Niches And Your Business
Expert blog series | 5 minute read | Author: Jacquie Tewes | Organisation: Nurturing Your NDIS Business | Contact: info@nurturingndis.com.au
“The goal of business is to create a customer by convincing someone to [seek you out and] buy your product or service. The only way to achieve this goal is to truly understand the people whose lives you want to improve.”[1]
Have you ever considered what the profile of your perfect client looks like? Most often, more time and energy is spent developing a great product or service, without the necessary research and consideration to create a clear description of the ideal customer, and their needs.
Differentiation helps you stand out
If you are providing a service that lacks differentiation or specialisation, you could appear like everyone else and make attracting clients a real challenge. “Ever hear the expression, “jack of all trades, master of none”? It essentially means that a generalist can do everything decently, while a specialist does one thing extremely well.”[2]
To stand out, have a defined niche. This lets the client know that you have a specialisation within the broader market and you address their unique needs, preferences, and shows that you are the perfect provider for them.
Attract clients with specific needs
To attract people to your business, its ideal if you can get clarity on who they are most likely to be, their interests, needs, concerns and challenges that you can help with, where they live, their age, gender and other factors like having an NDIS Plan (and being self or plan managed), the roles they have – either as a single person, part of a couple or family group. Also, to have a niche that serves this group’s unique needs.
When you promote your business as serving a targeted niche, it lets people know you have expertise, it differentiates you and sets you apart as being an expert or thought leader in your field. This gives people a reason to prefer your services over another. It doesn’t mean that you can’t help others as well.
Imagine you are trying to find a service provider who offers in-home care for your parent who suffers from dementia. When you look up service providers you are overwhelmed by all the choices and they all seem to look the same. However, when you find one in your area that also specialises in Dementia, you know you have most likely found the best provider who is a good fit for your needs. By having a specialisation, you are giving people a reason to prefer, use or recommend your service.
Examples of Niches
Category: Mental Health
Business: Headspace
Niche: Acts as a 1 stop shop for young people aged 12-25 who need help with mental health, physical health
Category: Early Intervention
Business: EACH
Niche: Children aged birth to 6 years and we are the first point of contact for families who have concerns about their child’s development
Category: Assistance with Daily Living
Business: HEAL for Life Australia
Niche: Parkinson’s specialist
Having a niche ensures you are setting yourself up as the ‘go-to’ person for a specific target group, with established credibility and an opportunity to corner that part of the market.
How to get started
To develop a niche, follow these steps:
Ask yourself, what are the top 10 topics that interest me the most?
What do people seek out, but cannot get in my industry?
Consider what your specific skills and experience is. Who have you worked with most, and had the most success with? Who do you seem to attract to your business? How would you describe them
What problems can I solve for my clients?
Ask your target market what specific problems they find difficult to solve (do market research)
Review Forums (such as Facebook NDIS Groups) to see what consumer discussions are happening, what questions people are asking and the problems they have.
Review keywords on Google trends and Good AdWords. These can let you know popular search terms.
Define your specialisation and ideal client
Search for gaps in the current market. Begin by researching your competitors’ offerings. What aren’t they offering that you could? Where is the gap in the market, or a lack of service offering? Log this into a spreadsheet.
Describe your ideal client profile – who has the problems/needs you want to solve by creating an avatar. This is a fictional persona with:
A name
Real pain points or challenges
Demographics – age (stage of life), gender, location, single, couple or family
Likely attitudes, beliefs and values
Specific services they will need and why
What stops them currently tapping into available services (eg. What makes it difficult for them to access the service, reasons why they should access the services)
If you already have clients, you could analyse your client base to determine these characteristics. If you are new in business, then consider a best-case scenario for your business. Now start testing your niche with your market and gauge the response. Go through this process again until you can determine the niche and seek input and support from others. If you would like assistance with your business or to know more about Nurturing Your NDIS Business, click here.
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ideal-customer-profile-icp-how-create-comprehensive-myk-pono-/
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Jacquie Tewes, CEO, Nurturing Your NDIS Business Jacquie Tewes is assisting new and current disability sector services with the NDIS, Registration, Business Development and business set up and management. She has worked across several community services organisations, as a Program Manager, and provides coaching and training. She is committed to ensuring business owners are empowered and equipped to navigate the NDIS. She has won a range of awards for outstanding achievements with exceptional performance with the BEC, Initial Healthcare and DHL. She has a management degree from University of Canberra, is an accredited trainer, coach with Diplomas in HR, Small Business and Business Administration. You can contact Jacquie via email or by visiting the Nurturing NDIS website. |
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