I have always struggled with the idea of narrowing down my niche, the concept itself was challenging, with many products and industries out there fighting for my attention, how is it possible to ignore all that sexiness and keep my attention focused?
However, for now, I think that I got this niche thing all figured out, and I want to share my discoveries and principles with you.
If you applied my carefully studied principles, they would work very nicely for your future business, and hopefully make you “wealthy,” someday say Amen!
Now keep in mind that the entire idea of having a niche is not about the idea of having the niche itself. But, it’s about finding something that you can master then owning it 100%, becoming the go-to source in your market and industry.
Before we begin, let me make one thing clear, I don’t particularly appreciate working with close-minded people; they make my life difficult; therefore, you have to promise me one thing.
You must be willing to trying new ideas and experimentations; there is nothing to be guaranteed; there is only let’s do our best to make things work for the best possible outcome.
Do me a favor and “skip all the skepticism and drama,” skip all the “I already know that” and “I tried it and it does not work” thing, calm your judging brain down for now and try to follow the steps. Do we have a deal?
Before we dig deep, let’s first identify what we are dealing with:
Hey Siri, “what is a niche?“
– a job or position that is very suitable for someone, especially one that they like. – Cambridge Dictionary
What is a niche – Cambridge Dictionary
Here is another explanation:
A niche is a combination of the product or service offered (the “what?“) and the targeted market (the “For whom?”). – Google
Specific What + Specific Whom = Niche
Okay, now that we have a basic idea about what a niche is and what it requires developing a one, let’s take this process one step at a time and start with the basics, slowly building up your skills to become a niche hunting master.
Part 1: The Basics
The basics of finding your Niche can be splited into two separated steps:
Step 1 – Finding Your What
1. Find something that you love or passionate about
I know it’s fluffy, but trust conventional wisdom, you can not serve a customer or keep going with a project if you have no passion for it.
It’s just so tricky and tough to play business for an extended period without being burnt out, how do I know that?
Well, my family owns and runs a 50-year-old candy business, so I have an idea or two about what it takes to build and maintain a business in the long run.
How do you find your passion?
Just look at your past work, pretty simple; what things made you feel and look good? What things do people enjoy doing with you? “not including that thing, I know what you are thinking.” 😉
If you are not good at anything, don’t worry, I got your back, let’s develop one!
Grab a pen and paper and try to come up with answers for the following questions, however, if you find them confusing or frustrating, fear not, I provided a simple example in the next section as a reference point.
What are your hobbies?
Where do you spend most of your time?
What activities do you spend most of your time doing?
Are you into creativity and free-thinking or more into developing processes and analytical thinking?
What do you enjoy doing the most?
What don’t you enjoy doing the most?
What general skills or expertise do you have currently?
What opportunities would you like to chase?
What skills are required to obtain those opportunities?
What is the most efficient way to learn those skills?
Here are some of my answers as a reference point “Assuming I’m just starting”:
My hobbies are painting, reading, solving problems, and creating new stuff.
I spend most of my time at home or taking long walks.
If I’m at home, I spend most of my time doing projects research on the internet.
If I’m outside, I spend a chunk of my time roaming in shopping areas, observing how people behave, and looking for new products and ideas.
I’m more into free-thinking and creative projects, however, I’m a big fan of science as well.
Things I do enjoy doing the most are talking to different types of people; people with various cultural differences and social norms, I like to know what makes them tick and what pisses them off.
I also enjoy helping and teaching people about how to see things differently.
Things I don’t enjoy doing are dealing with math problems, following a strict path and process bores me to death, I try to stay away from a repetitive work environment.
My general skills are I studied art and design at college. Hence, I think I have a basic understanding of visual communication and design.
I also had a couple of jobs where I learned how to design things that sell, so you could say I have a basic understanding of marketing as well.
I used to help my father running his family business, so I know a few things about how to deal with clients and run a small business.
Opportunities that I would consider, since I’m into creative projects, love learning about people, doing research, and loving to help others, I think teaching or consulting for creative projects will be the right direction for me to follow.
