Your Niche – Let Your Voice Thrive

Depending on your context or experience, the term niche, can mean very different things. For me this is a dichotomy between science and B2B marketing. On the surface they might seem to be speaking about unrelated things, but if we look deeper, we see it’s truly the same underlying concept.

So, here are the viewpoints for comparison:

Niche:       From science – habitat where organism’s survival or fit is best

From marketing – a specialized market

In order to provide further context, I want to use a specific company as an example of understanding and using this concept to their advantage.

Amazon sold it’s first book online in July of 1995. Why sell books online in 1995? They knew the market (niche) for brick & motor book stores was too competitive. The market online was untapped à which meant zero competitors! This allowed Amazon to test, learn and improve without the risk of any direct competition. By 1998, Amazon was selling music CDs online and then purchased other platforms to offer even more products. Now, 24 years later it is almost impossible to buy a book online and not see Amazon…they almost own the niche!

What’s the point?

Don’t try to sell the unsellable or win the unwinnable!

We must all be optimistic that are goals will lead to success in our companies, but not unrealistic. If no one wants to buy your product or use your service…time for a change. If the only place your idea/company can survive is already taken…time for a change. I would never suggest trying to take over the online book market from Amazon.

Here’s the process that any company, even Amazon, can follow to ensure they are setting themselves up to succeed in their niche:

1.     Define the goal or find your inner voice – what is the real goal for the business? Whether that is to solve world problems or just make money. Be honest!

2.     Verify that the efforts of the company are yielding the results desired – are the business trends going at the right pace and in the right direction?

3.     Observe the competition from a market share standpoint – is there room to survive and grow. Don’t try to force the market to accept your business.

4.     Adapt and Apply the new approach – then go back to step two.

This process can allow you, your team or your company to continually improve and grow. If each company is a living thing (someone’s real life dream), then each company should always be looking to improve and not just survive.

The easiest way to start off successfully…know what you want to accomplish. Not the small goals, but that huge dream that is driving you along the way. Someone that really understands how to set a big goal that can be used as an overarching motivator is Gary Vaynerchuk. He has made it known for many years that his goal is to buy the New York Jets. He knows that is a very challenging thing to accomplish and it will take years of success. The real value is that it allows him to enjoy the process of getting there. It allows time for “success” to evolve as well.

Enjoy the process, not the destination.

Thankfully for all of us, we can find our space to exist…just like Gary has.

If you ever want to discuss this process further or discuss ways to foster business growth…feel free to reach out anytime. I enjoy helping find solutions for companies to drive revenue and succeed in this modern landscape.

Josh Turner

Focused on your success