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Struggling to Find Your Niche? You May Be Starting in the Wrong Place

If you've been in business for any length of time, somebody has probably told you that you need to find your niche.

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By which they mean to arrow down your audience and get really specific about exactly who you serve and who you do not. 

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It sounds sensible.

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Until you actually try to do it and the questions start:

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What if I choose the wrong niche?

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What if I make it too narrow – or not narrow enough?

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‍What about all the other people I could help?

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What if I get bored and want to change?

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What if I start turning away perfectly good clients – and perfectly good income?

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Or perhaps you've looked at everything you do and thought, But my clients don't fit neatly into one clear and specific box.

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I think there's a reason why so many business owners struggle with niching.

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They’re starting in the wrong place.

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“Niching is not about making yourself smaller, It’s about making your significance clearer - Melitta Campbell

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Don't start by asking “Who?”

Most traditional niching exercises start by asking who your ideal client is.

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Who are they? What industry do they work in? What's their age, background, education, gender or job title? Where do they live?

All of this information can be useful.

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But it doesn't answer the question I think matters much more:

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Why should these people choose you?

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Imagine you're a website designer and you've worked with quite a few financial advisers.

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You enjoy working with them. They enjoy working with you. So somebody says, “Great – there's your niche. You design websites for financial advisers.”

Perhaps.

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But why financial advisers?

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Why not solicitors? Accountants? Consultants? Or another professional service that faces similar needs and challenges?

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Rather than immediately declaring financial advisers your niche, I'd want to go deeper and explore the specific value they see in you and your services. Ask:

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Why are you particularly relevant to these clients?

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And just as importantly:

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Why are these clients particularly right for you?

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Perhaps they value a particular way you explain complicated ideas. Perhaps they need a result that you're exceptionally good at creating. Perhaps there's something about your philosophy, experience or approach that fits particularly well with what they need.

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When you understand that, you might discover that your niche isn't simply ‘financial advisers’.

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It might be a particular type of professional service business looking for a particular result, delivered in a particular way.

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That's a very different way to think about niching. 

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It’s also one that will give you far more information about the best way you can position your services, where to focus your time, attention and resources, and how to grow. 

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Start with you

Before deciding who you want to target, take some time to understand yourself and the work you do best.

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Ask yourself:

• Why do I do this work?
• Why do I care about it?
• Why do I approach it the way I do?
• What have my experience and expertise taught me about solving this problem?
• When am I doing my best work?
• What difference do I really care about creating?

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Then look outwards.

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Who is looking for that?

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Who values your particular approach?

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Who is likely to get an exceptional result from working with you this way?

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Who wants the difference you most want to create?

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This is where you start to find what I call your Value Sweet Spot – the point where who you are, what you do exceptionally well and what matters to you aligns with what your Dream Clients genuinely need and value.

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You're not trying to manufacture a version of yourself that will appeal to a market.

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You're discovering what already makes you particularly relevant to the right clients – and then building your systems around this so you can do it to a high standard consistently, and communicating that clearly enough for your dream clients to recognise the difference too.

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What one English teacher discovered about her real niche

One of my earliest Value Whispering clients, Kate, ran a business helping children learn to read and write in English.

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We live in a French-speaking area with lots of international families, as well as local parents who want their children to develop their English.

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On paper, Kate's business was easy to describe:

She taught children to read and write in English.

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Except that wasn't really what made her special.

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When we started exploring why Kate did what she did, we discovered something much deeper.

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Having worked within the education system, Kate felt that schools weren't always able to give individual children the personalised attention they needed.

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It wasn't because teachers didn't care. At that scale, it simply wasn't always possible.

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Kate could do things differently.

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She didn't use textbooks. Instead, she co-created lessons with each child, tailoring their learning around what interested them and helping them discover how they learned best.

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And that changed the result.

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The children didn't simply improve their English.

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They became more enthusiastic about learning. Homework became easier and they started doing better in other subjects.

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Kate was helping them become lifelong learners.

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Suddenly, the question wasn't:

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Which parents live locally and want English lessons for their children?

It was:

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Which parents care deeply about helping their children develop a love of learning – and believe in Kate's approach to achieving that?

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That's a much more meaningful niche.

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Sometimes knowing who's wrong for you is just as valuable

Once Kate understood why she worked the way she did, she started talking about her work differently.

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And something fascinating happened.

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Parents started signing up and most didn't even ask the price first!

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Then one parent came along who wanted her child to learn using a textbook so that she could follow the lessons herself.

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Technically, Kate could have done it - and previously she would have tried.

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But now she understood that it wasn't how she believed children learned best. She knew she wouldn't enjoy teaching that way, and ultimately neither she nor the family would get the experience they wanted.

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So she referred the parent to somebody else.