Skills I need to learn. If I want to teach, then I need to learn how to become a good teacher, I need to learn and master my area of expertise.
I also need to learn how to organize, communicate and deliver my ideas effectively, I need to learn how to make my course into a digital product, and I also need to learn the basics of marketing to attract students into my class.
Some methods to learn those skills are, I could spend $100K and go to college for four years, or I could choose to watch free YouTube videos, read top-selling books about my topic.
I also can follow and observe top industry leaders and put what I learn to practice in real-life projects all day long. For me personally, it is a much faster and cheaper way to learn and develop new expertise in a short period of time.
Here you go, that was a simple walkthrough of how I would identify my current situation, “8 Years Ago 2012,” and then find a way on how to become good at something I love.
Let’s not mix passion with a skill; skills are things you need for executing on your passion, skills are things that you can learn and almost for free on YouTube, Udemy, Skillshare, Coursera, and Masterclass.
You must be willing to put the time and effort to practice, a passion with no skills is nothing, passion carries you emotionally forward and keeps your dreams alive when things get tough, strong execution skills get you to where you want.
“Do what you would do for free, having a passion for what you do is the most important thing.” – Warren Buffett
I’m not asking you to work for free, that’s not the point, I’m asking you to find something that is interesting and special for you.
Why I’m so insisting on the idea of passion?
Let me share with you a vulnerable story of myself; I want to admit that sometimes I get foolish when it comes to business.
I had this experience when I got involved in a family project; I got involved in something that I had no passion for; I was looking to make a profit on something that I did not understand and had no desire for, no what so ever!
I not only lost around $9700 in a matter of two weeks totally wasted, but I also had to terminate the project, burn a family bridge, and lost confidence in myself, it was depressing.
What made me crazy at the time is it was not a matter of skills; it was a simple matter of not being interested and committed.
When things got hard; I just wanted to get out, now I look back at that experience and think I deserved it, it was a good lesson in business, let’s move on.
2. Find the root industry of your passion
Photographers take “photography” and capture scarce memories; chefs serve “food” and deliver delicious flavors of experiences, graphic designers design “advertising” and communicate bold ideas visually.
What is the root industry of your skill or passion? It does not have to be very specific; being broad works fine for now, as long as we can attach your passion to a service or skill to an industry that is valuable to the market.
Think about it like this; someone who is passionate about trendy hair-cuts and styling “usually” won’t consider getting into hotel management consulting.
On average, it does not make sense, things don’t add up, his message won’t be credible enough, and that’s why you find many gurus out there with no deep expertise and knowledge on their topics get vanished so quickly from the market.
Step 2 – Finding Your Whom
We already identified your (What) which are your skills and passion; let’s look at the (Whom) part of the equation:
Here are two methods for identifying your audience:
Methode 1
Start by breaking down your audience into groups and categories:
1. What group of customers do you want to serve?
Low End
Middle End
High End
Although it might sound a little uncomfortable to talk about wealth and social hierarchy, the matter of the fact is that different groups of people have different wealth levels.
Each group has different wants, needs, and desires to be fulfilled; while some might focus on basic functionality and price to others, this might not be the case at all.
Each group expects your business to behave with specific manners and traditions; if your product is meant to be tailored towards high-end customers, and you tag it at a low-price, you will find your-self dismissed.
For people with money, quality, scarcity, and premium experiences are the things that matter the most; that what makes them feel wealthy in the first place; low prices will drive them away; they are not looking for the things that everyone can own with ease.
On the other hand, offering something valuable to a wealthy person such as a luxurious dining experience to a person who only cares about feeding his hunger is not going to work as well.
One pays for the quantity of food, and the other pays for the quality of ingredients, one pays for the convenience, and the other pays for a premium experience, one pays for stopping hunger, and the other pays for the pleasure.
Keep in mind that serving the low-end class does not mean offering lousy quality products and services, far from that, all people are equals when it comes to basic rights and qualities.
It’s the level and depth of your product features, benefits, and the sophistication of your brand experience will differ.
