What’s an Ideal Client Niche Anyway?

Here are the Top 5 Things You Must Know About Your Niche To Be Truly Successful In Business as an entrepreneur

“What’s my niche?”

“I can’t figure out who my ideal client is!”

“Why do I need a niche anyway? I can help anyone who needs my services!”

Sound familiar?

It may surprise you to know that the most consistent goal of my clients is to find, clarify, and narrow down their ideal client niche. One of the most difficult things for new business owners to do is narrow their ideal client groups into marketable chunks. Most new business owners feel that choosing an ideal client limits their sales opportunities. But, I’ve found the exact opposite to be true. When you narrow down (and nail) your ideal client niche it makes business so much easier! When you only market to that niche, you are much more likely to find MORE clients who exactly fit your services, deliver better, more consistent results, and create long-lasting relationships that will be rewarded with lifetime referrals.

Top 5 Reasons Why Choosing An Ideal Client Is Important

Your choice to narrow down an ideal client is almost MORE important than choosing the services you offer?

Why?

Because without a defined, razor-sharp niche, it’s difficult for offers to ‘land’ effectively with anyone. When you know your ideal client, you can nestle right into the offers they are looking for, and specialize further with VIP services and other options. Your marketing budget has a limit which is why choosing an ideal client niche is so important.

Conversely, when you know your ideal client, you can nestle right into the offers they are looking for. When you speak their language, you can further specialize with VIP services and other options. Your marketing budget has a limit which is why choosing an ideal client niche is so important.

To make it easier to prioritize this important task of nailing your niche, here are the top 5 things you need to know about your ideal client to be successful.

1. Ideal Clients Lead To Additional Ideal Clients

It is a Universal Law of Vibration that states that every living thing ‘resonates’ with an energy or vibration. This is what people refer to when they say “like attracts like”. And it’s why so many small business owners find that often their most favorite clients turn out to be a lot like them. This is the reason that digging deep to know all about your ideal client, is a critical first step. Additionally, where you find one ideal client you’re bound to uncover more…  Therefore, the pursuit of your ideal client becomes paramount to your business success. Knowing your ideal client niche is a true cornerstone of your services, marketing, branding, packaging, and future referrals.

Consider this Example

For example, one of the best strategies I learned from a coach long, long ago was to prioritize the time I needed to clarify my niche and simply choose that group once and for all. Once I truly understood who my ideal client was, then I could develop my marketing, branding, blog topics, wording, pricing, programs, packages, and offers. My niche finally made sense and all the other parts about my business marketing began to flow more smoothly. Then when it was all set up, I could enter the conversation that was already happening in my ideal client’s head. I like to think of it as jumping in front of the ‘parade’ that was already going on with my niche. In essence, she encouraged me to ‘fish where the fish are’ gathered in large numbers, inexpensively, already.

In order to find your niche where they’re already gathered, try to determine as many specific demographics as you can. This way you can consistently step into a flowing stream of ideal clients who are just waiting for what you have to offer. Most often, where you find one ideal client, you’ll find more. When you figure out where they hang out, you can show up at groups, associations, conferences or better yet, offer to speak for free. So work hard to nail your ideal client, then use testimonials and ask for referrals from your happy clients.

2. Knowing Your Niche’s Common Pain Points Helps Streamline Your Marketing

It’s a true fact that reducing pain is a significant motivator. Consider the last time you accidentally stubbed your toe or got a sliver in your finger! When you think about it, you’ll instantly recall how motivating it was to reduce the pain. Humans have a natural (and immediate) action to either remove the painful stimulus or self-soothe the boo boo. So as a lot, we are more wired to reduce our pain and struggles than we are to seek out more of what we want or like.

For example, when you’re in pain, the first thing you want to do is to somehow stop that pain. This is why most marketing coaches talk about focusing your message on your ideal client’s pain points. They are more likely to listen to what you have to say if your service provides answers that lessen their pain. And, they’ll be more likely to invest in what you offer when they feel comfortable knowing that you understand them.

Narrowing Your Niche

The moment you decide who you are most well-matched to serve, seek to discover all you can about them! Find out what is keeping them up at night. Ask the simple marketing questions like these:

• What do you consistently struggle with?
• How do you spend your time?
• What do you dread/hate to do that you have to do?
• Do you encounter any consistent complaints?
• What tasks/behaviors/conversations do you avoid?
• Where do you most often struggle?
• What do you put off till later, yet avoid?

Start Where They Are

When you understand your client’s typical pain points, begin your marketing conversation there. People will always be more concerned about themselves before they’re concerned about you… so go with the flow! When you do, your words will help them see that you understand them. From this point, all you need to do is build a bridge to a better ‘tomorrow’ by understanding what it may be like to work with you. In this way, knowing your client’s pain points helps you streamline your marketing and saves you money.

