I'm sure if you're just starting out as an entrepreneur, you’ve probably noticed that a lot of people out there are recommending that you pick a niche to focus on, when you’re selling a service. And you’re probably wondering how to define your niche. So before we get into how to define your niche, here’s having a niche even means in the first place…

Choosing a niche means that you decide to focus on serving a specific, tiny segment of the market, so you can be one of the best options for your little part of the market, instead of trying to serve everyone and having to compete with a LOT more people to attract buyer attention online. Having a niche helps you stand out a lot more, it helps you become known as a true expert at what you do, and it helps you develop stronger messaging to attract your ideal clients online.

And honestly, because every possible service type that you could choose to specialize in nowadays is saturated, when decide how to narrow down your niche, it instantly helps your ideal clients understand what makes you different from all the other options they’d have to choose from out there. By serving a specific niche, you can really show that you understand your specific group of people's needs and you’ve created THE ultimate solution for them that can serve them the BEST, no matter what other options are out there. This really helps you justify the fact that you’re charging a premium rate!

Here are three quick tips on how to define your niche…

Tip #1: Focus on characteristics of the possible niches you could choose from, not demographics.

One of the biggest mistakes you could make when deciding how to define your niche is choosing a niche using demographics, instead of the characteristics of their ideal clients.

So they may say something like, “I help women” or “I help men” But that’s not narrow and specific enough to help you address the needs of a specific group of people and here’s what I mean…

People in different segments of the market want and need different things.

For instance, a career coach who just generically says they coach women in their careers will be perceived as too vague because women on different career levels care about different things. Women who are trying to go after entry level jobs don’t have the same concerns as women who are going after executive roles. So those are literally two different types of possible ideal clients that a career coach could choose to niche down to. In this example, to really stand out as a career coach, they would need to be a focus on one of the career levels, either entry level or executive level.

Another characteristic type to consider is the lifestyle of your ideal clients. Different types of people live different lifestyles, which could result in different needs in a solution from a service provider.

For example, if you’re a fitness trainer, you could be generic and say you serve anyone who wants to get fit. But to be more powerful by niching down, you could be a fitness trainer specifically for young professionals or a fitness trainer specifically for career moms with families. The career moms with families would need a different type of fitness plan from the young professionals, because they’re probably more strapped for time and they can barely even find time to work out, whereas the young professionals have more flexibility in their schedules, since their only major time commitment is their careers.

You could also decide how to define your niche based on business type, like whether you choose to work with other service providers or product-based businesses. Really, any specific characteristic will help you develop a powerful niche.

Once you determine the specific characteristics of your ideal clients and you decide how to narrow down your niche, you’ll be able to develop a nice, customized package for your business that addresses the unique needs of your ideal clients. When your package is tailored to your ideal clients’ needs, because you understand them, based on specific characteristics, like their lifestyle, career level, business type, etc., you’ll be a lot more attractive to premium clients!

Tip #2: Reflect on the clients you’ve worked with already to identify the ones you enjoyed working with the most.

If you’ve worked with people already, start to think about who you enjoy working with the most and who got the best results from working with you.

Start to identify what were the characteristics of those people. Were they experienced? Were they beginners? Were they in a certain industry or were they on a certain career level? Did they live a certain lifestyle?

Starting to think about the people who you enjoyed working with is a great way to decide how to define your niche. This will help you make sure you’re selecting a group of people who you’ll enjoy working with in the future, who will also get great results from your services.

Tip #3: A crucial part of how to define your niche is making sure the niche you select can afford the services you sell.

If you're trying to start a revenue-generating business, you must make sure you’re selecting a niche of people that has enough disposable income to be able to pay for your services. And if you're offering a service that could be considered a business expense, make sure you decide how to define your niche, based on whether or not it’s a business that’s making enough money to afford your services.

If you pick a group of people that doesn't really have money, you’ll quickly discover that you focused on the wrong group of people to target, when you get person after person telling you you’re too expensive. So considering their ability to invest is crucial when deciding how to narrow down your niche.

These are the three tips on how to define your niche. Remember, defining a niche can help your business stand out, no matter how saturated your market is. And it’ll help you command a premium rate for your services. So it’s definitely an exercise that’s worth completing for your business.

If you enjoyed those tips, make sure you grab my free guide on the five easy steps to attract more high paying clients to your business via the banner below!