When Niching Isn’t The Right Thing To Do

A while back I wrote about niching and how it makes everything that you do in your business so much clearer but I wanted to share with when niching isn’t the right thing to do.

Niching is essentially a way of setting you apart from the rest, it’s a way to stand out from the noisy crowd, a way for people to know quickly what it is that you do and understand why they might want to work with you.

I’ve worked with clients who think they have their niche sorted, but there has been some hesitation.  In exploring this hesitation further it often turns out that the niche actually isn’t their passion after all.  It’s something they are interested in, but it’s not going to be the passion that gets them out of the bed in the morning.  If you’ve got a gut feeling that the niche isn’t right then explore it further, don’t just go all out on it if it doesn’t seem to be the right fit.

The problem is that there is a fine line between the fear of niching (worry about making your business so narrow you won’t attract clients – not true by the way) and whether the niche you’re choosing is right for you, so it takes a bit of digging to get to the bottom of it all.  You could be procrastinating but equally there could be some messages in there that are actually really important.  When you first start out as a coach what often happens is you don’t know who you want to work with, you want to test the waters and try things out, you want to see how things work out with various individuals and across lots of different scenarios/issues.

I’m sure you’ll have heard that niching is one of THE things you need to do in your business.  You can read the story of my agony of niching here.  I know I didn’t want to admit it, but the fact is that getting really clear on who you’re marketing to is vital.  You need to know who you are, who you work with and what you offer in order to get in front of the right clients that want to buy from you.

If you’re in that place of indecision here’s a few questions you could ask yourself;

• Why do you want to work in this particular niche? (Do the exercise for both possible niche ideas)
• Why is that important to you?
• When thinking about niching in that niche what comes up for you? (you might notice a tightness in your stomach, or some tension, excitement, fear it’s not enough, scared it won’t keep your interested)
• What can you learn from that feeling/experience?

Keep digging further with more ‘why’ questions.  The more you understand why it’s important to you to work in that area the more clarity will come.

Another thing that can help is to make your niche just a little wider, so let’s say you have a handful of things that are in the same field of work that you want to do but you aren’t completely sure just yet which one is the one for you.  If this is you then consider what they are and how they might be linked together under an umbrella category or group.  That way as you work in those areas you can start to build a better understanding of the areas you enjoy and then over time narrow your niche down and become an expert in your field.

It can be a tough exercise to do on your own so work with a friend, family member or coach to help you get really clear on it.

It’s better to spend some time figuring it out for sure than go off in the wrong direction and waste lots of time, energy and money in the wrong field. Do not let niching be the thing that holds you back but equally get to a decision as quickly as you can so that you can then focus on bringing in paying clients.