Are you just starting in business and are looking to find your tribe or following? Perhaps you’re well established, but you’re just not feeling the excitement around your brand anymore? It’s time for you to find your business niche, position yourself well and start letting competitors know you’re here to stay. That’s why we’ve created this short guide to help you carve out your place and how to find your business niche – enjoy, we hope it’s helpful.
Also read:
What is a business niche?
As much as you might want to believe that your products will benefit everyone, the truth is, not everyone feels the same way you do. In fact, it may only be a tiny segment of the market, and your challenge is to find your business niche.
So what is a business niche? A business niche is a specialised and specific area of a broader market that your business serves. Ultimately, the purpose of a niche is to differentiate your business from the competition, which in theory allows you to excel in your sector.
Why and how businesses fall short
Have you heard the expression “Jack-of-all-trades, master of none”? Most businesses tend to fall short because they try to be all things to all people. Therefore, your first challenge is to discover your niche. Don’t worry about excluding markets.
How to find your business niche
In a world where buyers are overwhelmed with choices, how can you stand out from other solution providers? In this short guide on how to find your business niche, you’ll find some food for thought as you begin to carve out actionable steps and find your businesses niche.
1. Ask yourself these questions
Detecting your niche is about finding customers suited to your purpose, expertise and market trends. Ask yourself the following questions: On a scale of one to five, with one being “not at all” and five being “absolutely”:
- How passionate am I about this market?
- Could I easily position myself as an expert?
- Is this market actively seeking solutions to their problems?
- Are you the oldest and largest business in your industry?
- Do you have the biggest selection available?
- Are you offering the lowest price guarantee?
- Do you guarantee the fastest delivery?
- Are you offering the hottest, newest products or services?
2. Understand the different markets
Ultimately, it all comes down to positioning. While there’s no right or wrong answer, you do need to pick at least one of these categories for you to stand apart from your competition.
If you’re not among the top three within your chosen area of differentiation, you will get lost. Let’s talk about each of these categories.
Established & New brands
Is your business established, having run for many years? If so, the signature selling point is your organisation’s history and strength. However, you can also go in the opposite direction. You could position your business as being the new kid on the block. You know, “we are innovative,cutting edge, and we’ve got fresh new ideas! More so we’re all about the change that you need.” Again, you need to pick up a point
of differentiation and go for it.
Mass & Niche brands
Another way to differentiate yourself is by having the most extensive selection available. I’m sure you know some mass retail stores that have adopted this differentiation strategy very well.
Whatever you’re looking for, they’ve got it. At the opposite end of the spectrum are companies that target a specific niche market. They specialise in offering a particular type of product or service. For example, Havaianas only sells flip flops. They’ve got dozens if not hundreds of different kinds of flip flops in their stores, and that’s all they sell. They specialise in flip flops. So if you’re looking for flip flops, they’ve got them.
Low-priced brands
Contrary to popular belief, if you want to offer the guaranteed lowest price, that’s certainly a feasible option. However, it’s not one that I recommend for most businesses. What often ends up happening is that customers start seeing your products or services as a commodity with no real value. They end up negotiating your price down to nothing. Yet, there might be situations where you can genuinely acquire your inventory from manufacturers and suppliers at a substantially lower cost than your competitors acquire their inventory. Or perhaps you’re able to eliminate intermediaries and sell directly to the consumer at a much lower price than your competition can. So in cases like this, offering the lowest price guarantee
Service brands
One way of positioning your business into a niche is by offering the fastest delivery or fastest service. Therefore your brand is all about being quick to respond or having a fast turnaround time.
Innovative brands
Positioning is all the decisions, activities and communication strategies trying to create and maintain your intended product concept in the customer’s mind. When customers think of your business, what exactly are they thinking? If they’re not feeling anything, you are in big trouble. If they’re thinking something other than what you want them to be thinking, you’ve got some work to do. It all comes down to positioning.
3. Consider your signature strengths
One way to discover what sets you apart from the competition and find your business niche is to ask your customers why they picked you.
- What do they see as your strengths?
- Which of your qualities are most important to them
in your work together? - What is most valuable to them in your work
together?
Furthermore, you could also do an online questionnaire that measures character strengths, such as the one developed by Dr Seligman, Director of the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center.
Simply pick your top three strengths and then use bridge statements to communicate how your strengths benefit your customer.
For example, in my case, I’m always exploring and discovering new tools (my strength) that can help clients increase their sales (the benefit to the customer
Get trained and stand apart from the competition with ease
Let’s face it. Many other people are doing the same thing as you and competing for the same business. It can be tough to stand apart from the competition, so why not take advantage of our differentiation dominance training program?
In this Differentiation Dominance training, we help you do all of this in a way that’s important to your buyer because at the end of the day if your differentiator doesn’t matter to your prospects – you’ll still be left to compete on price.
Start learning how to position yourself, your company and your offering as the ideal solution to your customer.