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For me, that was as important as attracting the right clients.

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Kate now knew not only who her Dream Clients were, but also who they weren't.

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And that clarity had a significant commercial impact too.

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When we started working together, her school had been making a loss for two years. Within three months it was breaking even, and six months later she had a wait list – despite charging considerably more than others offering English tuition locally.

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Her success didn't come from deciding on a narrower demographic.

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It came from understanding why her work was different, who particularly valued that difference and how to communicate it clearly.

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Your niche doesn't have to be demographic

This is why I don't believe a niche always needs to be defined by demographics.

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You might niche around a particular problem.

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A specific situation.

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A desired result.

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A shared belief or philosophy.

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A particular way of working.

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Or a combination of these things.

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The useful question isn't:

How narrowly can I define these people?

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It's:

What connects the people for whom my expertise, approach and the results I create are especially relevant?

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That distinction matters.

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Because narrower isn't automatically better.

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More relevant is better.

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Here's the strange thing that can happen when you niche

One of the fears people have about niching is that becoming more specific will mean fewer opportunities.

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But I regularly see something rather different.

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As my clients become clearer about the work they do best, the results they create, how they work and who particularly values that approach, they sometimes start attracting people from outside the niche they thought they had chosen.

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Someone comes along and says:

“I know I'm not really the type of client you normally work with, but what you've described is exactly what I need. Would you work with me?”

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Why?

Because clarity travels.

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When you're vague in an attempt to appeal to everyone, it's difficult for anyone to recognise why you're right for them.

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When you're specific about the problem you solve, the result you create and why you approach it the way you do, people can recognise themselves in that value – even if they don't fit neatly into the category you originally had in mind.

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And then you get to choose.

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Can you create an exceptional result for this person?

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Does what they need fit the way you work?

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Will you enjoy the work?

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Does accepting it make sense for the direction of your business?

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A niche isn't a rule that says you're forbidden from working with anybody else.

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It's there to create clarity.

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Stop marketing at a niche

There's another lovely consequence of understanding your Dream Clients more deeply.

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You stop simply marketing at a niche and start becoming significant in their world.

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One of my clients once described this as Side Door Marketing, and I've always loved the image.

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In the UK, visitors politely knock at the front door.

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But friends and family?

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They'll often come around the side, and open the door that leads straight into the kitchen.

“Cooee! Anyone home? Shall I put the kettle on?”

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That's how marketing can start to feel when you understand your Dream Clients deeply enough.

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Instead of constantly knocking on the front door asking for attention from strangers, you're already part of their world.

You're talking about things that matter to them.

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You're helping them, even before they’ve paid you a penny. And you're demonstrating that you understand how they think, what they're trying to achieve, where they are struggling.

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So when the time comes that they need the service you provide, you're not a stranger trying to sell them something.

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You're already somebody they know, understand and trust.

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You don't need to find the perfect niche

If you've been tying yourself in knots trying to identify the perfect niche, I'd like to take some of that pressure away.

You don't need to get it perfect.

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And you don't have to make a decision today that determines what your business will look like forever.

Businesses evolve.

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You evolve.

Your understanding of your clients evolves.

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You learn by communicating your ideas, working with people and noticing what happens.

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So start somewhere.

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But start with you.

Understand the value you create when you're doing your best work.

Look at your expertise and experience, your strengths, your values and beliefs, your approach, the way you see the problem you're solving and the difference you want your work to make.

Then look outwards.

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Who's looking for that?

Who values it?

Who can you create an extraordinary result for?

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Who would consider you their Dream Service Provider?

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That's where your niche starts to become visible.

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Because niching isn't about making yourself smaller.

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It isn't about reducing your opportunities, income or impact.

It's about making your significance clearer – so the right people can recognise why you're the obvious choice for them.

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Listen Next

Continue with Episode 315 — Why Brilliant Experts Struggle to Attract Clients (and Why It's Probably Not for the Reason You Think).

That episode explores the Value Recognition Problem: why something that appears to be a marketing or visibility problem may actually begin with people not recognising enough of your value.

Together, the two episodes explore both sides of the challenge: recognising that your value isn't being seen clearly enough, and then making the depth of your expertise easier for the right people to understand.

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About Your Host, Melitta Campbell

Melitta Campbell is the creator of the Value Whispering® methodology, a 3x bestselling author, TEDx speaker and an award-winning communications and marketing expert with more than 30 years' experience helping organisations, leaders and service-based experts communicate their value more clearly.

Through her books, keynote talks, coaching and this podcast, she challenges conventional marketing wisdom and helps experts become the obvious choice through smarter - not louder - marketing.

Her work is built on one simple belief:

‍People don't choose the best expert.
They choose the one whose value they understand best.

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Learn more about working with Melitta here
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Connect with Melitta

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