“What kind of business owners do you coach?”
It’s a question I get asked a lot – and if you offer any kind of service, I’m sure you’ve been asked a similar question in your time too.
When it comes from an acquaintance or friend it can be hard enough to roll out your elevator pitch without it sounding memorised or artificial.
But when it’s asked by a potential client, trying to calculate the best way to pique their interest can be a minefield.
Position yourself too broadly, and they might doubt your expertise. Yet position yourself too narrowly, and you risk ending any possibility of working together, right then and there.
This dilemma makes niching such a perennial concern for small to medium business owners. After all, the market you choose to target – and where you position yourself in that marketplace – can make or break your commercial success.
So, how should we deal with it: To niche, or not to niche?
Let’s call them to the stand and see which comes out on top.
In Defence of Niching
Targeting a specific type of prospective client, at a specific stage in their journey means you can offer them a much more specialised service.
You can speak directly to their needs and develop your proposition to be ready to help them with their exact situation.
You won’t have spent energy learning skills that don’t apply to them, and when new prospects go shopping for help your offer will fit like a tailored glove.
That means you can be more efficient and targeted with your marketing, stand out more easily from competitors, build strong and lasting relationships with your clients, and pick a niche that is both lucrative and fulfilling.
(Sounds pretty good to me.)
In Defence of Broad Appeal
On the other hand, resisting a niche and making a wider offer can, in certain sectors, increase your desirability to prospective clients.
Take me, for example: my long experience of helping business leaders solve challenges and build better plans across a wide range of industries has given me a breadth of experience which can help me tackle most business challenges with confidence. It lets me find the common threads that link them together and, in all likelihood, means that I’ll have experienced a similar challenge in the past.
Keeping your appeal broad can also mean reaching a much larger market, opening you up not only to a greater potential client base, but also leaving the door open to those unexpected, exciting opportunities that from time to time come rolling in.
It reduces the chances of strain or boredom from repetitive work, giving you a diverse range of people, situations and challenges to tackle and keeping your business life fresh and inspiring.
But… What Do People Want?
Let’s say you’re looking for a new dentist. Now, when scrolling through service listings, you’ll probably be less keen to pick someone who also fixes eighteen-wheelers and fabricates metal plates.
“Teeth, suspension and steel” might make an unusual strapline, but it’s unlikely to garner much genuine interest.
But, at the same time, a dentist who only works with top teeth isn’t much use to you either.
Sure, you need a specialist, but not that much of a specialist.
When considering your own business it’s worth taking a similar approach. Ask yourself: Who do I ideally want to work with, are there enough of them out there, and how do I demonstrate the right level of expertise to draw them in?
Fail to be specific enough with what you offer, and why should people choose you? But go too specific, and you risk excluding a significant potential market.
Niching: Striking the Right Balance
As any business evolves, niching is a question that comes and goes as markets themselves change. But for me, demonstrating genuine expertise in a specialised area really can be a powerful way to stand out.
If in doubt, start with a broader appeal than you think, test the market – and see what kind of traction you get. A system of feedback and adaptation is almost always a safe and sensible bet.
What you might just find is that you can create a different kind of niche to what you imagined: such as based on working style or type of individual rather than target industry.
Speaking for myself, I always find it fascinating how much I continue to learn about the challenges people are facing and the ingenious ways they can reframe or reposition themselves to take them on.
As with most major business decisions, getting a sense of how effectively you’re presenting yourself or your company is much easier with the help of an experienced ear to bounce ideas off.
If that sounds like something you could do with too, I’d be more than happy to have a quick chat to share some advice.
Kind Regards,
Chris