  First, he was smart enough to know category potential when he saw it. Second, his program was unique. Rather than approaching interviews like a traditional radio host would, with a long script of prepared questions, Jordan cast himself in the role of audience advocate. He doesn’t try to be friends with the guest. And he does this deliberately.

  “When I have a conversation with a guest, the audience is not there,” Jordan told Christopher when he appeared on Legends & Losers (Episode 13565). “So I have to think about what questions they would like to hear, what they would want to ask, the answers they would like to hear. I also have to protect their time, so if the guest is going off on a tangent, or being really self-serving, I have to interrupt them and steer the conversation in another direction. If I find there’s a topic that’s less interesting for the audience, even if I’m personally interested in it, I will often steer away from that because I realize that every minute of the audience’s time is earned. Every minute that goes by where I am not earning their attention, I am burning what you might call social capital. I’m burning trust.”

  Jordan’s shows might be unorthodox, but they’re accessible, and that’s what matters.

  Within a month of debuting in early 2018, his new show — dubbed “The Jordan Harbinger Show” generated one-million downloads. When it comes to hosting, Jordan’s style is the one many newbies and wannabes try to emulate. But it took him years to find that voice. “It’s great to be unique, but it’s really damn hard,” he told Christopher.

  Every great idea is a horrible failure right before it becomes a massive success.

  Category designers often start out as struggling pirates, dreamers or innovators. But as we’ve shown in the previous chapters, the rule applies equally well to individual careers, solopreneurs and startups of all shapes and sizes.

  Those who design their own category can achieve a different kind of deep-rooted life satisfaction knowing they brought something new to the world. It comes down to the strength of your convictions.

  It takes courage to step out and say, “Here’s all those other people and what they do. And here’s what I do and why I’m different.”

  It takes courage to believe in a provocative, non-conformist point of view about a problem and why it matters.

  It takes courage in your ability to prosecute your own magic triangle. That courage inspires confidence that you can get the job done.

  And, of course, you have to actually have to condition yourself to be great at what you do.

  There’s an interesting human psychology at play here.

  If you dig into some brain research, one thing that shows up very clearly is that human beings are pack animals. The reason category queens and kings exist — that is to say those companies that claim the vast majority of the value in a given market — is because human beings don’t like choice.

  When human beings do things en masse, they feel safe.

  So, every Joe’s Pizza customer makes everybody thinking about pizza feel good about Joe’s. Ever walked up to restaurant expecting to give it a try only to walk away because it was empty? Or the opposite, have you ever waited 35 minutes in line to get a lobster roll? We linger because the existence of the line makes us feel great about the restaurant.

  The biggest challenge to personal category design is usually not the philosophies or concepts behind a given point of view. It’s the fact that category design actually requires going against that pack mentality. Humans have a primordial need to feel safe in numbers. We get a lot of positive feedback from being the same as others.

  Our challenge to you is to break from the pack.

  Free the creative part, the innovative par, the legendary part of you — and let that part be different.

  Our dream is that you harness the exponential power of what makes you different versus the incrementalism of just being better.

  Because it is being different that makes a difference.

  And we know how tough that can be.

  “Kermit The Frog” famously sang: “It’s not easy being green.”

  Bill Walton commiserates: “In life, things go wrong. In life, things collapse…. People try to drag you down and people try to say ‘No’ to you.”

  He goes on to posit, “I want to live in a world of ‘Yes’.”

  Of course, there will be a lot of “losery” along the way.

  To be legendary is to be ready for setbacks, disappointments and failures. Because shit happens. Sometimes, life can be crushing. We’ve both been crushed more times than we can count.

  It’s okay to be a loser.

  We all are.

  Failure is our teacher. Failure is our friend. Failure is our coach.

  Failure gives us humility. Failure gives us grit. Failure gives us a foundation.

  Losing is an essential ingredient for being legendary.

  Every time we lose we have a choice.

  Give up.

  Or, take the loss head on, learn from it and execute like a badass legend next time you’re on the playing field of life or business.

  Best wishes for great success, a shit-ton of happiness and massive tax bills!

  Be legendary!

  * * *

  54BusinessWeek, “When the Going Gets Tough, Turnaround Specialist Jay Alix Gets Busy,” Sept. 23, 2002.

  55Forbes, “How General Motors Was Really Saved: The Untold True Story of the Most Important Bankruptcy in U.S. History,” Nov. 18, 2013.

  56Inc., “The Business Consulting Industry Is Booming, and It’s About to Be Disrupted,” Sept. 11, 2017.

  57Gallup, “4 Ways Banks Can Win and Keep Millennial Customers,” April 3, 2018.

  58The Washington Post, “The feel-good Hallmark Channel is booming in the age of Trump,” Aug. 21, 2017.

  59Mashable, “The nostalgic power of Korean dramas — and why you should start binge-watching them right now,” May 19, 2018.

  60The New York Times, “The Addictive Charms of South Korean Dramas,” Sept. 15, 2017.

