How to Find Your Niche in Business

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By Patricia Gilliam
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Being the type of person who loves to do a lot of different things, I used to believe that a niche was something that would hinder you in business more than help you.

The more I've experienced and learned however, it can be a very important thing to do if you're self-employed in any kind of business. In this article, I'll show you some ideas about this topic that helped me.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

The desire to niche yourself in business and improve your customer base.

Step 1

First, realize that having a niche does not mean you're not diversified. Being someone who's a major fan of multiple streams of income, the idea of having a niche first made me think I'd have to let a lot fall by the wayside. A lot of times you can combine several related interests into something that is unique and solves a particular problem. It's having focus and an overall goal that will make you more money long-term.
Step 2

Having a niche allows you to be the "go to" man or woman in a particular area. Using my own life as an example, if I put my name on a business card or brochure with writer, video editor, photographer, videographer, watercolor painter, Amazon used book seller, website owner, and on and on--it would fall victim to the Jack (in my case Jill)-of-all-trades and master of none effect.

When people want something done, they want an expert and not someone who just appears to be decent at a lot of things. Note that it doesn't matter if you're actually really good at all of them or not but the impression gives when you rattle off that many businesses when you first meet someone. It often makes word-of-mouth marketing hard to pull off because if you don't really know what you do than other people don't either.
Step 3

A great way to discover possible niches is to write out your interests, your skills, your connections (family, friends, classmates, co-workers), and try different ways of combining them into a problem you would enjoy helping people solve. You can usually come up with several, and it does take some thought into picking a final direction. It's a very freeing thing however because it takes a lot of indecisiveness out of your life. I'm in this process with you right now, but I hope you found this information helpful as well.
Step 4

The somewhat odd thing about this is once you pick a niche, people still ask you if you're able to do other things. In the end, you're not really limited! It's just from a marketing standpoint it makes things a whole lot easier for you when you have a focused course of action.

Comments

charlotteh said

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on 10/12/2009 This is a great article. On business cards I put I am an expert in 3 fields that I have learned and it actually got me more business, I think this idea is based on a person's trust in you 5*s