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I know, the word “niche” is a trigger word for many entrepreneurs. But before you mentally kick me in the shin for bringing it up, let me present my case.
I could start this post telling you why you HAVE to niche down. Probably mentioning that “talking to everyone means reaching no one” or some similar thing everyone and their mom keep saying. I could tell you that they are right (oops I guess I just did 🙂 ).
But I couldn’t do that without adding that niching down isn’t something to be scared of. It also doesn’t have to be the drastic thing you’re probably imagining. Don’t start chopping off the proverbial limbs of your business just yet, you will need them.
Niching down doesn’t have to be scary
The fact is that the journey to find your niche can feel overwhelming, and even scary. The usual definition of niching down means focusing on a super specific area of business, customers, or service… and that comes with many worries.
🤔 Isn’t the niche I’m picking oversaturated?
🤔 Wouldn’t it mean less potential clients/customers and therefore less work/sales?
🤔 Am I going to get bored with doing the same work/working with the same people over and over?
And hey, these would be very good concerns to have.
If they were justified.
But every market can look oversaturated if you look at it through your glasses of skepticism. What’s important is to be very clear with yourself about what your revenue/sales goals are, and what is the realistic size of the market you’d be targeting.
So what does niching down actually mean in my book?
Find your niche by getting more focused
The general agreement is that the broader you go, the less focus you have. The more distraction you meet along the way. Not to mention that it will be harder for YOU to craft a service/product that will speak to everyone you’re trying to reach.
When I talk to my clients about their niche and how to position their brand, the most important factor driving the decision needs to be their audience’s needs. More specifically, their audience’s needs plus my clients’ unique angle on the solution.
I believe that you can start defining your niche by being very specific about the way you approach the solution to your audience’s issues.
Imagine that you need to see a doctor about a specific health concern. First, you go to the general physician to examine your issues, then they will send you to some specialist based on their guess of what’s wrong with you. And sometimes, the first specialist is not the right one.
Isn’t that annoying? Frustrating? Exhausting?
Now imagine the sense of relief you’d have if you knew your issue will be recognized and addressed immediately? Wouldn’t you pay more to have your issue fixed sooner, by someone who truly understands your needs?
That’s the difference between being one of their choices vs BEING THE RIGHT CHOICE.
Wouldn’t YOU want to become the ultimate go to when they need {your service}?
3 exercises that will help you find your niche
1) Recognize your passion and lean into it so your niche never gets boring.
You have probably recognized by now that running a business can be tough. Therefore, the more you enjoy your work, the easier it will be to stick with it through the rough times.
On top of that, your passion can help you craft a niche based on what’s the most natural and easy for you, something you don’t have to force yourself to do, or learn how to do properly.
Stop focusing on the aspirations your business has and what you’d like to be doing in 5 years from now, and focus on what you’re really good at doing now.
Going with your passion makes you the best salesperson for your business because you’ll be really excited about sharing it with the world. And don’t worry, it also gives you the mind space to slowly add more to it or slightly pivot the direction in the future if needed.
But don’t be too quick with this. Sure you could name your most obvious passions in your sleep, but they may not be what really drives you. As with everything, dig deeper.
You could take my business as an example here.
I was struggling for the longest time to position myself as a brand strategist & designer, in what seems to be more than an oversaturated market (where everyone and their cousin have a graphic design program offering logos).
Over the years I tried being the fun one, the colorful one, the more creative one…and while all these are true for me, what I was truly passionate about showed itself a bit later and made me reconsider my whole angle on my business.
I realized what I really enjoy in my business is seeing my clients excited about their new brand so much that they can’t wait to share it with the world. Compared to the stage they were in when they came to me – unsure of what to do so, insecure in their choices, in need of direction…it’s a joy to witness the love and understanding they have for their new brand. During the time we worked together, not only did we work on the actual project, but we also built confidence.
And with that realization, helping you get confident about your new brand became my niche. It was a no brainer. But it was also a passion I didn’t know I had before. Passion that is not as obvious at first, but includes so much more once uncovered.
2) Get clear about your audience’s needs and position yourself by defining the outcome.
By definition, your niche targets a specific segment of the market. But knowing their age, gender, hobbies & location is no longer the ultimate goal of yours (unless running ads, of course). You want to get to know them on a more personal level to really understand them.
You want to find out what they are looking for and what motivates them to make a purchase.
Take my client Colette as an example.
She is a dermatologist and acupuncturist, who wants to help her clients with their mature skin problems (acne, rosacea, eczema…). And while to some this would be specific enough, it means she would be targeting about third of the adult human population, right?
So what we did is we dug deeper into their audience’s problems and aspirations.
- And we found out they’re afraid of going to events just because of a pimple or two.
- They don’t feel good in their own skin.
- They feel like their body is fighting them, making life harder for them.
- They tried all the quick fixes out there, and are ready for a long term solution.
And this is how Skin Revolution came to life.
Her brand is here to gently shake up your beliefs when it comes to skin care. It’s here to teach you that change comes from within. And it shows you how to combine Eastern medicine, Ayurveda and functional medicine to take control of your health and create a path to lasting skin transformation.
More importantly though, the brand serves to help you analyze and address your unique situation, find out the causes of your problems and find a custom solution. All that in an online program.
In other words, she’s the dermatologist helping her clients fall back in love with their mature skin.
Need more examples of defining your niche by owning the outcome? Here’s few more:
- A business coach who helps women to create their own financial autonomy, so that they can choose the life they want (aka my client Nicole Michal).
- An accountant who helps you understand your own data by simplifying it for you to the barest minimum. (aka my client Cloudact.ca)
- Leadership coach helping executives manage their team by being themselves and learning to Lead before they Manage. (aka my client Andrea)
3) Lean into your unique point of view, process, or tools you use to achieve the results.
This method is not exactly the first one to come to our mind when thinking about niching down, but a powerful one anyway. You can find your own corner of the internet by embracing your brand personality (the traits, values and opinions) as that’s something that often makes people love you or…not so much. People tend to like what they agree with, therefore voicing your brand’s opinions and angles naturally creates a niche on its own.
Speaking of personality, building one is the process/tool I use to help my clients define how their brand sounds, looks, behaves etc. I also use the brand personality quiz (that many of you found me through) as a signature tool to help even those who are not ready to work with me 1:1 just yet.
Similarly, you can also highlight your unique process or tools you use to position yourself on the market.
Don’t guess your niche, validate it
No matter how specific you get with your niche, you should always validate your decision to make sure that it’s the right niche for you and there are enough clients/customers in the pool.
The more niched down you go, the bigger the need to find out as much as you can.
Try finding out information about how much money your potential client can make a year & how much they may potentially spend on your offer before you set anything in stone, because sometimes you may be surprised by the numbers.
This way you can also validate if you’re over or underprice your offer. Be aware, underpricing is as big of a problem as over pricing, because if your offer is too low for the niche standard, you won’t be taken seriously either.
Conclusion
No matter how carefully you approach niching down, it will be scary at first. But once you do it, it’s actually super empowering. The more focused you become in your business & brand, the more you will understand the people you serve, and the more confident you become.
And it won’t be long until you realize it’s actually exciting.
For more tips on building a personality-driven brand that you’re dying to share with others, follow me on Instagram.
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