009 How to pick your niche

Finding a profitable niche is not hard.

But it needs to be done right, at the right time.

In this episode, I walk you through the process with examples from my own journey and that of my clients.

Episode Links and Mentions:

The blog post where I mention niching

https://www.stephaniefiteni.com/digital-strategy/digital-marketing-for-coaches/coach-marketing/

Ryan Levesque's Ask Method

https://askmethod.com/

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Prefer to read? Here's the full transcript

Hey, welcome to today's episode. I'm going to talk about niching today and I'm going to share my journey and, you know, the tips that I support my clients with as well, because, you know, niching is not just about finding that special thing that you can do that allows you to charge more later, but also finding that thing that makes you a no brainer in your industry so that you can really grow and scale your business.

Pick the right niche

So how can you make sure that you're picking the right niche? The first thing to do, which is probably a little bit counter-intuitive, is to look inwards, you know, finding your niche is something that you should not look to the competition to the strongest niche you can find is going to be one that your competition hasn't picked. So you need to make sure that it's definitely has a strong overlap with your strengths.

Your experience is your niche

What this means is that your experience, your life experience, not just your work experience is actually your niche. And in fact, this is very common with a lot of coaches and consultants. You know, a lot of coaches especially can find it quite easy to have a look at that motivator, that thing that changed our lives, that made them become a coach and that helped them discover maybe a new part of their life or any part of themselves. And they can actually turn that into something that they offer. For example, my experience is in SEO and building websites and, you know, I used to have my own agency. So, you know, my experience in, in terms of, you know, coding and websites and also writing content is what makes me a little bit different. So a lot of content writers have either a PR or you know, or a writing background.

So they were writers before they actually specifically niche down to blogging. So I came from a little bit of a different background, which of course is going to make me send out. This does not mean that the niche though is going to fit you like a glove. In my case, I had a little bit of a problem. I really wanted to work with coaches because I was so excited about the way I started my business online from scratch. And, you know, when you work within an agency, you tend to take businesses from say point C to point D you don't actually build from scratch. So I was really proud and I was really, I really felt that this was a strength that I had the experience of building a business and international business that was completely started from scratch. So I felt that working with coaches was going to help me really make use of this experience because I had built my own online coaching business, but it didn't fit me like a glove for one particular reason.

My background was technical. And I used to use words that coaches didn't understand. And, you know, this is something that I had to kind of learn to let go of. I had been, I had spent so many years of training, spending a lot of time with programmers and people in marketing. And we don't realize how much of the industry terminology you use without even being aware of it. So this was one of the disadvantages for me, but that didn't mean that it was around the niche.

What have you done that feeds your niche

So the next step to understand if this is the right niche was to see, to have a good look at the past. So the passion index for me, the passion index was really, really high. I love writing. I love technical stuff. I am, I have, you know tiny objects syndrome. So I'm always in the note when, when it counts to the latest tools that have come out and how you can use them, you know, all the Google algorithm updates and stuff like that, because, you know, I would do that for free.

I don't need to be paid to do that, so that a very nice overlap, of course, the writing was a big part of it as well. If I was going to sell blogging, then it doesn't apply to everything, but it applies to most things. You have to do what you preach. So of course, I had to pick something where I can be seen to do what I preach because I love doing it and I'm not going to stop doing it. So this, I knew that my niche was a commitment for the long Sam and my passion was a very big element. So, you know, the overlap of your passion is really important. Now at the stage comes the point where you can, and you should look at your competitors, have a look at your industry, understand what other people are getting paid for.

Competition and your niche

Especially when it comes to coaches and consultants. There are a thousand different titles out there. Some of them can be a bit vague, avoid that, try to be very specific and clear when you name yourself, by the way, you name yourself, of course, it's going to depend highly on the niche that you pick. So make sure that you can see others in other fields, even if they call themselves something different to what you would like to call yourself. But if they're doing something similar to what you would like to do, and they are actually getting paid for it, yeah. You can see that they have clients. You can see that they are busy. You can see that they have an audience. Then that is proof that your niche has business viability. You can see that it's as viable and that it will grow another interesting way, which I have.

I have actually learned from Ryan Levesque the guy who wrote the book, The Ask Method, he talks about also verifying your niche. And although there is an audience for a particular type of business by looking and comparing search results on search engines like Google and YouTube. And yes, I definitely recommend this too. So I would say definitely if you want to see if there is a market, find some people who are doing what you would like to do, who are specifically in your niche or something really, really close to it and have a good look at the YouTube channels. Have a look ideally use also a keyword tool because the keyword tool is going to help you understand whether there is traffic for a specific niche. For instance, when I was looking for my niche, actually one of the main keywords was marketing for coaches, and that was a really, really good keyword.

But I felt that it was a little bit too generic when it comes to, you know, the way I wanted to describe myself. However, the fact that it has so much traffic and it's, you could also see that it was a keyword that was going to convert. Well, it made me realize, you know, that probably a number of niches in that particular sector were going to be pretty lucrative. And finally, I would like to also clarify perhaps one last point, then once you have decided what your niche is going to be, you're going to really have to hone in and decide who your ideal client is going to be. The best niches are the ones where you can have a number of different products that serve the same ideal client at different points in their customer journey because this will allow you to add more offers at a later stage and then, you know upsell or down-sell the same people.

And of course, this is going to save you a lot on marketing. So niching only down to ideally one target, persona, or ideal client avatar as we sometimes call it does not mean that you're going to turn other people away. What it means is that your marketing is going to be specifically focused on attracting one type of person. Of course, you will also attract other people who have the same problems or wants the same benefits. And it doesn't mean that you have to turn them away. It only means that your website and your social media and all your marketing efforts are going to be very highly focused. And they're going to help you position yourself in a market where your ideal client sits and wants to find somebody like you. And the next point is my favourite because I am a bigger picture sort of person.

And I really liked to, you know, look ahead and plan the future plan. What's coming and plan, you know, where things are going to go in the next three, four, five years. So when you pick your niche, try to make sure that your niche actually allows you to raise your prices. So the first obvious thing to look out for is how big of an impact is your business or your service or your products going to have on somebody's life? Is it a big impact? Is it a small impact? Is it something that makes them money? Is it something that makes them happy if you did something that you know is very difficult to find without someone's help? All of these things are going to make sense, something that you can put a good price on. And I'm not saying that as soon as you niche down, you have to put your prices up.

Right niche, right pricing, great messaging

You could try, but that's not what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting that of course, you build up your prices slowly, but of course, you need to make sure that you're going to have a large impact in the sense that, you know, if you're selling something that is different, but doesn't have a high impact on somebody's life, then it's still going to be a little bit difficult for you to charge high prices. So, one good way to find out is also