2. What age group will you serve?
Toddlers
Teenagers
Young Adults
Mid-Age
Late Adults
People in different stages of their lives are interested in different things. Toddlers might be curious about shiny objects, allowing them to self-discovery and play; teenagers might be more interested in cool and trendy stuff.
The older we get, the wiser, calmer, and less excited we get; developing a niche for each age group requires extensive research of that age group wants and desires.
3. What region and ethnic group will you serve?
African American
Mexican
Asian
Indian
Arab
European
Small Minorities
In communication, there are two different values systems and beliefs; there is the universal value system, things like Desires, Peace, Love, and Power;
If you speak about those basic values, people in different places will have a basic understanding of your ideas.
And there is the value belief of a specific group and culture; if you want your product and service to make a noticeable impact, then it must be tailored toward and spoken with words and ideas that are particular to that audience.
Taking the social norms into consideration shows respect, and the willingness to understand and satisfy your audience their way and not yours!
What meant to be a beautiful romance novel for the people of the United States might be pretty shallow and boring writing to the Japanese reader.
If you dismiss, ignore, and lack the fundamentals of understanding the underlying structure of cultural habits and mindset, you will set your product and business for certain ugly death.
Watch how many small or large corporate make this mistake over and over. Getting way too fast into a market without the proper cultural research, assuming that if things worked in the past in one place, it would work as well in another.
Now that you have a little understanding of the basics of finding a niche, let’s work together on constructing a single niche and go through the process of narrowing it down.
What + Whom = Niche | Still Remember?
My passion is around marketing, and I would love to be a digital marketer, however since the marketing industry is vast, I feel like I’m all the place, develop unnecessary skills, and stretch myself way too thin, leaving me with exhaustion and almost no gain.
I’m a digital marketer. No “way too generic.”
I’m a digital marketer specialized in creating content marketing strategies. Meh.
I’m a digital marketer specialized in content marketing strategies for Asian businesses. Better still, need improvement.
I’m a digital marketer who specializes in creating content marketing strategies for Chinese small startup brands. Getting there, need a little massaging.
I’m a digital marketer who is dedicated to creating a content marketing strategy for Chinese small startup brands who are specialized in the women’s apparel industry. OMG, we nailed it!
Let’s take a more in-depth look at this niche:
“I’m a digital marketer” is your general skill “Content Marketing Strategy” is your field of expertise, “Chinese” you understand the Chinese culture, market, people taste and beliefs, you know how to influence and persuade them.
“Startup” means you work with businesses that come with new and disruptive ideas, and a limited marketing budget, “women apparel industry,” says that throughout the time, you developed a profound understanding, knowledge, and expertise in a specific field.
Now I don’t know about you, but If I was looking for an expert in that area, who would I be hiring? A generalist or you?
Being a specialist would also help you focus your offer and spread your marketing message way much faster since you are talking to a specific group of people, with a message that matches their language.
Now let me clarify one thing here, there is a difference between what you know V.S. how you sell the thing you know, let me explain if you want to succeed in a niche, you need to be a (T) shaped thinker and an (I) shaped doer.
You need to have a broad and basic knowledge about many aspects of marketing, “that’s what you know” but a deep understanding and execution skills in one aspect of marketing “that’s how you sell it“.
You can have a basic understanding of email marketing, SEO, social media marketing, landing page design, messenger bots, advertising, develop a clear understanding of how they work together as a system, not as separate parts, then you have to become deeply specialized in one area of marketing which obviously is the area that you enjoy and can contribute the most.
Method 2
Use Mr.Google’s help to come up with a niche.
Head to Google.com and type in the search bar:
[Your skills] for …..
Content marketing for A
Content marketing for B
Google Niche Finder
Keep going until you reach the end of the alphabets list; Google search bar will suggest different niches for your skills.
Take note of what interests you.
Use keywords volume search tools such as Google trends/Ubersuggest/Google keyword planner tool to identify the search volume of each niche and see if it worth it.
