Are you like me with trying to read more than one book at a time?

I get so excited about certain books and it’s hard to be loyal to just one at a time… so they start piling up. You’d feel the same way if you had these fantastic books in front of you, as I do now:

1. The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Imposter Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It (2011)
   ~by Valerie Young, Ed.D.
2. Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love (2009)
   ~by Jonathan Fields
3. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (2009)
   ~by Daniel Pink
4. The Tao of Entrepreneurship (2009)
   ~by Marcia Bench

I have honestly begun them all and have been inspired by them all.

I can already highly recommend all four books. Seriously, check out this inspiration:

The very fact that you have a desire to start a business – or to change or grow one you already own – means that the means to fulfill your dream already exists, right now….

Your desire is your inner voice, your Divine Inspiration….

Once the desire is clear, the way will appear. Giving voice to the desire will likely inspire you with one next step.”

~Marcia Bench, in The Tao of Entrepreneurship

All four books in my list are so well written that you’ll forget it’s non-fiction. You’ll laugh at the surprises and self-recognition, and get swept away in the stories.

All four also offer concrete, doable steps — from a heart-centered place. These are my kind of books.

So, here’s hoping I won’t add another to the pile until I finish these. Admittedly, I’m not even mentioning the novel and the spiritually inspiring book I have nearby for other moods.

Do any of these books speak to you? What books are inspiring you lately? Comments encouraged below. You can leave it anonymously. It’s easy.

To my beloved blog readers,

During this time of year-end reflection, I notice myself thinking about what matters. Gratitude for you comes to mind.

Thank you for your support of my work by reading my blog and possibly showing interest in more ways (attending events, referring clients to me, etc.). Since my work is an expression of my life’s purpose, your support and interest mean the world to me.

I’m including a photo of me enjoying that Whoosh of trust and flow as I rapidly sled downhill. On that day, it reminded me of my option to choose trust on the ride of self-employment. I’m glad that I often remember to go with the flow. I hope you’re experiencing that flow feeling too.

Year in Review

As I look back on my year, I’m especially excited to share these milestones with you:

• I enjoyed speaking at numerous events including the 18th Annual Women Business Owners Conference, U.Mass. Eisenberg School of Business, PodCamp, Western Mass Business Expo, and the Women Business Owners Association series at Bay Path College.
• I led my networking workshop for wallflowers at U.Mass. and got invited to lead it at U.Conn. in 2012.
• I made some wonderful new connections at those events.
• I hired an e-learning specialist to help me create an online version of my networking workshop (in the works).
• I had a significant increase in business over last year.
• I’m finally starting my e-newsletter.
• I assisted at two coaching trainings which deepened my passion for coaching.
• Most importantly, I’ve had the honor of helping people clarify their life’s work and bring it into reality — defying the economy and other fears.

Now I’m breathing and taking in this abundance.

What about you? What milestones come to mind as you look back on your year? I invite you to write it down and perhaps leave a comment below.

May this season bring you time to appreciate all that’s here already and all that’s possible.

Best wishes and happy holidays,

Val Nelson

In a previous post, I described the reasons you should choose a narrow niche for your business.

Now we’re getting down to how to choose the right niche for you.

Your niche doesn’t have to be an age or gender demographic such as “50-something women.” That’s a simplistic example that might not be narrow enough.

A better niche idea is to describe people with a particular challenge. For example, your ideal audience could be parents with children at home while having aging parents to care for.

In picking a niche…You find a place where your passions, experience, and strengths meet an aching need in the marketplace.” ~Steve Mitten, Business Coach

An easy way to choose a niche is to look at everyone you’ve helped in your recent past (in your current or past work experiences) and see where you felt the most excited about the work and where you felt you had the most impact. (I did exactly this using a spreadsheet.)

If you’re creating a product that could help all kinds of people, you can still narrow your marketing to a small group. That’s niche marketing. You don’t have the budget to market to the world so choose one small market and become known there.

Criteria for Choosing Your Niche

Ideally your niche will meet most of these criteria:

• Taps into your personal accomplishments
• Makes good use of your talents
• Easy to establish your credibility (such as having solved the same problem for yourself)
• A topic you’re excited about
• Where there is a clear need
• Where there is low competition
• Defines a group you can easily reach
• Where there is a strong incentive for folks to invest in order to find a solution

Look deeper than options like wedding photographer versus portrait photographer. What’s the unique perspective you bring?

I love this perspective from a successful business owner:

I think that a niche needs to have a very organic facet to it — as in, it is seeking you as much as you are seeking it. ~A.G.

How Do You Know You’ve Found the Right Niche?

When you choose the niche that feels right to you and your audience, your confidence grows and your marketing becomes very easy. When that happens, you’ve found your niche.

Test the market before you land on the right one. I hosted a very simple focus group that helped me finalize my decision.

Can You Change It Later?

It has its cost to change later, but yes, you can. Better to start more narrow and then broaden. (Ah, that’s a blog post in itself, for another time.)

If you watch your results, you’ll know if you need to adjust. If something feels stuck in your marketing, consider whether your niche needs changing.