  61Legends & Losers, “NBA Legend And Grateful Dead Hall Of Famer Bill Walton On Living In A World Of Yes,” Feb. 21, 2018.

  62Legends & Losers, “John Bielenberg Thinking Wrong,” May 28, 2018.

  63NPR, “Our Robot Overlords Are Now Cooking Pizza And Delivering It On the Go,” Sept. 26, 2016.

  64Legends & Losers, “Annieglass Artisan Glassware Category Queen,” June 1, 2018.

  65Legends & Losers, “Betting Big On Yourself After A Business Breakup,” March 23, 2018.

  Share Your Legendary Story

  Are you a legend or
a legend in the making? Are you niching down? Were you inspired by this book? Bursting to talk about our and your ideas? Have perspective you’d like to add to the conversation?

  Visit us at legendsandlosers.com. Email us blackhole@legendsandlosers.com.

  Or find us on twitter: Heather is https://twitter.com/greentechlady and Christopher is https://twitter.com/lochhead.

  We’d love to hear your stories, your questions, your advice, your feedback!

  And we’d love your review on Amazon.com.

  Meet Legends & Losers

  Launched in 2017, Legends & Losers is the show for people who want to design a legendary life and a legendary business. You’ll experience raw and meaningful dialogues with innovators, entrepreneurs, marketers, athletes, investors, terrorist negotiators and Superior Court judges — talking about wins, failures and the road in between. We dissect legendary and loser companies and un-pack the root cause of their success and demise, peppered in with lively rants, epic diversions, and a ton of fun. This show will spark your spirit, stoke your perseverance, make you love your failures, and forge your inner legend. Many of the larger-than-life people mentioned in Niche Down have been guests on the podcast. Episodes referenced in this book can be found below. To subscribe, visit this link.

  1: Getting In The Game & Achieving Ferocious Happiness with Dushka Zapata (Feb. 21, 2017)

  7: How Tim Rhode Became a Category King And Started Two Life-Changing Organizations (Feb. 28, 2017)

  71: One CEO’s Journey From The Dark Side To Killing It, With Sheryl O’Loughlin (Clif Bar, Plum Organics & Rebbl) (Sept. 7, 2017)

  91: Hal Elrod on Overcoming Cancer, the 5-Minute Rule & Achieving Level 10 Success (Nov. 9, 2017)

  96: Dushka Zapata On Happiness and Comfort (Nov. 23, 2017)

  108: Creating A New Category Of Extreme Athlete With John Devore, Professional Skydiver & Captain Of The Red Bull Air Force (Dec. 28, 2017)

  126: NBA Legend And Grateful Dead Hall Of Famer Bill Walton On Living In A World Of Yes (Feb. 21, 2018)

  129: Branding Icon: From Surf Bum To Business Pirate With Santa Cruz Legend Rich Novak (March 1, 2018)

  135: Jordan Harbinger: Betting Big On Yourself After A Business Breakup (March 23, 2018)

  136: Kevin Maney And The Power Of Being Unscaled (March 28, 2018)

  155: John’s Crazy Socks (May 21, 2018)

  159: John Bielenberg Thinking Wrong (May 28, 2018)

  162: Annieglass Artisan Glassware Category Queen (June 1, 2018)

  168: Tom Szaky – Garbage Innovation (June 22, 2018)

  Thank You For Letting Us Be Us

  This book is a work of heart.

  It was born rather spontaneously in the winter of 2017 and came together both more quickly and more slowly than originally imagined. We know that sounds contradictory, but often our ideas in our brains raced far ahead of our fingers’ ability to give them shape with words. At times, because of our “real lives,” we couldn’t work fast enough.

  During this process, we discovered just how much we love working together! As we declared in the introduction, on paper this is a rather odd collaboration.

  In the real world, we worked together far more seamlessly than we had hoped. Heather can now finish Christopher’s sentences, which is a frightening and validating thing at the same time. (Her profane vocabulary has grown exponentially.)

  Revisions bounced back and forth within a matter of days, actually sometimes in a matter of hours. Christopher sometimes took a long time reading a new section draft from Heather, because he would read a line and yell out, “Fuck yeah, Heather!” then read the next line, yell out again, “Fuck yeah, Heather!” and so on.

  While we didn’t establish quotas, one of our mutual goals was to make sure that the best category queens and kings were represented within the narrative.

  The reality is that female entrepreneurs have their stories told far less often than their male peers. Having both a female and male perspective was invaluable.

  Many of the most vivid illustrations of the Niche-Down philosophy declared themselves during episodes of Christopher’s Legends & Losers podcast. We can’t tell you how many times we returned to chapters that were already “finished” to add “just one more thing” from an especially insightful or inspiring guest, often before the material was released to the world at large.

  We are particularly grateful for our conversations with basketball legend Bill Walton for his unrelenting enthusiasm, joy for life and inspiration, and with best-selling motivational speaker and author Hal Elrod for being so legendary (and for writing our foreword!).