You don’t want to start with a very limited niche, small and narrow is a YES but not a niche with very little or limited demand, especially if you are in the B2C business.
Google Keywords Planner
Okay so we are almost done, now that you are clear about (What) you serve and (Whom) you serve it to, please take one last step.
Please do me a favor and navigate to Google images, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube, and start searching for the type of people whom you are going to serve.
Observe the way they look, speak, and think; take visual snapshots and notes, write keywords and ideas about your observation.
My friend, by now you should have developed an excellent idea and visual about :
Whom you want to serve.
How they look, feel, think, communicate, and express ideas.
What is bothering them and how they like to be served.
That sounds like a pretty damn solid niche to start with, Kudos to you, of course, you can always develop your niche, but for now, I’m sure it will work for you as it worked for me.
What about if you want to develop a niche with a physical product, how should you begin?
It’s pretty simple if you can see the big picture; there are three strategies to approach this goal:
1. Find a large market and industry that requires daily consumption, then own a sub-category or sub-product.
2. Find a small group of people with particular wants such as small minorities and people with special needs physically or mentally and become the market leader for developing products that fit their individual needs.
3. Find top-selling and hot trending products in any market or industry and then distribute it through Amazon or eBay; the problem with this approach that you will always need to be on the hunt for new products, selling other people’s stuff instead of building your brand.
I’m not going to talk about this strategy in particular, for a simple reason, it’s not my area of expertise, we will leave it there.
Let’s examine the first approach, let’s have a look at the consumers’ goods market, consumers goods are the stuff that people use daily, there is a constant demand for such products.
Those products are usually served and monopolized by large brands such as P&G, Nestle, Coca-coal, and others; those brands have invested a tremendous amount of capital into building a robust infrastructure to be ultra-efficient and cost-competitive.
Consumer Goods Brands Portfolio
The upside with this strategy is they don’t need a strategy at all; they can put their hands on the majority of the market; the downside is since all processes are standardized, it’s challenging to serve small groups’ needs, and here where your small business comes in.
Most small businesses try to go head-on heads with large brands or try to copy their business model, which is a huge mistake and a way to drive your business to certain death.
Two completely different games, one plays and competes on market share and quarterly revenue, and the other plays on serving a small group of people and investing in building relationships with an audience.
Now let’s go back to finding your niche product, the goal is to find a growing industry with a constant demand for daily use such as food, cosmetics, and beverages.
We then carve a small piece of the market share by introducing something designed to fit a small group of people’s needs; if we can develop and market it right then, we might stand a chance to hit a home run.
Consumers Goods Overview
Alcoholic Beverages
Cleaning Products
Clothing & Apparel
Cosmetics & Personal Care
Food & Nutrition
Furniture, Furnishings & Household Items
Home Improvement & Gardening
Non-alcoholic Beverages
Pets & Animal Supplies
Tobacco
Toys
Source: Statista
Keep in mind that in each of those categories, there is value to be delivered and money to be made, in the end, it all comes to your expertise, quality, resource, and the way how you market it.
For this exercise, I have chosen pets and animal supplies; I will tell you later why. Let’s take this category one step further and dig a bit deeper.
A simple google search for “The most profitable pets businesses and niches” will get you close, here are some few ideas that I found across the web:
Dog Business Niches:
Dog Walking
Dog Training
Dog Grooming
Dog Supplies
Dog Photography
Dog Clothing and Accessories
Source: TopDogTips
Now that you have a sub-category to start with taking it one step further and search for the “Top growing sub-niches or sub-products in the dog supplies category”:
Dog-food sub-niches:
Homemade pet food
Ready to consume pet food
Dried dog food
Organic pet food
Now that I have an idea about my sub-niche, I only have to head to any marketplace such as Amazon, then look for the top-selling products, and do product research, read reviews and see what people like and dislike.
Pets Supplies> Pets Food > Dogs > Dried Dog Food > Best Selling Products
How to find your niche on Amazon.
This method will work with any marketplace as long as you begin from the industry then narrow it down to a Category > Subcategory > Niche > Product.
