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Finding Your Niche (Part 3)

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We started this series by talking about how having a niche within your skill set can put you in greater demand, whether as a prospective employee or when starting your own business. Then I shared a bit of my personal journey to explain how I found my own niche as a life-career coach. That said, finding your own niche isn’t always an easy process. It often requires patience along with a bit of trial-and-error until you figure out the right combination of ingredients for yourself. So let’s wrap up our discussion on this topic by offering some tips for how you can find your own niche within your career.

Every Profession Has Specialties

First of all, you need to recognize that almost every type of job, profession, business and industry has specialties (read: niches) within that profession, job description, etc. They aren’t always easy to spot—because if they were, they wouldn’t be “specialties!” But they are there if you look for them. A financial advisor might specialize in helping elderly people qualify for Medicaid for their end-of-life care, for example. A carpenter might specialize in renovating living spaces in upscale neighborhoods. A plumber might specialize in repairing or replacing pipes in historic homes. And of course, there are almost more specialties in law and healthcare than we can count. Take a look within your own profession or skillset and look for some possible specialties—ways you might narrow down your scope or focus. Jot a few of them down and keep them in mind, realizing these might not be things you would specialize in—but that you could if you wanted to.

Revisit Your Passions

A few weeks ago on this blog, I talked about ways to find your true passion so that it can inform your career decisions. Take another look at that exercise to see what you came up with, then look at your list of possible niches and see if there are any specialties that resonate with your own passions. If nothing comes to mind, try it the other direction: Try to verbalize the things you’re passionate about and see whether you can imagine a specialty within your profession that lines up with those passions. (If you simply can’t find anything after extensive thought—you might be in the wrong profession, and you might want to rethink your overall direction.)

Look at What’s Needed

Can you identify any unmet needs within your general profession or business? What problems do customers or clients have within your line of work—gaps in service that are not being filled? What do customers wish could be improved or innovated? What frustrations could you alleviate? Many times, identifying current unmet needs in your vertical can lead you to a very profitable niche.

Above all, exercise patience in this process. You may start identifying a niche for yourself, only to find in a few months it’s not what you really wanted or what people need, and you’ll have to adapt and make a few adjustments. But when you hit the “sweet spot,” so to speak, your niche can become a place of both great profitability and personal fulfillment.

If you’re uncertain about your professional future, I’m here to help! For a free initial 30-minute consultation, call GiraffesConsulting today at 646-320-1126.

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Finding Your Niche (Part 2)

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In the previous post, we talked about the power of finding a specialty or niche within your particular industry, and how it can serve you whether you’re an entrepreneur starting a new business or a professional seeking to get hired at a firm. Not only does this put you in greater demand as one of a select few people that offer that particular skill, but when you choose a niche in line with your passions, it also gives you the opportunity to do more work that you genuinely care about. I’d like to continue this discussion with a story from my personal experience.

More About My Story

I worked as a human resources executive for decades, and I was good at what I did. When a corporate merger made my job redundant, I found myself in the throes of change—the same as many of my clients are today. I decided I didn’t want to seek another job in human resources—I wanted to put those skills to use in a different way.

As someone who enjoys working with people, I decided to become a certified coach. I attended and graduated from the Georgetown University Leadership and Coaching program, became a member of the International Coaching Federation and set up an independent practice as a life coach.

However, I soon began to feel that I might be even more effective as a life coach if I narrowed my scope a bit. I looked at my own recent experience navigating a major life change, and I realized I cared very deeply about helping others make this kind of transition—so I began to focus my practice on helping people through major change in their lives. (Hence my slogan, “Change happens—take control!”)

But then I noticed something interesting that helped me hone my focus even further: Among the clients who were seeking my services, the vast majority were going through exactly the same type of “change” I went through—the change of a job or career. Either they had been laid off and needed to find a new job, or they felt stale in their job and wanted to find their way into something new.  This is where the human resources part of my former job came in handy—I understood this space better than most! The answer soon became clear: I needed to focus on career coaching—on helping people navigate the difficult transition between jobs or help people shift into a new career.

The result? GiraffesConsulting. This practice is now my niche! To reflect this specialty, I now refer to myself as a life-career coach. I still offer basic life coaching help to those who want or need it, but now anyone who meets me understands right away that I can specifically help them find their way into a new career—and I have found great joy in helping people do just that.

So…how do you find your own niche? I’ll offer some practical guidance in part 3 of this series.

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Finding Your Niche (Part 1)

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“Identify your niche and dominate it. And when I say dominate, I just mean work harder than anyone else could possibly work at it.” –Nate Parker

When we’re in the midst of change—for instance, when we’re between careers—sometimes our default instinct is to become “all things to all people.” This is particularly true of entrepreneurs and startup businesses who are new and “hungry.” The idea is that the more products and services you offer, the wider your target market becomes, and the more likely you are to find people to do business with. We feel like the wider we cast our net, the more fish we’ll catch.

However, I’d like to propose an alternate way of thinking, one that is espoused by many of the world’s most successful people: Instead of broadening your scope—narrow it down. If you’re starting a business, instead of trying to meet everyone’s needs within your market, find a niche within that market. If you’re seeking a job, rather than positioning yourself as a good all-around employee for a prospective company, focus on a skillset that most employees don’t offer—something the company needs and will pay premium wages for.

In other words…find a way to specialize.

Why Having a Niche Generates More Success

You’d think this principle would have the opposite effect of generating fewer opportunities for you, rather than more—but statistics show otherwise. In fact, people working within a niche tend to thrive better than the rest, as long as the niche is something people want and need. Here’s why it works:

  • Your quality of work increases. The old “jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none” adage applies here. If you try to be all things to all people, you’ll inevitably be unable to provide a decent level of quality across all those verticals, and you’ll become lost in a sea of mediocrity. By contrast, if you focus only on a select number of services (preferably in line with your passions), you’ll do work that outshines your competition, and people will take notice.
  • You attract only the type of customers or employers you want. Going back to the fishing analogy…casting a wide net might get you more fish initially, but you’ll also catch a lot of junk you don’t want or need. Think of your niche as choosing a certain type of fish, then crafting a bait perfect for attracting that type of fish. Put that perfect bait in the water, and you’ll catch only the kind of fish you want—and you’ll yank them out of the water all day long.
  • Specializing puts you in greater demand. When you try to offer all possible services within your particular market, you basically become like everyone else in your market, competing for the same type of people and maybe landing a few. If you can find a certain specialty that no one else in your area offers, then everyone in your area who needs your service will line up at your door because you’re the only place to get that product or service. (And as you probably already have noticed…specialists can charge more for their special service, as well.)

It’s true that when you specialize, you may have fewer people who need what you offer; but if all of those people come to you as the go-to person for that product or service, you’re still doing more business and making more money than all the other general practitioners out there. If you are the only person in your area who does a certain type of work, and more than one company needs that specialty—you can practically write your own paycheck. That’s the power of finding a niche.

If you’re in a place of change with regard to your career, now is the perfect opportunity to look for ways to carve out a niche for yourself. In the next post, I’ll share some personal experiences on this topic and offer some helpful tips to guide you on your search for your own unique specialty.