Picking your “target market”, your “niche”, your “ideal client”.

Is it supposed to be hard to do this?

I don’t know about you, but when I first got started my biz I knew I wanted to help women.

And then, “THEY” (as in all the people out there online who were trying to grab my attention) said, you have to do market research, you have to ask 100 people questions, you have to know where she shops, what she buys, who she is voting for on the Bachelor, how many kids she has or wants or doesn’t want, where she lives, what her favorite color is, what her biggest fear are….and on and on and on.

Well, I thought, sh*t, I don’t know 100 people to ask!!

I don’t even watch the Bachelor!

How could I EVER BUILD A BUSINESS!!

what was I thinking starting this thing!!

HERE are a few thoughts about a NICHE:

  1. What could you talk about all day long because you love it and because you are either a. very good at it or b. committed to becoming an expert in it? Action Step: make a list of all the things you could invest your time and money into AKA: PASSIONS
  2. Could you make money from this and not feel like you just created a job? (for example, if you love a healthy lifestyle, if you became a health coach, maybe “working” with people would take away from your own pleasure of taking care of yourself?)
  3. Who else is having the same conversation or asking the same questions about the topic you could talk all day about? Action Step: Get involved in Facebook Groups, look on Meetups, check out LinkedIN. You want to find out what people want…not what they need.
  4. Offer a call, put it out there on Facebook and offer to have a complimentary 30 minute call about your topic. How can you support her? Did you enjoy it? Could you do that all day?
  5. Write out your IDEAL CLIENT. I call mine Sally. Think about it, if you had 25 women lined up with their credit card in hand…who is this woman? What does she want? What does she want from you, an expert?
  6. Realize, the “high end” clients you want to work with will become more apparent as YOU EVOLVE!
  7. STOP COMPARING…whether you are new in biz or seasoned, don’t compare yourself with others. As you are sniffing around Facebook looking for potential markets, and you see people who came out of nowhere making millions already….remember, you don’t know the back story, her life is different than yours.
  8. STOP waiting for everything to be perfect!!
  9. LET it go if you realize you don’t like working with those clients, or that topic….pivot and move on!! It’s all good. (when I started my biz, worked with women in relationships, it was all about being confident and bold, but what I realized is I didn’t want to talk about their guy all day—I did want to talk about being confident and bold and independent and how she could OWN WHO SHE IS, how she could BUILD SOMETHING FOR HERSELF and not rely….on her man!
  10. Recognize…when you are building your business, you only need to be a few steps ahead of someone to help them. Hey, you might be your own perfect client, or maybe you were 6 months ago… maybe you have overcome something, you have built something, you have a before and after story that others could benefit from, you have mastered a certain skill….

Finally, give yourself some grace! Building a biz takes some work! the keys are once you find out who you want to work with, what your product or service is and how to market to them and close the sale with them….you may realize…all the work, all the tears, all the frustrations were worth every second!!

I believe in YOU!

#beBOLDitsTIME

Mary