Life's A Niche
Posted on June 09, 2010 by Priscilla Hansen, One of Thousands of Entrepreneurship Coaches on Noomii.
Afraid that if you hone in on a niche you will lose business? You may lose them right in your own parking lot...
A lot of talk has been buzzing lately in my Mastermind calls about making sure we as small business owners (specifically service providers) have successfully honed in on a niche market.
To many new service providers, this concept can be really scary. “Won’t I be excluding myself from gaining customers if I only focus on one group of people?” Or, what I commonly hear from my clients is “but I want ANYONE to be my customer”…. but more often than not, when we say we want ANYONE as a customer, we get NO ONE.
I was thinking of this the other day after my boyfriend went to get his dog Derby a new collar. He left the house, and an hour later, returned frazzled, frustrated, and empty handed. When I asked him why he didn’t get a collar for the dog, he flopped down on the couch "I’m exhausted! I went to “Big-Super-Box-Store” and walked around aimlessly looking for the pet department! After 40 minutes of circling around, and not finding any one to help me, I left! Then I couldn’t find where I had parked in the gigantic parking lot!"
Needless to say, he had gone to “Big-Super-Box-Store” because he thought he would get a better price, and he thought they would have what he was looking for, but ended up getting overwhelmed at the hundred thousand offerings in the thousands of square feet of products they offered. He wasted a trip, his time, and his energy, and he ended up not spending his money there.
So we went to a local pet store called Fetch. We parked right in front of the door, and when we entered a friendly clerk asked us what we needed. When we indicated dog collars, he led us straight to the wall that had a wide variety to choose from, and helped us make our selection quickly because he was knowledgeable about the dogs size, breed, and was able to anticipate our needs. We got exactly what we wanted hassle or frustration, in fact, it was a very pleasurable experience. Yes, we probably paid more for the collar at Fetch, but it was worth it for the time we saved.
Now think about your customers for a moment. Think about the amount of information they receive every hour and minute of their days. Are they over whelmed? Do they need a simple in-and-out solution? That’s where you can come in as the hero, and yes, you can charge more for your services as a result because you make life easier for your customers by guiding them right to the aisle with the dog collars. Easy in. Easy out. No fuss. No muss.
So by honing in on a niche and claiming your corner of a smaller market, you are able to take your customers by the hand and lead them to exactly what they are looking for, the answer to their problems. And they will be grateful to you as a result, and yes that will probably equal a little extra cha-ching for you. Good Dog!
