Solopreneurs: Introducing a Different Way to Identify Who You Serve in the Marketplace

We've all heard how important it is to identify our "niche" or even "sub-niche" business. Entrepreneurs often struggle with pinpointing exactly who to serve.

You definitely have to get specific about your market, but I don't like to call it a "niche" because we've heard that word too much. I will use "niche" sometimes as a frame of reference because everyone's familiar with that word, but the place I work from is "who needs you most", and discovering the group of people that you can serve to the greatest good. That's much more comfortable for a few reasons.

Finding a niche often becomes a task: to find a group of people, go after them, grab them and tackle them and sell to them. It becomes inauthentic.

If we frame it as finding out who needs us most, it becomes a very different situation. It's critical to understand who your ideal prospect is. For instance, if you're both a therapist and an ADD coach, you've got to recognize they are two different businesses. They truly are. When you have two different skills, two different genres that you're working in, they really are two different businesses.

Here's a little gem: a confused mind always says no. When you approach people about who you are, what you do and how you can serve them, it would be very confusing if you said, "I do coaching, therapy, work with ADD, and work with moms."

Since we know a confused mind always says no, we have to get very clear about how we can serve and who we serve. Once you know who your ideal client is, define your message in terms of the concrete benefits you can offer them.

Using the example of the market of moms with ADD, if a mother with ADD came to you and said, "I heard you do this. How can you help me?" How would you respond to that? If you say, "I help moms with ADD to have more rewarding, stable, and satisfying lives," that's too unclear. It is not addressing a transactional problem.

A transactional problem is something that someone recognizes that can have an absolute solution to it. You want to make sure that in the business you are in that you solve transactional problems.

When you change your message to say that you can help moms find more time for themselves in their week, you can help moms organize themselves and their children so that there is less chaos in the house, and that you could coach or support a mom in being less stressed when she's spending time with her family, that speaks specifically to the problems your prospect is having.

Whether you call it a niche or another term, be sure you clarify your message so that within a couple sentences your prospect knows exactly what you offer that will create a positive change in their lives. This one tip alone will bring you more ideal clients and leads.nn(c) 2009 Suzanne Evansn