Why dogs’ food?
Well, it seems that in the modern age, people care about their pet’s health and food a lot, which is a beautiful thing; some treat their pets better than treating themselves or their kids.
This opportunity means that there is a demand for small businesses to serve those needs by creating trustworthy, healthy, organic, and homemade dog food.
Since people seem to care about the quality over price, there is an opportunity for a premium price tag to be captured and to stay away from the price-competitive commodity market.
Dogs need to eat all the time, they need it to live and make us happy, and once you hook them with your delicious food, they might stick forever, who knows?
Having customers who keep buying from you, recommending your product to their friends and family, is free marketing done on steroids.
It saves you the hustle and cost of acquiring new customers for every transaction you make, now that is pure heaven!
The Farmers Dog
A great example of this strategy is Dollar Shave Club; they started by carving a small piece of the $ 10.2 billion razor blades market, serving basics, nicely designed, and functional shaving tools at affordable subscription model.
Competing for a head-on head with Gillette, but with different rules for the game, now that is smart business.
Let’s look at the second approach of finding your niche, “Find a small group of people with special wants such as small minorities or people with special disabilities and become the market leader for developing products that fit their needs.“
You see, most businesses try to approach the mass market, they think in terms of selling to as many people as possible, and they believe by doing this, they will generate the most profit.
That is not always the case; Apple started by serving a small market share with highly profitable products.
By now, you should know that large brands serve large markets; they have developed strict systems and processes in place, which puts them in a position of being super-efficient so they can exhaust small or large businesses out of the game.
By now, you should also know that if you are currently small, it’s not a wise idea to play the big boys game and exhaust your resources; it’s not your game, you have no strengths or winning hand to play with; therefore, you should know that you need to get out ASAP.
Smart entrepreneurs think in terms of solving problems for the people who need a problem to be solved, take, for example, a simple spoon, a spoon? Who would imagine that you could solve a severe problem with a spoon?
The function of eating is pretty simple and straightforward to most of us; we were fortunate to have our body performing at full capabilities with comfort and ease; we take it for granted, this made us blind to the needs of the ones who are struggling with such basic skill.
You see, every person, regardless of being ordinary or in special needs, believes that they have the right to live their life at its fullest.
Most of the time, it’s not a matter of buying the cheapest product, but to buy a product that solves a painful problem and makes our life more comfortable.
Disabled people also fall in love with a product that is beautifully designed, carefully engineered, and mindfully created to fit their situation, what’s the problem with that?
Taking a generic product from a mass-market and designing it to fit a group of people with special needs is a great way to create a niche that has a massive impact on delivering value and transform the quality of people’s lives.
Let’s sum things up then move into making you a master niche hunter, what did we learn so far?
1. You need to identify your passion.
2. You need to relate and connect your passion to an industry.
3. Stay away from low-margin, commodity price competition game.
4. You need to understand the mindset, cultural norms, and language of your audience.
5. Carve a small piece of a growing market and a small group with specific needs.
6. Follow the trend of the consumers’ needs and behaviors; people nowadays are looking for a combination of Organic, Ready to use, Healthy, Homemade, Affordable, Sustainable, Recyclable, Easy to use, Beautiful, and Minimal solutions.
7. Choose to niche your product by function as we saw in the “Liftware spoon” example, or by theme, style, and genre AKA Form, watch the complete series by Megan Bowen as she documents different coffee shops with different styles, themes, and experiences, “stay away from generic.”
Part 2: Mastering Niche Hunting
Okay so now that you understand the basics of finding a niche, it’s time to upgrade skills and take it to the next level. Remember how at the beginning of this article we talked about finding your passion?
If you found that’s great, if not yet, it’s cool, no worries, you will find it.
Now would you like to use your passion for solving complicated real-life problems? Would you like to make money while helping others and delivering real value?
You see, for you to find a profitable niche, you MUST connect your passion with excruciating pain.
