Carving Out Your Niche
Frank Traditi
The temptation when starting your new business is to market to everyone.
Exciting times are ahead getting new clients and you don't want to miss
out on any opportunity. If you take the approach that anyone and everyone
can be a client, how can you lose?
I spend a lot of time talking with new business owners - freelancers, independent
consultants and small businesses - about their target client base. Often
I hear that they are targeting a huge group of people or companies. They
want to be all things to all people.
Do you know how difficult it is to be all things to all people?
When was the last time you had the electrician paint your house?
Should your interior decorator fix your car?
You can see how this might present a few problems.
At this stage of your business, it's time to begin designing and carving
out a niche for your products and services. The premise of marketing,
selling and delivering your services to a niche market comes with several
benefits:
• You are intimate with their problems and challenges
• You get really smart about their needs
• You become an expert in how your niche market conducts business
• You understand and are able to react to trends
• You become a highly valued resource to a select group
• Your marketing efforts are much easier
• You'll get asked to present to groups that are interested in what you have to offer
• Niche groups like to refer business among themselves
Carving out a niche might mean making a big change for you. Many times
the most difficult part is getting past the negative feelings about limiting
your reach to potential clients. Actually, creating and sticking to a specific
market niche, can be very prosperous. You'll build relationships with a
loyal following that can continually generate business for you.
Let's look at a plan for carving out your niche:
1. Look at every customer you have today and those you've served over the
past 12 months
2. Segment them into common themes - size, location, type, years in business,
profession, etc.
3. Map out the top 3-5 problems you have solved for your clients
4. Map out the top 3-5 problems YOU WOULD LIKE to solve for your clients
5. Write down all of the things for which you are truly passionate in helping clients
6. Look back at your customer testimonials - write down the key words and phrases that describe what you did best
7. Launch a research effort into those business markets that interest you - Internet, books, reports, interviews, etc.
8. Write down the 3 things you do best
After you have gone through the planning exercise above, you'll start to
see some common themes emerge. This discovery process will to narrow down
exactly who your best client are OR who you want them to be. You may also
find what niche market you don't want to work with.
Don’t try to sell to everyone. The key is to narrow it down.
Copyright © 2006, Frank Traditi
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