The Three Elements Of A Niche

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Raise your hand if you have a detailed story about your ideal client…

Does Jen have two small children and love yoga? Or maybe Mary is in a crushing corporate job she longs to escape from to see the world?

Was she based on a past client or colleague you loved working with?

When you’re a newbie business owner this kind of story can help you get over that first business hurdle of “I AM FOR EVERYONE!”It's that first baby step in niching. And it helps you clarify your content and your marketing, but now you've grown and developed as an entrepreneur your avatar needs to grow and develop with you.

Your niche is traditionally what you do and who you do it for. If you picture a Venn diagram, where one circle is what you do and the other circle is who you do it for and where they overlap that's your niche. 

And to niche down, you simply make one or both of those circles smaller narrowing down who you do it for, what you do, or both. 

Let’s dive deep on each with a beginner's mindset to allow new ideas about your niche or ideal client to spark.

Who you help

A target market is a group of customers you want to sell to. This can be broad, for example, entrepreneurs or women, or narrow, for female makers living in your town/city making 50-85k per year. 

It uses demographics, geography, income level, etc. to describe the collective groups you serve. 

Even when you have been in business for a while, it is worth taking some time to think through all the groups you could serve especially businesses and industries that really excite you right now. 

We tend to get married to our target market very quickly in our business journey so checking in to make sure it's still the best one for you is important.

What you Do

On the other side of the niche equation are the services or products you offer. 

It’s easy to just stick to the ones you offer currently that feel comfortable but as we did with the target market, what if you expanded the contents of that circle to include those offers you’ve been secretly thinking about or the things that feel a little out of reach right now?

The Niche

Traditionally, if we were looking for our niche, we would now look  at

• What problems the possible target markets have
• What offers you have that solve those problems

So the overlap of the two circles becomes your niche and to niche down (till it hurts as they say) you could narrow who you help or you could narrow what you did

The Problem

If we look at the Venn diagram, what we do is very focused on the ultimate result or transformation. We’re taught to build client-centric businesses. We're taught to think about the things that we have to offer the skills that we can offer, and people who would be willing to buy those things.

BUT your solutions are not only about what you offer ie the result or transformation but how you offer it as well.

So many entrepreneurs land up in business models that successfully bring them clients but drain them completely behind the scenes. 

So my challenge for you is to add how you do it to the mix so your niche is what you do, who you do it for, and HOW you deliver it 

For example, an social media strategist for female coaches who have just hit six figures could have prospective clients who:

• Are prepared to pay a premium for fast results (VIP day) 
• Thrive in a community of similar entrepreneurs (Group program)
• Are looking for long term support as they grow (coaching)
• Need some tactical content and Q&A (membership)

If you tried to offer all four options regardless of what works for you, you are going to get drained which means you're not going to show up at your best. And if you don't show up at your best, how can you hope to get your clients the best result?

If you added all these options to a third circle on the Venn diagram, they wouldn’t really reduce the niche for you as they are all possible so you need to reduce this circle first.

How to pick your how

First of all, we need to consider our SUPERPOWER instead of our skills and then choose the best format to support you and keep you in the superpower zone.

Skills can be learned through experience, books, schooling, on-the-job training, or certifications. And because we can get very good at them, we can confuse them with a superpower.

Our superpowers are those innate talents we’ve always had that cause us to lose time. You forget to eat or go to the bathroom. You suddenly look up and it's gone from daylight to nighttime and you didn't even notice. Your superpower gets you into a flow state.

Once you’ve identified your superpower, you want to select the best format for you to deliver that result or transformation while keeping you in your superpower.

When you have that specific how your circle becomes pretty small on the diagram and you’re naturally niched to people who not only want what you’re offering but how you offer it as well.

You might also notice that your niche now excludes some of your existing offers but don’t panic, you don’t need to shut it all down. It’s just a sign to have a look at how you’re delivering those and what you could tweak to make them less draining for you.

Your ideal client

Your ideal client is the person from your target market, who finds the exact solution to their problems in your offers. Shouldn't the exact solution include the exact format that works for you so that you can show up at your best and they can get the best result?