In other words, you must hit a nerve, understanding what makes people unhappy, unsatisfied, unfulfilled, and knowing how to resolve those pains is the key to being successful in business, it’s not the product, it’s the pain and how you relief it.
We as humans spend our lives dealing with conflicts, we crave and desire things that we think will make us happy.
The problem is that most of the time, there is an imaginary wall of fears and obstacles standing in between ourselves and what we want, causing massive frustrations and conflicts.
Our brain is struggling with an incomplete loop trying to find a solution and get what it desires, this is when we seek to find an answer and willing to pay whatever it takes to get there “as long as the benefit of the solution exceeds the cost of the pain.” and here my friend where you come.
Let’s look at some of the conflicts that we face daily and how can you take advantage of them as a way to give value and make a living in return:
Types Of Human Conflicts
1.Human Vs. Self
It’s called self-conflict, the problem with inner struggles, overcoming self-doubts, this conflict has both internal and external aspects, it deals with the way how we think about ourselves, the lack of inner confidence, and the false belief of not being desirable because of the way how we physically look.
You need to talk your audience out of their fear and help them to navigate through their struggles to achieve the things they want in life.
There are so many niches to leverage in this category into digital or physical products, things as personal development, life-coaching, eating habits, self-management, motivation, and transformation, self-defense, weight loss, professional skills, beauty products, and more.
Study the topics of MindVelly programs and take note of the theme around their message, learn how instructors communicate, and motivate their audience into taking back control of transforming their life.
2. Human Vs. Human
It’s called relationships, a conflict, or a situation that is caused by a relationship that requires a commitment, transformation, and effective communication for both parties to be satisfied.
It is one of the most developed categories in the “human conflicts” industry; this is where the big gurus play since there are a lot of problems to be solved, and where you find significant issues to be addressed, you find gold.
Topics like dating, marriage, sex life, parenting, friendship, communication, negotiation, and more. It’s possible to develop physical products such as hard-cover books or exclusive gift stores, services such as consulting or digital products such as online courses, and webinars.
3. Human Vs. Society
It is by far one of the most painful frustrations and conflicts many individuals and minorities face, the perception of our culture and social norms have a significant impact on the way of how we behave, act and interact with the community.
Many people, especially the courageous, unique, and creative ones, the ones who think and behave like you, feel isolated and in constant battle and conflict with their environment and the acceptance of their society.
Getting into this category requires a person to be a humanitarian; it’s about giving; it’s about nurturing, protecting, and leading.
It is starting communities that fight for women’s rights, gay rights, entrepreneurship, freedom of expression and speech, protecting and supporting small minority cultures, values, and heritage.
Serving this niche and developing solutions that fit their needs could be very beneficial for developing a small and profitable niche if you are open-minded, big-hearted, and willing to honor their way of living.
Another huge aspect of this category is the conflict of social status, wealth, and power, so many brands and products have been developed around the topic of social differences such as financial investments, luxury fashion, food, tools, and luxurious lifestyle.
4. Human Vs. Nature, god, or technology
So many of us, especially in the modern age, face problems or deal with what life, god, or technology arrange or throw at us, coping with nature could be dealing with your pet or with the basics of having healthy and organic food.
Some have a severe conflict with god and believing in religions, spirituality, vs. science.
New technologies bring new challenges into our daily life; it shakes our core and challenges our survival, the fear of being jobless, homeless, and the neglect of our privacy are core problems that need to be solved.
As a small business owner, how can you benefit from all of that? Well, the same old trick, use your knowledge and skills to provide solutions, head to Clickbank.
Notice the variations and themes of categories, sub-categories, and products are developed around those niches, find one, then do a much better job in solving the problem.
Let’s get back the big picture, people in their daily life face problems and conflicts, they crave things or people that they want and desire, there is a mental or tangible wall that stands in between ourselves and what we desire.
This imaginary wall will cause physiological or physical pain; your job is to find those people, diagnose their problems, and relieve their anxiety. Help them to transform, and the money is yours.
