Still Trying to Figure Out Your Business Niche?
A big obstacle that a lot of new business owners face is defining their niche.
Of course, you’ve heard it before that being specific in your niche will help you market your business much more easily.
You may have done all the avatar worksheets and exercises, but you might still be feeling super confused.
Today, I want to share a very uncomplicated way to identify your niche so that you can feel confident to move forward in your business.
What’s REALLY Your Niche?
Your niche is the specific problem you solve for a specific audience where your skills are best suited for.
Focusing on ‘problems’ is important because you won’t be a generalist. You will more valuable to hire when you are a specialist in solving very specific problems.
This is an important clarity if you want to turn a fuzzy idea into a meaningful business.
When you look at your business, what’s the core problem you want to solve?
What particular issues are urgent to be solved in order for you to create transformation in the industry your business is in?
Think deeper about gaps of opportunities or problems you’ve ALREADY seen around your industry.
Where are areas that have frustrated you that you want to contribute change towards?
What makes you say, “Gosh, if I could just help this person/organization, this is what I would focus on first to get them to results faster.”
When you go beyond just saying things like, “I want to help company leaders thrive”, and be more specific to problematic areas to help like, “I want to help company leaders create an empowered culture so they don’t need to micromanage any longer”, you get known for something well.
Now, of course you may solve many micro problems that can emerge for the people you want to help.
However, it’s great to take a practice in articulating a description of the CORE problem you solve (i.e. create an empowered team culture), and then look at micro problems that can support solutions for the core problem (i.e. hiring better, encouraging feedback, finding what drives their employees, etc.).
What Skills Will You Use?
This is where you can shine even further in your niche. What combination of skills will you use to do your job effectively in your business?
If you’re pitching your services to a client, how can you explain to them not only the core problems you tackle, but why your experience and skills can help them get results with ease and effectiveness.
Using the same example of ‘helping company leaders with an empowered culture’, you may use your skills of assessing what motivates an individual to do their job better to help a leader place the right people to the right roles.
Or perhaps you have a superpower of analyzing what it means to this particular leader be a leader. Not all leaders are created the same, and taking in account how they define their leadership is important to mentor them successfully.
Being able to explain how your special ‘sweet spot‘ can get them to their goals will ensure you stand out.
Which Audience Should You Serve?
The short answer – someone you’re FAMILIAR with.
If you’re someone who IS the actual avatar profile of someone you want to help, that’s great. You already know what keeps him/her up at night.
If you’re someone who wants to help an industry you’ve worked for in the past, pick the types of organizations or businesses that you know the ins and outs of.
Very likely, it’ll be easier to understand what goes on for them in the background with the history of experience you already have there.
Or, at times you may choose a type of customer that can BENEFIT most from these particular problems you solve. For example, when I did consulting work previously, I opted working for startups and up-and-coming small businesses because they were most open minded to the kind of work I was presenting. It simply made it easier to do work with them.
Takeaways For How to Reframe Your Mistakes
- How to look for answers in your challenges to grow and develop as a human
- Why you shouldn’t throw in the towel when you make a mistake and what to do instead
- Why failure builds the resilience and persistence you require to accomplish amazing things
- The gifts that our mistakes and failures give to us that you may have failed to see
- How to focus your attention on new resources and means to achieve your goals when you ‘fail’