The secret for consulting success – Niching Down!
Luckily, when you choose to niche down, you’ll find that you have more time to excel at what you do best. By focusing on a particular issue within a specific sector within your consulting business, you’ll have more time to perform in-depth research on your target market and be able to communicate with them more effectively
What’s your niche?
Do you have one?
Still thinking you should pick one? Or dead set against serving less people?
Let me paint you a picture of what happens when you choose a niche.
Chances are if you choose well, you’ll speak directly to prospective clients who are experiencing the very pain that you are ideally placed to help them resolve.
They’ve been experiencing this pain for some time. And there you are: dangling in front of them a solution that speaks directly to their experience, their needs, their identity.
And that is so POWERFUL.
The problem is, messaging can’t possibly speak directly to one person if it’s written to appeal to many, right?
So just like you got to pass Go before you collect your £200 at Monopoly, you really need to pick your niche to unlock new growth, new pathways, new opportunities in your consulting business.
Niching helps you go…
…from generalist → to expert
…from serving everyone with everything → to perfect-fit clients
…from struggling to demand high fees → to charging like an expert
Okay, okay, I get it, I hear you say. Niching is super important. But where do I even start?
Well, it’s not as hard as it sounds!
First, think back to the previous roles/ projects that you have been involved in and answer these four questions;
- Which engagement have you enjoyed the most?
- Which are you most proud of?
- What are your core strengths?
- What are you most experienced in?
Now, identify the alignment between your proudest moments and your core strengths and experiences. Are there any consistencies in the engagement that you have found most enjoyable – such as sector/ size of organisation etc.
Now combine these to define your Niche and core focus.
“I help (type of organisation/ individuals within these type of organisations) deliver/ overcome (outline of core value/ proudest moment) by (describe you core strength/ experience)”
So for instance, within the #TLH 1% Club Mastermind Programme, my niche could be described as;
“I help experienced day rate contractors who are tired of exchanging their time for money and the feast and famine lifestyle that this can create to pivot into building and scaling a 7/8 figure consulting business”
So, who do I help? Experienced day rate contractors
What’s their pain-point? Tiredness of the feast and famine lifestyle and relying completely on their time to drive revenue, meaning that every day that they are sick or would like to take a holiday, they have no income.
What is my offer? Supporting these people to pivot and to build a successful consulting business
In my consulting practice within gunnercooke, my niche is often described as;
“I help the Executive Teams within Social Housing organisations to successfully deliver their change and transformation programmes by providing an independent assessment of the programme structure, governance and delivery capability”
So, who do I help? Leaders within Social Housing organisations
What’s their pain-point? The risk of programme failure and the resultant impact on their regulatory assessments
What is my offer? An independent review of their programme plans to highlight risks early and ensure mitigations are in place.
In both of these examples, I can ensure that my communication, my position, my social media presence are completely focused on my niche and ensure that the messaging focuses on the specific pain-points. As such, I can be confident that when a prospect responds to me they are likely to be from within my niche and probably experiencing the very issues that I can help them with – i.e. a Hot Lead!
This is one of the 5 areas that we cover within the “Creating Wealth from Consulting” Assessment – a 22 question scorecard that will take you no longer than 5 minutes to complete. Once completed, you’ll get a personalised report highlighting specific actions that we’d recommend you focus upon.
So, are you interested in exploring the potential of building and scaling a consulting business?
Yes – that’s great – start by taking the assessment today.
And I’ll see you on the other side!
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