The benefits of niche-ing down

Do you find yourself thinking about what 'niche' your business falls into, or is it something you’ve never given a second thought?
 
We meet with a lot of business owners who are not really sure who their target market is and if their business falls into a niche.
 
The reason that finding your niche and honing in on your target market is so essential is it helps you get laser-focused on who you are trying to target, where to find them and how to keep them happy time and time again. 

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A lot of business and having a successful business is finding something you do really well and doing that over and over again, while you refine, get better and improve on your offering.
 
As the saying goes “Repetition is the mother of all skill.”
 
So how do we niche down in business when we are trying to be all things to all people?
 
Here are some suggestions: 
 
Plan

Get the best and brightest minds together in your business and do a planning day, afternoon or session for a few hours where you discuss and answer the following questions:

• Who are we?
• What do we do well?
• What about our business do we love?
• What do we hate?
• Who are our customers?
• Does our current offering reflect our customer/target market?

 
These questions are quite broad but will help you get a better idea of your target market and who they are. Where your time is best spent and what you enjoy. If you enjoy what you do, you are often going to do a better job of it, so focus on that. 
 
Be Strategic

Now that you know a bit better who you are and what you do well, how can you do even better in the areas that you are operating in? Are there services or products that you need to drop that are no longer serving your business?

Ask the following questions:

• What is our core focus moving forward?
• Where is our cash flow coming from – the good and the bad?
• What services and products do we need to drop?
• Where do our customers hang out – i.e. how are we going to engage them and connect with them?
• How do we do more of what we love?
• How do we enhance what we love and do it better?

 
Execute
 
Now it's time to put in a plan to execute.
 
Set out a timeline of things that need to happen, who’s going to be in charge of each item and when it needs to be completed by.
 
Put dates and times and accountability to these tasks to ensure they happen and keep someone in charge of being accountable to make it happen. 
 
And start implementing these changes to grow your business in the right direction. They don't have to be overwhelming, and all done at once, start small and tick things off a list over time.