Is your fear preventing business success? Does your business have a clearly defined niche? And, if not, are you hesitant to declare one?
If you are in this camp, I’m guessing your thoughts might include some or all these ideas:
- Is this niche too narrow? Will I be leaving opportunity on the table?
- Will I be giving up potential income?
- My clients need more than what my niche can offer them. If I narrow my scope of work, they will need to look elsewhere for what they believe I should be able to do for them. And prospective clients will skip past me because I don’t do it all.
- I’ve expanded my services to better serve my client’s needs, I can’t walk away from that now. If I do that, I’m letting them down. But …. this additional service does not play to my strengths.
When I read these questions or reasons for hesitations – I hear two things: Fear of missing out and giving your clients too much control over your business.
If you give into FOMO, what is going to happen?
Confusion: As a business, you lack clarity and consistency in purpose and intention of your business. You send mixed messages to your clients, your team, and anyone else associated with the business. As Storybrand’s Donald Miller says, when you confuse, you lose.
Your business will have inconsistent messaging, the customer experience will be different depending on the person or the moment and the follow-up or response to requests for help will be poor or negative. This is inconsistency will hold your business back.
As result, you, as a leader in the business will feel anxiety and stress, which will lead to burnout.
And let’s not forget to mention:
Your business will experience lower client satisfaction as a result of the lack of clarity and consistency
The business will remain or become stagnant in regards to growth,
The brand identity is diluted due to the inconsistent experience, message and inability to deliver on the brand promise.
Your business is consistently over-promising and under-delivering….
The list could go on and on.
None of these sound like the goals for a thriving and growing business. Fear is a weight, holding you and your business in a place of uncertainty, confusion, and frustration.
Is it possible to be too narrow in a niche?
It might feel like it – but it would be very difficult to become too narrow. Remember the goal is for your audience to clearly see you as the best solution they seek.
There are other benefits to a clearly defined niche…
Focusing on a clearly defined niche allows your business to funnel your limited resources – time, human resources, money, energy – toward a unified goal. This creates synergy and a company culture united to accomplish an agreed-upon mission and vision.
A niche pushes you to understand your target audience better than you’ve done before, which results in an advantage over your competition in the market. The better you know your audience and how you serve them makes it more difficult is for newcomers to break into the market and challenge your position. Key marketing messages are guided by your niche definition. How many times have you felt like you are starting from scratch with every message you write? The clarity that comes from knowing your niche makes this task much easier. You know the who, what, where, why, when, and how necessary to create a compelling message. The only “new” work necessary is the details to create the engagement.
When you are specific on your niche, it, alongside your brand purpose, will help make decisions related to new products or services. The niche offers positive boundaries to keep you focused and aligned. You are less likely to add a product or service to your business that doesn’t support the needs of your audience or the mission and vision of the business.
By staying true to the niche you’ve defined, your team consistently delivers on the customer experience and service your brand is known for. All interactions with the brand are consistent because it is clearly defined what the business is known for, how it behaves, and what the expectations are. Your audience knows what to expect and appreciates the consistency.
