Niche

What is a niche? 

“A business niche is a segment of a larger market that has a specific target audience.”

Choosing a niche is something that many business experts demand you do immediately upon starting a business or else you’ll never get clients.

I’m going to let you know straight away that you can get clients without a niche.

But there are advantages to having a niche so let’s discuss.

Many people try to work out their niche by deciding what the age, gender, job, life period, etc is of the people they want to work with. Now I’m not saying this is wrong at all, and it’s worth thinking about these things, but if you find yourself answering with “but my work can help all ages, and all genders!” or “But literally everyone can benefit from what I do…” then consider what I say next.

What you’re really trying to do when you’re choosing your niche is to identify your ideal client. What is an ideal client? Well, it’s that person that when you work with them it feels easy and good and you make a difference! 

And what makes some feel good and easy to work with? It’s likely not their career or age and more likely to be their personality traits.

So I think a better measure of whether you will be able to help someone is whether you share a similar outlook on life and similar values whether they’re someone you get along with and enjoy. You don’t have to be best friends with all of your clients but it’s massively beneficial if you’re on the same page.

So consider some of these questions when you’re thinking about your niche:

• Do you want to work with people who are growth focused?

• Do you want to work with people who care deeply about others?

• What about working with people who believe in things science has yet to prove true? (Who knows what science will discover in the future)

• What are your personal values and is it important that you work with clients that have similar values to you?

• What features do all of the people you enjoy spending time with have?

• What features do all of the people you struggle with share?

• What are your triggers?

There are many more of these types of questions you could ask but I think it’s also important to acknowledge that if you haven’t worked with any clients before it might be hard to answer these questions. You may need to just work with anyone for a while so that you can learn the answers to these! And there’s nothing wrong with that.