What’s Next for Your Business?

What’s your next step? Stories and questions are welcome in the comments box below.

Resources

• How to Choose a Niche Market (SitePoint, 9/22/10)
• Is Your Business Having an Identity Crisis? (In the Works, 9/14/11)
• Marketing Discovery Session
  - to help you find whether and how to narrow your niche

Having a narrow niche for your business is so important that I’m determined to prove it to you. If this post isn’t enough, please leave a comment below.

Does your basic pitch say something like “I help people get things done.”? If so, that could be interfering with your marketing.

It’s hard for listeners to picture the generic words “people” or “things,” so they will ignore you. Vagueness puts them to sleep.

It doesn’t matter if you actually can help everyone. No one will listen.

But they will pay attention if you say “I help older adults who want to find a fun exercise plan that helps them feel great.”

Your audience will listen even if it’s not describing them. They’ll say “OH, my mom could use that!” Or “Oh, I need that too, do you work with people in their 30s?”

The concrete nature of what you say keeps their attention.

This post will define niches and why you need a narrow niche. The next post will explain how to choose your niche.

Fear of Going Narrow

If you’re like most of my business owner clients (and myself), you resist narrowing your audience to a very specific niche. It seems so counter-intuitive to making money, right?

There’s really nothing to lose by going narrow, and there’s much to gain, despite what our fearful minds want to believe.

When you choose a narrow niche that’s the right fit for you, it’s like turning up the heat on your marketing. It’s one of those odd paradoxes that your ideal audience will flock to you if you go narrow.

Defining Niche

A niche is that sweet spot where you best fit in the market. You might refer to it as your specialty, your ideal audience, or your target market.

I purposely say niche or ideal audience instead of target market. Your ideal is more about who you want to attract, while target sounds like you have to go get them. Attraction models are more fun and work better.

For the science lovers out there, you’ll recognize niche as the ideal habitat for an organism to thrive in. Perfect analogy for a business niche.

Reasons to Go Very Narrow

1. Research about going narrow shows you’ll get better results and better customer loyalty.
2. People pay better attention when they can visualize what you’re describing.
   Paint a picture for them. Even if it’s not describing them, they’ll be able to think of someone to refer to you.
3. It’s easier to be a big fish in a small pond.
   You can easily become the go-to person on your area of expertise for a small audience. Everyone has expertise in something so make sure you discover yours and let people know what it is.
4. It’s the fastest way to grow your business and credibility.
   It won’t take long at all to become a known expert on a subject where very few have specialized. When I started talking about focusing on coaching introverts, I realized I was one of about 6 in the country. Almost as soon as I put it on my website, I got contacted by people all over the country, both as a coach and as someone to interview.
5. It’s easier to rank higher in a web search for unusual search terms.
   Better to be in the top 10 for only a few people than to never be in the top 10 at all.
6. Not only are more people finding you with a narrow niche, more of them are ready to sign on because you’re “the one” in their minds.
   I’ve had people tell me they already knew they wanted to work with me before we even spoke, because of my specialty.
7. People are more willing to pay for your expertise.
8. Your brain is more able to focus on one audience.
   You’ll be more able to truly understand their needs and how to best serve them.  Focus is a powerful force that feeds you more and more over time. You won’t have time to stay current on multiple topics.

It’s always better to start highly focused and then work outwards than to begin with a broad, unspecific mandate.” ~Chris Guillebeau, A Brief Guide to World Domination

What is Narrow Enough?

You want to define something so clearly that people can easily picture it, and thus it feels narrow.

A narrow niche doesn’t have to be a small portion of the population to be effective. For instance, my specialty of serving introverts comes across as very narrow and has worked well for me, but actually introverts make up about half the population so it’s still a very large group.

Don’t worry about numbers in your audience as much as how concrete your description feels. Actual criteria for choosing your niche is listed in the next post about how to choose your niche.

Does Everyone Need a Niche?

I was just talking to a client who I realized didn’t need one as much as others do. There are always exceptions.

In her case, her reputation was already so strong in many areas, that her marketing could be as simple as calling a few people to say she was available.

For her, going narrow isn’t so much about marketing needs but simply to give her brain a break and to ensure a lasting edge in the market. So, I think she’d benefit from choosing a  narrow niche but it’s not as essential right now.

What’s Next for Your Business?

Think about whether you could go more narrow and how it would benefit you.

When you want help to choose your niche, go to the next post, How to Choose Your Niche.

Stories and questions are welcome in the comments box below.

Related Articles

• Want More Brand Loyalty? Narrow It Down. (Verilliance, 5/5/11)
• Niche of Not? (Shana Sureck, 5/23/11)
  (A photographer’s struggle to choose a niche, with great advice in the comments)
• A New Model for Business – The Museum (Harvard Business School, 8/15/11)
  (Explains a related business paradox: offering less options keeps customers happier.)
• The Long Tail
  (For those who love theory and studies, this is a marketing expert’s look at how our economy and culture is shifting from mass markets to million of niches, thanks to the Internet.)