Why Niching Was the Best Thing We Did for Our Business, and it Could Be for You Too
Emma Bowdler
I’m a cheerleader for women and an accountant bursting with personality.
As business owners, we juggle sahhhh many plates, balls, and sharp objects all in a day’s work that we really should all just run away and join the circus. And while there are lots of truly incredible moments in running our own businesses (otherwise, why would we be doing it?), the reality is that entrepreneurship can sometimes feel like an uphill battle.
One challenge that almost all of us face is determining exactly who our customers are, how to reach them, and how to get them to sign on the dotted line. It’s tricky, especially in this economy. So, when it comes to understanding our target market and how to cater to their specific needs, pains, hopes, and dreams, there is one thing that can be the smartest and most strategic decision we make in our business, even if it feels like the most counterintuitive. And that’s niching.
Not just the cute wall inset you want in the shower for all your fancy shampoos and body scrubs, niching is the process of focusing on a specific area, industry, or client and catering directly to their needs and wants. Much like a marriage, it’s like choosing your ‘person’ and then committing to them, to the exclusive of all others. It’s been a total game-changer for our business, and it could be for yours too. Here’s our hot take on why.
1. Niching Gives You Crystal Clarity
Not just as women in the world, but as women in business — gone are the days of trying to be all things to all people. You end up with a headache the size of Kosciuszko and it turns out you can’t please ’em all anyway. Instead, what we want to do is carve out the select people we do care about pleasing.
You know that feeling when you finally clean the windscreen of your car or dust off your dirty filthy glasses — and lo and behold, you can actually *see* again? Well, finding your niche is kinda like that. It is essentially narrowing down your focus so you can see what’s in front of you more clearly.
Niching gives you clarity on how and where to channel your finite resources and prevents you from shooting your shots in lots of directions at once, hoping to hit something, anything. It gives you clarity on who you’re going after and also makes it easier for you to determine what products or services to offer, how much to charge, and how to market them. It allows you to fine-tune your messaging and it also gives you even more reason to engage in two-way conversation with your ideal customers or clients. You win, they win, we all win for ice cream (no, wait, that’s not quite the saying but we’re going with it).
2. You Become the Expert
When you focus on a specific niche, you end up becoming an expert in that field. You learn everything there is to know about that industry, and you can position yourself as the ‘go-to gal’. When people think of your niche, they will think of you.
Clients and peers alike are naturally drawn to those who exhibit a profound understanding of their niche, trusting them for insights, solutions, and innovations that only a true expert can provide. Of course, there will always be a place for generalists (those who possess a diverse skill set) and the ability to communicate and collaborate across industries can be invaluable. But when it comes to running a profitable business, the way we see it: cultivating a position of authority can help you attract more of the people you want to work with. That, in turn, often means you can charge more for it, avoid scope creep, and get the acknowledgment you deserve.
3. You Stand Out from the Crowd
It seems like every woman and her cat is starting a business these days, and we love love love to see it. But with so many businesses out there vying for the attention (and dollars) of the same customers, it can be challenging to stand out. Niching can make this task a teensy bit easier because it often means working in a less crowded space.
By focusing on a specific industry, you are setting yourself apart from all the other businesses that are still trying (futilely) to be everything to everyone. This differentiation can make it easier for potential clients to choose you over others, and help you lean into your strengths. It also tends to foster customer loyalty and advocacy, as clients are more likely to return to a specialist who consistently meets their unique needs.
4. Niching Enables You to Supercharge Your Value
One of the best parts of getting laser focused on a specific niche is that you can create products or services that cater specifically to their needs. Hello: maximum value for your customers.
For example, if your niche is skincare for eco-conscious consumers, you could establish a brand that specialises in 100% cruelty-free and plant-based skincare products with detailed ingredient lists, certifications, and explanations of your ethical sourcing practices on your website. If your niche is helping passionate plant ladies live their best life, you could launch a subscription service that delivers rare and exotic indoor plants to their doorstep each month.
Or if your niche is, we dunno, helping women-run service-based businesses, you could create some seriously cool packages that help them boot their business goals à la Sam Kerr from outside the box.
5. Niching Can Create More Cha-Ching
Without a doubt, the biggest fear about niching is cutting down your potential target market, or the people you could reach for your products. There’s also the worry of getting pigeonholed into a single category, which might make it challenging to pivot or expand if the niche becomes less relevant over time or the market needs change. And it’s certainly true that the niche you choose will determine the size of the market and how many people could end up benefiting from your goods or services.
However, while you might be narrowing your market down, in our experience, you can end up appealing to a more dedicated and willing customer base who are further down the ‘funnel’. These excited-to-work-with-you humans not only get to know and love you quickly, but they know you are offering a specialised or premium product/service, and that premium offerings command a premium price.
Far from cutting us off from potential clients, niching into supporting women-run service-based businesses has been the best thing we ever did for our business.
It gave us clarity on who to go after, it gave us a commitment to becoming even more of an expert in our field, and it has helped us stand out from other accounting and advisory firms (which isn’t hard when most of them are stale, pale and male). But more than all of that, what niching has given us is the ability to supercharge the value we give to our clients, and even though you can’t always put a price on that, we can, and we do.
Need More Help?
With the right niche, we know that your business can thrive and be even more of a raging success than it already is. And if you’d like to chat more about what niching could look like for your business, book an obligation-free 60 minute session with us over cake and coffee, either virtually or in our Toowoomba office.
Dishing up fresh, fabulous and no fuss financial services to help women across Australia build profitable businesses is our specialty, let us help you find yours.
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