How You Can Find Your Niche: Your Opportunity to Shine

As an entrepreneur, focusing on a niche and specialty can be very important in establishing your personal brand and business. This can bring significant benefits. When people in your community know about your focus and direction, then they know to whom, where, and how to best spread the word about your business and can become very important referrals and advocates in recommending your business to people they are talking to.

Conceptually, a niche is very focused. A niche is a term for a space created to highlight a feature or object — and so, in relation to your entrepreneurship, your niche really becomes your opportunity to shine with your expertise in a specific area. When people think of the area (or topic) they naturally think of you, and that can bring a lot of new business to you.

However, if you’re just starting out, you might feel as if you’re just one of many people in your field. How can you find a niche that will help to make your business distinctive?

Fortunately, the good news is you are already distinctive. We are all unique, as even our fingerprints reflect, and then the question becomes how can you find your innate unique qualities and bring those to the fore.

The answer can begin by looking in your heart, then your head, and then in the world around you.

Beginning by looking in your heart is similar to the theme you might have heard, “follow your passion.” Fortunately, while that sounds warm and wonderful in many ways, this isn’t just a feel-good expression, it’s highly practical. Your passion is your ultimate motivator. You will only have the drive and determination needed to succeed if you are passionate about what you are pursuing. It’s what a friend calls having “the fire in the belly”, which is the drive to succeed because you are passionate about the pursuit.

When you have identified your passion, then it is time to progress from your heart to your head. With your intellect and reasoning, think “OK, if I’ve identified my passion, then what kind of problems can I help people solve, and what types of skills do I need in order to apply that?” You can think of what types of things you do best; what types of skills people compliment you on and recognize you for. If this is a field you haven’t explored before, then this is where your passion kicks in, with a drive to learn everything you can about the field you are considering.

And then that is a good opportunity to progress further, and in moving from your heart to your head, now move to explore your world around you. What problems do you see people experiencing, where you can help provide a solution? What opportunities do you see to improve things? Learning about the types of people who have these problems (your target persona) and how you can best help them with your unique skillset and solution, can become a great niche for you. 

Seeing where all of these come together (your passions, skills, and opportunities) can create distinctive positioning for your business.

That can be a great source for innovation, that is uniquely yours. Go for it!