So how do you find and Identify conflicts?
well, there are many approaches to research a problem, but in this article, I’m going to take about two simple methods that you can leverage:
Inside out: it begins from you, look inside, you are a human as well, and you face conflicts and frustrations as well, be it in your personal growth or disputes and frustrations with other people, if you feel pain, then others like you will do as well.
Outside in: most people are stuck in their heads, only thinking about their problems and frustrations. However, if you look out yourself, such as your friends, family members, and people on the web, you can find many frustrations and conflicts that you can withdraw ideas from.
Yahoo Answers
How do you build authority in your niche?
There are many ways to give value and establish yourself in your niche as an authority; it all depends on what type of brand you want to be and the limitations of your resources.
1. Be a connector: Create a platform where you interview experts in your industry and connect them with an audience through social media, blogs, podcasts, and other media channels. “Publisher“
2. Be a Leader: Share your knowledge and expertise around your niche, take leadership responsibility, teach people around the problems of your topics, and how to navigate through difficulties. “Thought leader.”
3. Be a producer: Create and sell products created by your-self or other experts around your niche such as books, online courses, merchandise, and others. “Creator“
However, I recommend this method to come last, always start from giving value and building an audience, and generate traffic, learn the ins and outs of your niche then produce a product tailored to people’s wants.
Now remember what I mentioned at the beginning of this article, let’s not lose sight of the big picture, regardless of what industry, market, niche, or product you serve, you got to own it 100%.
You need to be the “most trusted advisor,” the “go-to” person when it comes to your niche; otherwise, you are just another commodity product.
Invest all your effort, hard work, and expertise into digging deep inside your niche and market, depth, and quality over shallow content and random quantity.
Also, keep in mind that you don’t have to get stuck between the concept of a physical or digital product, the bottom line in business is giving value, and making a profit.
Value is a very subjective thing, some people value comfort, others value luxury, entertainment, advice, and the list goes on and on.
You don’t have to deliver the value in a tangible product, neither it needs to have a specific price, value and price are not related, we are not trying to become a commodity, we are trying to solve a painful problem.
“Price is what you pay; Value is what you get” – Warren Buffett.
For a successful single father who is doing great in his business, but finding a hard time to spend with his daughter, for him more quality time with her would be a dream that is out of reach.
If you are smart enough to come up with a solution that makes him ninja effective, frees up more of his time to be spent with his daughter instead, then handing you a check with a reasonable chunk of money and a big smile is not going to be a problem, you just helped the guy to solve a painful problem, you just granted him a key to heaven.
Digital products tend to sell better on the internet for an apparent reason, immediate access; the margins are higher since your cost of goods is close to nothing, which allows you to allocate your money for better marketing.
The risk of dealing with the cost of returns is eliminated, there is no hassle with stocking inventory, and dealing with shipping the product “no muss, no fuss.“
Common Niche problems
If your niche isn’t working, try to identify if your product has on or many of the following symptoms, analyze it, reverse engineer other successful products, and come up with a solution that fits your niche.
1. Lack of focus, the offer is too broad and generic; you must be willing to give up on a lot of things to focus on one thing.
2. Lack of clarity; the offer does not align and communicate with your audience’s culture, problems, and frustrations, which reflect a lack of clarity of understanding your clients.
3. Lack of differentiation, the offer is trying to compete on price instead of differentiating a cheaper version of a different product is not a niche.
4. Lack of pain, the offer does not connect to a conflict or a pain; it’s not a necessity; it’s nice to have, but there is no urgency.
Conclusion
Here you go, now you are ready to find your niche, take it one step a time, finding a profitable niche is not a onetime process.
It takes time to find what you are passionate about, develop skills, finding a problem, and understanding an audience.
Remember that goal of finding a niche is to find a product and services within a consistent need, then differentiate yourself from the rest, by better serving or completely redesigning the customer experience.
I hope that you won’t over-complicate the idea of finding your niche, or judge your ideas too way too quickly without putting them to the test, please don’t do that, try to unstuck your self, generate as many ideas as possible, and then try them. Start with something and keep the wheel moving, remember you can always come back and make changes, just keep going.
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