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Heather Townsend

The Excedia Group

Director

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Everything you need to know about finding your niche – Part 2

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Heather Townsend continues her series about how finding your niche will help you grow your freelance business.
In part 1 of this mini series on 'how to develop a profitable niche as a trainer' we looked at:
  • What actually is a niche?
  • Why do you need a niche?
In part 2 of this mini series we are going to take this one step further and explore how to identify a profitable niche for you.
Any trainer can identify a niche – that is simple to do. However, the hard part is finding a niche where you are confident that there is enough of a market, which will be motivated to buy your services, and make a good living from it. For example, I could choose to adopt a niche of only offering my referral marketing skills to new start up businesses being run by mothers with young children. Yes, this niche passes the specific test – but it's too specific and going to be like selling an iPhone to my granny. My Granny knows that there are iPhones out there, but can’t understand why she needs one or why she should, heaven forbid, spend £500 on a phone, when there is a perfectly good landline in the house. Most start up business, like my Granny and the iPhone, know what referral marketing is, but almost always don't understand why they should be serious about it and definitely can't afford to hire me – or any expert – to help them with this. So, this potential niche for my business does not pass the 'is there enough of a marketplace motivated to buy my services and products' test.
 
"I could choose to adopt a niche of only offering my referral marketing skills to new start up businesses being run by mothers with young children. Yes, this niche passes the specific test – but it's too specific and going to be like selling an iPhone to my granny."
In order to determine your niche, think about the answers to these questions:
  • What type of work do you love doing?
  • How are you known to others?
  • Where are you considered to be an expert?
  • Which types of clients do you love working with?
  • If you were to look at your current client base, what trends or common themes are there?
  • What sort of clients does your firm tend to attract?
  • Which sectors anticipate a growth in demand for your technical services?
  • What types of work do you find clients who arrive at your doorstep ‘pre-sold’?
  • What types of clients or assignments do you find that the partners readily put you forward to do?
Ideally you want to be coming up with specific marketplaces who may require your expertise, eg business development expert for retail companies. Despite what many trainers believe these examples are not specific enough niches to make you memorable:
  • Executive coach to board directors – isn't that what every executive coach is offering?
  • Trainer working with SMEs – buyers of training services normally want a trainer who specialises in a subject area such as leadership, personal effectiveness. Plus, SME isn't a niche as it involves 40 million+ businesses in the UK.
  • Leadership expert working with big companies/blue chips – don't most leadership experts work with big companies, ie companies who can afford a £1000+ day rate?
If you haven't taken the time to think about the answers to these questions, I recommend that you spend just a few minutes jotting down some answers to these questions. Now look at your answers and rank them by which audiences or subjects you are most excited about working with. For example, in the early stages of my training career I did a significant amount of instructional design work for Tesco. Yes, I can still do this kind of work – but it fills me with dread if I had to do this kind of work for retailers for the next 5-10 years. If you are identifying either audiences or specialisms which you would rather not solely work with over the next 5-10 years, this is an indication that this is not your niche. Take your top three ranked potential niches. Now apply the 'is there enough of a marketplace motivated to buy my service and products' test. If any dont pass this test then discard them.
Now you have some strong candidates for a niche for your business, it is time to take a look at the market place. In an ideal world there will potentially be a player or two in your niche, as this proves that there is likely to be a marketplace motivated to buy your planned products and services. If there isn't anyone else adopting your niche, then you need to think very carefully about whether you want to be the first mover into this marketplace. It may be that others have tried in the past, but failed to make a profitable business. For example, many coaches have tried to exploit the new coaches marketplace. I've not seen many make a sustainable and profitable business for this population, as many new coaches can't afford to work with a business coach or marketing expert.
 
"If there isn't anyone else adopting your niche, then you need to think very carefully about whether you want to be the first mover into this marketplace. It may be that others have tried in the past, but failed to make a profitable business."
There are often times when you have a real passion and track record for working with a demographic who are unlikely to be able to afford the traditional services a trainer offers, ie workshops and one-to-one coaching. These may include start-up businesses, charities or the unemployed. This need not be a deal breaker – particularly if you can subsidise your services and products with funding that is often available. Or you may find that a one-to-many service and product offering may be the way that you can make a profitable business from this niche. For example, can you offer group coaching rather than one-to-one coaching? Can you offer webinars rather than face-to-face workshops? Can you write and sell distance learning products instead of looking to sell open or closed workshops?
If you have done your research now, you are probably in the position to committing to niching yourself. If you can't decide between some of the potential niches you have identified then think about which of your niches have:
  • The most credibility
  • The most engaged and largest network
  • More potential for strategic alliances already available to you
  • The most number of current or ex-clients in
  • The most amount of excitement when you think about specialising in this area

In summary

Choosing your niche involves you applying two simple tests:
  1. What specialist skill will I focus on promoting for what particular audience?
  2. Is there a marketplace motivated enough to buy my products and services for this niche?
In the third and final article in this mini series, we will look at the last stage in the process – how to develop and capitalise on your niche.
Heather Townsend helps professionals and firms become the go-to-expert. Unusually for someone with an Engineering Degree, Heather accidentally became a writer and used her knowledge on social media to write the current best-selling and award-winning book on networking, The FT Guide To Business Networking. (75 five star reviews on amazon). Heather regularly blogs at Partnership Potential, Joined Up Networking and How To Make Partner And Still Have A Life 

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Heather Townsend

Director

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