  Our sincere gratitude to the individuals who lent us time for dialogues to test out and flesh out our theories, especially TerraCycle founder and CEO Tom Szaky, consumer-insights expert and category maven Eddie Yoon, and pricing strategist Rafi Mohammed.

  In a very real way, Niche Down was inspired by Christopher’s friend Jason Maynard, senior vice president of marketing and strategy of Oracle/NetSuite. In 2017, Jason and the marketing leaders of NetSuite asked him to join them on an executive road tour, hitting places like San Diego, Denver, Toronto, San Francisco and New York. As they traveled North America, it became clear that “small e entrepreneurs” had a lot of ideas, thoughts, and questions about category design.

  Somewhere along the way Jason said, “You need to write a book for entrepreneurs outside of Silicon Valley.” So, the book you’re reading is a direct result of Jason’s passion for founders, entrepreneurs and business owners. Thank you for the inspiration for Niche Down, Jason.

  Speaking of inspiration, thanks to Ray (aka R) Wang, founder of Constellation Research, and Vala Afshar, chief digital evangelist at Salesforce. Your support of both of us, through social media love and your frequent inclusion of us as guests on your weekly DisrupTV program, is humbling and so gratefully appreciated. Heather is especially thrilled to be in your hall of fame.

  And a huge thank you to our amazing book coach, Ellen Violette. Without her patience and persistence, none of this would have been at all possible — especially in the relatively modest time we allotted to pull off this project. Also a shout out to her editing assistant, Jillian Coleman Wheeler, for help making sure all of our there’s are where they need to be and the T’s never got us cross eyed.

  From Christopher:

  Thank you to my beloved family and friends for encouraging and supporting Heather and me on what is my second book project in less than five years: my fierce wife, Kari Lochhead; my mum, Jackie; my father Bruce; and my sister, Carolyn. Love you Martin, Emma, Victoria and Madeleine Cottreau.

  Thank you, Heather Clancy. Collaborating with you is a life thrill. Your brilliance, humor and ass-kick-a-tude are amazing. Whatever recognition this book might receive will be because of you. Without your ideas, insights, experience and writing superpowers, none of this would have happened. You’re a Mack truck of legendary, and I love you. Thank you, Joe Collins, for being a true one-of-a-kind character and for supporting Heather and me at every step of the way.

  To Candice Lipps (aka “Dandy Candy”) for being my friend, partner and support system. For putting up with my dysfucklia, bad behavior and general stupidity, while still loving me. You mean the world to me, and I love you. Thank you, Jeremy Lipps, for your humor, humanity and friendship. And, for giving Candice the greatest name ever.

  To Colin Vincent, thank you brother. Legends & Losers never would have gotten started without you. Our friendship, all of the great times we’ve had on mountains and waves, watching fights, drinking whiskey mean the world to me. FYJ, KFC!!!!!!!!!

  Thank you to Matthew Richard Johnson, for your friendship and for producing the first 150 or so episodes of Legends & Losers. I literally could not have done it without you. You and your team were instrumental in helping tease out some of the original Niche Down concepts in our “Niche You” teaser. Thanks for he
lping us give voice to these ideas.

  To Jaime Jay and Sara Parrish, thank you for producing, writing, publishing, website-ing, marketing and everything you do behind the scenes to make Legends & Losers what it is. You two, too, are legendary.

  Thank you, Nick Kullin; you’re a genius and working together on “6 Minutes of Legendary” has been a magical mystery tour of awesome!

  Jim Goetz, thank you for your partnership.

  To Shaku and Tushar Atre, love you both.

  Thanks to Jon Berghoff and Scot Lowery of Flourishing Leadership Institute for your unwavering support. Thank you to Bix and Joe Bickson for your love. To podcaster and author Jon Vroman for showing us the way. Thank you, Matt Aitchinson, of the Millionaire Mindcast, you’re a stud.

  To Dushka Zapata, thank you for everything you write and everything you are.

  Thank you to Ann Miro Ko, Mike Maples, Jr., and Julie Allegro for including me in your lives.

  To the legendary podcaster, Jordan Harbinger, for his wisdom, insights and friendship; and Kevin Miller, host of The Ziglar Podcast, for your passion for category design and helping me share my voice.

  Thank you, Matt and Stephanie Hanson, Alissa and Mike Bloch, Kim and Chris Hass, Denise and Rick White, T.J. and Connie Welch, Ben Rewis and Melanie Gideon, Susan Marfise and Phil Collyer, Kristine Rose, Ben and Lorinda Kottke. You guys couldn’t be better friends.

  To Jean and Phil Cosentino, thank you for your example and love. Mary, Michael Finn, Fox and Quinnlan Forman, Janine and David Bertelsen, Jason, Holly, Melissa and Joey Zappala, you’re an amazing family.

  Tom and Karen Schwab, and Dan Moyle, thank you for your coaching and support.

  Nellie, Kathleen, Anthony and David Acer, I love you.

  Jonathan, Cherilyn, Timmy and Scotty Dyer, thank you for being a gift in my life.