The narrower your niche, the wider your opportunity. Sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? It seems like if you chose a narrower niche, you’ll have fewer potential customers. Actually, it works just the opposite in the real world.
Let me give you an example.
When Sheila Scarborough sat down to draw our target market for Tourism Currents, the center circle included Convention and Visitor Bureaus and Destination Marketing Organizations. Then she realized there were more concentric circles, of Main Street organizations, trails groups, cities, museums, hotels, convention centers, and on and on. These were people who did similar work and would be able to benefit from our courses, without being our main target. Many people from these concentric markets have been attracted to what we do, and are learning with us now. By narrowing our niche, we widened our opportunity.
Why It Works
You aren’t cutting down your list of potential customers. You are cutting down the list of people who are a bad match, so you can put yourself in service of the people who are an exact match.
Narrowing your niche forces you to select an exact target. It helps you to say no to things that don’t fit. That in turn gives you time to say yes to the things that matter.
“Being remarkable also means being ignored or actively disliked,” Seth Godin said.
Sure, you can go on being all things to all people. But by keeping that wide open definition, you are cutting down your opportunity to succeed.
Agree? Disagree? Share your experience in the comments.
Related: How to narrow down your mission to find that niche in the first place.
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Quoted in:
Connect & Form Community: 2021 Social Media Best Practices, by Cheryl Lawson, Crossroads Communications, LLC
- About the Author
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Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
I recently headed to lunch with a colleague. He chose a restaurant with a big selection to accommodate some of our clients tastes, whatever they may be. I had to give him the same talk. If people do a lot of everything, they rarely do anything well. It was proven at that local diner, and I see it every day is the business world.
Ray, that is an interesting parallel.
Hi Becky
I like the idea, how do you do that as well as find the clients in the niche? Any tips
Darrell
Darrell, I think we can expand that question into a whole post of its own, but here’s the short version. Do like Sheila did in the example. Draw the circle that is your narrow target market. (Hint: it’s at an intersection of two topics, like social media and tourism.) Write down the customers in that circle. Then expand your circle. Who is close to that or similar, or has responsibility for that as one part of what they do? That’s a start.
Hi Becky
Thanks for the tips. I will do that. I look forward to the post. The next trick is to find the people to build a relationship.
I will have to give you a two thumbs up for this post. I’ll apply your concept to freelancers and many think that being a jack-of-all-trades will help them snag a deal. Yes, they’ll eventually have those mini projects. But those that pay much more are those that requires a specialization and if you’re not offering any, you’re just another face in the crowd. What makes you different anyway? Thanks Becky for the post. Happy Holidays!
I have found this to be SO true in my freelance writing business/social media consulting. While at first I would write anything for anyone, and I was struggling to get by. But when I started narrowing down my niche to blogging for Silicon Valley-based financial startups, I found myself innundated with work. Now if only I could narrow my services down!
Shaleen, thanks for the vote of confidence!
Jennifer, you narrow your services the same way you narrowed your market: you decide and you stick with it. I think the result would be a second boom for your business.
Another example is people writing blogs that excite them.
Their missing the point.
Focus on what excites your readers instead.
Ivan, I’ll guess that you mean business blogging, not personal blogs. And I do agree. Business blogs are best when they are helpful, answer questions, share things that excite the readers.
Remarkability may come with those who dislike you, but as Godin and others have also said, if you don’t have any critics you’re not doing a good job.
So keep doing what you do and keep smiling when people criticize you.
Ari, I like the Richard Armitage quote. responsibility sometimes means pissing people off. (Colin Powell quotes it so often, he normally gets credit for coining it.)
Love this, Becky. Expanding by contracting. It’s a hard concept for many small business owners to grasp because we don’t want to say no to business. But all business isn’t good business if it hurts your brand.
Erin, thanks for adding. It is tough for a struggling small business to turn down anyone, but sometimes you have to say no so you can say yes later.
i learned this lesson this (well, now last) year! my focus in 2011 is finding the clients i want. i won’t turn down clients out of my preferred demographic (different types of photography sessions i’m not that interested in) but all my work, branding, and effort will cater to the kinds of sessions i would love to be so busy with, i have no time for the others. hopefully this will be a success….:) it does feel a bit like jumping and hoping a net will appear! but at the same time, i think i believe deep down it will work.
Alej, I’m glad you’re trying it. The more you commit yourself to it, the more likely it is to work.