Summary: If you are overwhelmed with all
the marketing possibilities, and all the directions you can go in, take this article and
use it!
Like most folks, I made some mistakes up front in my
business career; two key mistakes were NOT creating a business plan and NOT creating a
niche or niches earlier.
Like many folks, I had a "fear" - my
"fear" about niching was that folks outside my niche would not become clients. I
enjoy doing life coaching (that's where my training from Coach U is), but it's not my
niche. I also enjoy career coaching, which is where much of my mentoring background comes
from - also not my niche. Did I have to give up these two pieces of my practice?
Here's what I learned:
Niching does not mean that I can't accept clients outside
my niche. Niching is done to make MY life easier. It's another one of those business tools
that is created to help me save money and time. For marketing purposes, for the sake of
clarity, for my own health and well being - so that I'm not all over the place
"chasing" marketing - spending dollar after dollar after dollar. Heck, there is
more than enough "stuff" for me to do as a business owner.
I remember the first time I went into a networking meeting
and introduced myself simply as a "Business Consultant and Coach" who helped
"women who own service business and service professionals." I left the
"life" off in front of "Coach." I left the word "career" out
of the sentence about who I helped.
I was so nervous! And what happened? Well, I survived the
meeting, obviously. And, after the meeting, someone asked if I could coach their husband
who was in transition between CAREERS! Boy, did that teach me a valuable lesson. And I did
gain a short-term female client in the service industry from that meeting, too.
Do I ever go out of my niche for meetings or to speak? Yes,
although rarely. There are 5 or 6 life topics that I will speak on - usually at recovery
conferences or for stressed out business owners who are just tired of the same old
speakers speaking about business :)
And even though I have a niche, that doesn't mean that I
can't choose to take on clients outside that niche. In fact, 25% of my clients are men and
about that percentage also sell products as their main business. I also have 2 career
clients in a niche (major transitions) that I enjoy working with.
And even though I've chosen a niche, that doesn't mean that
I can't change it, as I have, just this year. I noticed that 40% of my best - ideal
clients - clients are men, while 60% are women. That's a big change over 2 years ago. So I
decided to "drop" the women service business part of my niche. And that allows
to change who I market to; I am no longer looking for the narrow list of organizations
that have the word "women" in their name.
What else happens when you really monitor your business and
the clients it's brining in? Well, I also noticed that 95% of my clients have or want an
Internet presence. Not surprising they're "attracted" to me, since I've had a
huge presence for more than 6 years. And since my clients are owners of service
businesses, it's more difficult for someone to visit their site and "see" how my
clients can help make their lives better. That lead me to make sure that when I introduce
myself to my ideal clients or folks who know them, that I make sure to mention that I work
with clients to create and promote information products.
Creating a niche has led folks to know me as the NY Coach
(I currently live in Washington State, so my accent and attitude stick out just a teensy
bit) who helps people get their service business organized by creating systems, business,
and marketing plans. Or I'm known as the coach From Wall Street. Heck, I am remembered -
for something good - and that's part of what counts!
What also counts is that my marketing dollars are being
spent wisely. It's all much focused and it's easier to monitor my marketing efforts, too.
An additional gift of niching? It caused me to write an ebook help my clients create their
own Ideal Client Profile and then turn the ebook into classes.
So take a risk - and niche!
(c)2005 |
