Oh, this has been talked about almost to death – but I still get coaches, speakers and other business professionals coming to me and asking me how to “find their path” or “niche”. I’d like to share the process I went through in hopes it will help you.
When I started my business I knew I’d have to niche – the marketer in me said that was a no brainer. To use my favourite niching analogy, fishing in a lake is a lot harder than fishing in a barrel. so I knew I needed to build my barrel, but I had no idea what kind of ‘fish’ to stock it with. Yes, I just called my clients fish – get over it 😉
I opened an Excel document and made a list (a LONG list) of all the skills I had. I did not limit it to what I thought was ‘relevant’ work experience either. I listed things like retail selling, managing people, training, talking to people, acting and singing, giving presentations, etc. in addition to the traditional ‘creating PowerPoint presentations’ kind of thing… Then I looked at the list and decided what I loved to do, and what I was just capable of. I rated the tasks from 1-10.
After that part was over, I sorted the document and looked only at the skills I had rated in the top 50% and did some research into what kinds of businesses would need those skills – and finally, from that list – who could PAY for it. I wanted to get PAID to do the things I loved to do.
