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Now that you’ve found a nifty niche, it’s time to get up to speed developing your expertise. Let’s start out with an industry niche.
Ideally, you’ve selected a niche area where you have some previous knowledge. If not, don’t sweat it. You can still learn the ins and outs and position yourself as an expert. It’ll just take a bit more time.
Here’s a little secret – not everybody knows the stuff you do. That will become a cornerstone in establishing your niche authority. The thing is, you do whatever it is you do every day. Whether it’s graphic design, writing, accounting, law, financial planning, etc., there are those knowledge bits and bytes that you assume everybody knows. You know it because it’s a regular part of your business life, so you figure, “That’s awfully basic. Everybody knows that.” In reality, they don’t. Others don’t think about it until they happen to need a certain little tidbit.
The idea here is to pair your business knowledge with your target niche’s needs. For example, let’s say you’re a writer who has done a lot of successful direct mail writing over the years. You know that a strong call to action is critical to the success of a campaign. You write them all the time. But, in researching your target niche, you learn that many of your prospects don’t even include a call to action in their mailings, much less know how to write a good one. This is a shocking revelation, since it’s Direct Mail Writing 101, but, now you’ve got something to spin and promote.
Your specific knowledge is only half the story. You’ll need to learn all you can about your niche, their needs, common challenges, current events, etc. Where can you get that knowledge? The Web is a good place to start. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, get chummy with industry and trade association sites. Read the trade press. When possible, attend trade shows, talk to people, gather and read their literature, ask a lot of questions. Exhibitors are delighted to talk about their businesses. That’s what they’re there to do. Don’t forget hospitality suites. They tend to be informal and you might pick up some very useful nuggets of information, as well as make some valuable contacts.
A few trips to the library can also be rewarding. Swing over to the research area and talk to the Research Librarian. He or she can point you in the right direction to discover a wealth of information.
My friend, Ilise Benun, is a great example of finding and maximizing a niche. Many moons ago, Ilise found herself out of a job. In giving some serious thought as to what to do next, she realized that she was (and likely still is) the most organized person she knew. Many of her friends were creative folk and, let’s just say, not quite as organized. Ilise came up with the idea of becoming a professional organizer. She started to spread the word and soon had a few [paying] clients.
A trend became readily apparent to her. Many of these creatives had a pile of papers. It might be on a desk, a table or the floor. As for myself, I’m a six pile person and they’re parked on the floor to the right of my desk. A large part of Ilise’s service was digging through these piles and sorting out this and that. Inevitably, she would come across a note about sending samples to a prospect that never happened, a phone inquiry that was never followed up, or similar unexploited point-of-contact. Ilise’s response was, “Hey, let’s get in touch with them.” One thing lead to another and soon Ilise had a successful practice in self-promotion consulting for creatives.
Beyond this. Ilise is pretty darn good at stringing together nouns, verbs, adjectives and other conversational condiments. She began writing her newsletter, The Art of Self Promotion, along with magazine articles. Next up was a book based on, and titled the same as, her very successful newsletter. The book lead to interviews, speaking engagements and more books. The cycle repeats itself to the present day and she has cemented her position as the go-to marketing mentor for creatives and also other independent professionals.
If an industry niche isn’t your cup of Earl Grey, you might consider specializing in a practice area. For example, you become the financial advisor to the obscenely rich and develop a special knowledge to meet their needs. If you’re an attorney, practice specialties are pretty typical, but perhaps you can spin yours in a new way by matching your area with a particular group of prospects.
To exploit another friend for the purpose of this post and your niche edification, consider the noted Mr. Fisher of Jeff Fisher Logomotives. It’s not too tough to pick up on Jeff’s specialty – logos. He started out as a regular ‘ole graphic designer back in the day. Like many, Jeff was a generalist and would take on pretty much whatever came through the door, be it brochures, publications, ads and the likes. But, his favorite gigs were always logos. In the early 90s, he started to second guess his career choice and wasn’t sure he wanted to continue. Jeff’s sister owned an ad agency and suggested he focus on logo design since he seemed to really enjoy that type of project.
Since that brilliant revelation, Jeff has gone on to receive over 600 design awards, written loads of articles and has been quoted in many more, as well as in numerous books. Plus, he’s working on his third book, at the time of this writing. Here’s some info about the previous two. Along the way he’s learned well more than most about logo design. Like Ilise, Jeff leveraged the opportunities within a niche and cemented his status as an ipso facto expert.
All this knowledge and expertise isn’t worth too much if nobody knows about it. So, to fix that the next installment will be all about how to promote yourself within your niche and get on your prospects’ radar screens.
What are your thoughts?
