Doing What You LOVE to Do!
So, the real estate niche worked very well for me for five years. My business flourished and I was keeping three subs relatively busy while I was able to handle the marketing, networking, and having an actual life.
Then the real estate market took a dive. I quickly made some key maneuvers to tap into the commercial real estate market, but about six months later, I realized that the commercial market was going to catch up to the residential one, really soon.
I wondered, can I add another niche to the one I’d already established and been working for several years? What other industry needed the types of services I was providing and loved to do, and could I tap into several targets at the same time?
I began to take a closer look at the industries shared by my clients who were not directly connected to real estate. I found that most of my other clients were women, and they were either speakers, coaches, or consultants.
I began to make lists. Lists of the types of services I enjoyed providing to REALTORS, and whether or not there were any similarities to the needs of my speakers, coaches and consultants. Once I identified the similarities, I started connecting individually with my speaker, coach, and consultant clients and asked them about what other challenges they faced to see if there were other services I could provide to them, to expand more easily into this new niche.
Like my real estate niche, I needed to get up-to-date with industry trends and technologies to add these segments to my niche and expand my business even more. I call it one of my many reinventions.
The next step is to figure out how to establish, refine and research your niche, and determine the best, most cost-effective ways to market to them.
If you have a business plan in place, you’ve probably tackled a big part of what we’ll need to consider when considering which niche would be best for you. Take a moment and think about the types of services you absolutely LOVE to do. What services are they?
- Bookkeeping
- Database management
- Word processing
- IT support
- Shopping cart support
- Social Media support
- Website design and maintenance
Let’s say you want to offer bookkeeping services. Bookkeeping is a pretty good niche; but let’s add another layer. Look at your current bookkeeping clients and the industries they represent. Is there a pattern among them – do several of them belong to the same industry? Within that pattern, are there clients that seem to be very well suited to your type of business style and personality?
Let’s say you find that you enjoy working most with speakers and coaches. By doing this we have refined our niche to be bookkeeping support for speakers and coaches. It does not mean that you will provide bookkeeping services to ONLY speakers and coaches, just that this particular industry seems to be suited well and has a need for this type of support.
By targeting and focusing your message and services to this niche, you will establish yourself as an expert, which will bring prospects clamoring to you to hear more about your products and services, whether they are speakers and coaches, or not.
As you focus on this particular industry, you will also become familiar with the inner workings of this type of business and be much better equipped to respond to their needs. This will allow you to build close partnerships with your clientele, which makes it more difficult for them to want, or need to consider working with anyone else. Taking us back to that differentiation we’re looking for so that you’re not one of hundreds or thousands of competing VAs who do the same things you do.
Soon you will have learned the industry lingo and will be able to speak intelligently with them about the overall industry and their standards. This will make you far more attractive as a provider than someone who simply does bookkeeping. Suddenly, you’re a bookkeeping expert to speakers and coaches.
And guess who speakers and coaches know? Other speakers and coaches who will face the same challenges they do…can you say, ‘referrals’? You’ll be amazed at how quickly you will create a buzz and expand your database to be able to reach and support more and more clients.
No matter what, it’s still about, ‘knowing’, ‘liking’ and ‘trusting’ you! That’s ultimately what you’ll have to achieve with each client, in order to, expand your reach to others in their industry. Building strong relationships within a focused niche takes your expertise to an even higher level.
Check back next week when I discuss your “Ideal Client Profile”.
Jeannine Grich, owner of Accurate Business Services, a VA practice, is an author, writer, speaker, and VA Business Coach, specializing in providing professional business coaching to established and start-up virtual assistants (VA’s). For her FREE article, “What’s Holding Back my Business Success?” or “Finding or Expanding Your Niche”, Visit: https://VAbizcoach.com; or contact her at: [email protected].
Ready to find out how to take your business to the next level? Schedule a 30-minute complimentary session to discuss how coaching can help you GROW, here!
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