Finding that Ellusive Niche
Everyone talks about finding their niche, but I haven’t heard much about how to do it. How do you do a niche that fits? Finding a niche is Critical Skill 6 in what I call The 10 Skills Most Critical to Your Future. Once you can find hidden assumptions, you’re on your way to finding hidden niches.
Finding a niche that fits you and the market takes involvement, patience, and self-awareness — you need to know all points of view to get the perfect fit, and nothing less will do.
That best-fit niche is a tiny space where you’ll live, work, and relate to people. You’re going to have to like it there, but so are folks who don’t even know you. How do you find the niche that works for you and attracts an audience?
Five Ways to a Niche that Fits
As the clutter of information gets louder, finding the best-fit niche gets critical. Without a clear niche identity, how will people ever find you? Each day the task of defining a niche seems harder as more people look for their niche too.
Still change is constant, and changes bring new needs with them. New needs create new niches. Try these five plus one ways to find the niche that fits YOU and the market that inspires you.
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1. Understand your YOU-ness, your individual expertise. Who are you? What things do people ask you to help with? What would the world miss without you? What is the unique value that you bring? What’s your personal BIG IDEA?
2. Don’t hunt niches. See needs. Start with those you know the best — your own needs. Look inside your expertise to find what YOU wish YOU had. If you are the “go to person” for a skill or a service, a missing piece is a niche worth looking into.
3. Ask friends about their wish list. Listen actively when people share their needs and desires, hopes and dreams, plans and goals. Get curious. Listen for what’s not out there. Imagine solutions together — talk about how things might be like. You might describe a product or service that you have a passion for bringing into existence.
4. Always ask “What if?” and ‘How come?” Take ideas apart and put them back together. Wonder what they would be like if you did them backwards or upside down. Suppose you offered the reverse of the most popular thing that folks are doing — What if you made it exclusive instead?
5. Develop macro-vision. Magnify the details. Look at how things are constructed. Imagine ways to make them simpler, easier, or more beautiful. Even better, find a way to make things faster, friendlier, or more fun.
PLUS ONE: Authenticity is the best fit. Always start with what you love, what you do well. Look for the niche that says, “I am you.” The best fit is a niche filled with what you love to talk about — what you’ve been talking about since you first started talking.
Look inside your BIG IDEA for what’s missing. Keep asking folks what they need and wish for, and keep imagining how you might provide their answer. When you put those two together — your big idea and an answer that fits you and them — you’ll have the niche you’re looking for. That niche will be the one that fits because it started from who you are.
It will be a unique niche-brand, because you are the only you in the universe, and you’re made of the same stuff as stars. Do all you can to make the most of that.
What are doing to find your best-fit niche or make your best-fit niche even better?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Need help finding a niche that fits you? Click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.
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The 10 Skills Most Critical to Your Future
Critical Skill 1: Strategic Deep Thinking
Critical Skill 5A: 3 Parts of Spectacular Ideas
Critical Skill 6A: Five Tools for Finding Faulty Assumptions
