Finding Your Niche Market & Why Everybody is Not Your Customer

I led a business workshop a few months back and we talked about this topic. I asked some of the audience. “Who is your customer?” - many of the attendees said “Anybody”

My response was, “while any body CAN be your customer, not everyone IS your customer.” And when we spend time talking to everyone and trying to explain or convince them on our product or service, the people that really need your services are walking away and looking elsewhere. 

So let’s help to create clarity on choosing a targeted market and from their have the ability to branch out. 

What is niche? What is target market?

I know many have trouble identifying their niche market. In this article I want to take your brain on a journey to help you truly think about your services and your products and the people that you serve. 

A niche market or target market are a concentrated group of people who have something in common, some similar attributes or characteristics about them that makes them more likely to need or depend upon the services or products you provide. (ie. they live in a certain demographic, are a certain group of people, or maybe they all have headaches and your product helps to alleviate those headaches, or they all play sports and your healing services cater to their needs, they are all married and on the verge of divorce and you help them to communicate better or to find common resolution, they are all business owners with brick and morter locations and you provide phone systems… etc...etc..

Or 

It can also simply be a group of people that you particularly feel called to help and support. So long as they are willing & able to receive your support and even pay for your support.

The absolute truth of the matter is 

“Even though you feel you truly can help most people, not everyone cares about the benefits they will gain. Find people who care about the benefits of what you do.”

Who does your business serve? 

I get what people mean when they say, “my customer can be anybody and everybody”

The facts are…they are not. And for a good and logical reason that we will discuss in this article. 

Sadly, I know people who are sick and tired and would prefer to go around complaining about it than doing something different in their lives to change that. You cannot help those people.

Maybe you have a product that you feel everybody should buy because you believe that everyone could benefit from it. But this does not make everybody your customer.

Let’s address this. 

Your customers are ONLY the people who CARE about the solutions your service or product solves. I repeat, your niche target, the customers you should spend effort to go after, the ones you spend money marketing to should ONLY be those people who CARE about the outcome and benefits your service or product solves. 

While everyone should care about their health and may feel better after using your products, if they DON’T care about their health, they are NOT your customer and you shouldn’t be spinning your wheels trying to get them to understand the importance of their health and what you do or why it’s important to them. 

Let’s talk about approaches to this. 

I included here a sheet that will help you address some questions to narrow this stuff down and find people who care about the problem you solve for them. 

First, let’s talk about YOU - 

Let’s talk about your differentiator. Let’s talk about your uniqueness. Let’s talk about your attributes and your WHY!.   

Why are you doing what you’re doing? Was there an experience you went through? 

Why are you doing what you're doing? _________________________________________

Why do you care to help people? _________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

What are the Benefits of the product or service you provide? List at least 5 Benefits.

1. ____________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________________

Who are the people that want to FEEL these benefits?

1. ____________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________________

Who are the people that can Afford these benefits?

1. ____________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________________

Who are the people that are Willing to invest in these benefits?

1. ____________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________________

Now what is the commonality in the people you serve?

I’m hoping you may have an idea by this time. But for now write down what you think or have observed. (Whether it’s income, family type, profession, gender, nationality, etc) 

1. ____________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________________

Ways in which new business owners, entrepreneurs or professionals go wrong: 

1. Pitching every person you come in contact with at an event.
2. Not spending time to get to know people.
3. Sending sleazy sales pitch emails -Regardless if someone is not your niche, you insist on emailing them information and calling them to trying to convince them to meet with you. 
4. Not establishing authentic rapport.  
5. Not understanding their needs or their experiences or respecting their journey. 

As humans, some of us just want to make a big impact, the best way I've discovered to make an impact is to find the people who WANT to be impacted. While you may and will serve people who are outside of your specific identified niche or target, the more we focus our efforts on the majority, the more likely you will make a difference in people's lives.

I hope this article / worksheet helps you to brainstorm on narrowing down the people you serve. Please FOLLOW, COMMENT OR LIKE this post to share it with others.

To Our Beautiful Lives,

Sandra Noemi Torres

If you are looking to support your team, your office in an interactive and powerful workshop you can email me at Sandra@PlanYourCompany.com or send me a DM.

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