3. Bridge From Their Pain To Their Motivators To Close More Sales

One of the commonly held beliefs of small business owners is the belief that people won’t pay ‘enough’ for your services. So many service providers low ball their pricing which creates an endless cycle of scarcity. When you don’t charge enough, you don’t make enough, and often this results in people closing up shop and getting a job. But, did you know that art of converting interest into sales is actually understanding that any sale is more of an emotional decision than a logical one?

Closing More Sales Is Simple

Most people buy things based on emotions, then justify their purchase with logic, reasoning. There is much research available about the psychology of selling. And, what most sales coaches teach is that people are most willing to buy if you offer services and results in any one of the following top four reasons people buy:

1. Earn more money
2. Save money
3. Save time
4. Avoid effort and/or pain

When an ideal client comes toward you, they are looking for solutions to their problems. They’re not as interested in the ‘how’. In other words, they want to trust that you can stop their pain., in addition to providing the solution to their problems. So, it’s important that you construct your service offers to bridge from their pain to their motivators in order to close more sales.

4. Speak In Their Words

When landing your client niche, you’ll also need to begin honing in on your marketing ‘voice’. Your voice is another way of saying the language you use throughout your marketing. Whether snappy, scholarly, formal or casual, your voice should be familiar to your client. Voicing to your niche will create that heart to heart connection to ideal clients for you. When you truly know your niche you can reach right into the conversations that are already going on in their heads. And when they experience you, they’ll be comforted to ‘know’ you and resonate with your message. (Remember that Univeral Law I mentioned earlier in this article?)

Consider this Example

I was recently sitting in the food court of a very busy airport waiting for a flight. I happened to sit next to someone who I found was also on my flight to Las Vegas. Through our conversation, I discovered that not only was he on my flight but that he was working with a coach. In fact, he was going out to meet his coach in person and stay with him to work in person for an extended period of time. Curious, I asked questions about his coach. What I found out was an excellent example of niche marketing. His coach was actually a ‘professional poker player who ONLY worked with serious career players who wanted to move from low stakes to mid-range stakes.’ Talk about a tightly-defined niche! Somewhere along the way, that coach realized that his greatest offer was to help up-and-coming poker players with all the parts of the game that help them win more often. His package included up to 200 hours of work, online training and side-by-side learning.

His coach was actually a ‘professional poker player who ONLY worked with serious career players who wanted to move from low stakes to mid-range stakes.’ Talk about a tightly-defined niche! Somewhere along the way, that coach realized that his greatest offer was to help up-and-coming poker players with all the parts of the game that help them win more often. His package included up to 200 hours of work, online training and side-by-side learning.

The Moral Of The Story

The moral of the story is that this coach could command a great income. Additionally, he never really had to ‘sell’ because he absolutely nailed his niche. All of his programs and offers served the niche of rising mid-level semi-professional poker players. He knew what they needed and it was exactly what he offered. Ideal clients lined up to work with him, so much so, that he had a sought-after waiting list, and the entire process fed itself.

Imagine if he had marketed himself as a different type of coach. He would never have been able to (sorry for the pun…) cash in on his real market and may have struggled for years to figure it all out. This is an excellent example of why knowing your niche is one of the most critical things you can do on behalf of your business!

5. Transformation Through A Signature System

Once you zero in on your ideal client, articulate their pain and then engage the conversation already going on in their heads, it’s time to package your offer into your Signature System. A Signature System is nothing more than a systematic approach to the way you do business and deliver your unique results. It is a simplified process of doing what you do. A system provides the broad steps you take to deliver results to clients. But there’s more. Your signature system encapsulates brand marketing which in turn invites untold referrals, networking, and speaking opportunities. It can be the foundation for endless webinars, programs, special client offers, and events.

To be truly effective, your Signature System should be personally unique and focus on the transformational benefits you offer to clients. (It’s even better if it’s catchy and on brand for your business.) Click here for an example of my signature systems for mom entrepreneurs in late start-up.

Another way to be sure your Signature System lasts is to make it personally unique to you. Even if you provide a service that many others offer, your approach is likely unique to you. Try to focus on how you consistently apply your unique system with different clients. Your system should be repeatable (able to be used or applied with many different clients). And the steps should be broad enough so that it is easy to follow and makes logical sense to someone yet unfamiliar with your services. Another approach is to consider create phases, results or stages of engagement. And in terms of steps, typically odd numbers are usually more catchy, common, and effective.

In Conclusion

In this post, we looked at the five things you need to know about your niche to be truly successful in marketing your business. We also looked at some of the components that will make your Signature System an effective marketing component. We showed how it is important to start out right when you own a business and prioritize clarifying your niche! Because when you clarify your niche and communicate consistently that you understand their pain, your ideal clients hear you. When you can speak directly to the emotions of your niche and tie your unique services into a Signature System, you’ll find yourself attracting clients like a pro!

So, if you’d like assistance clarifying your niche, or building your Signature System, I can help! Working with me will save you time, money and effort. To see how I can help, there’s a low risk, simple first step. All you have to do is click here to schedule a complimentary Discovery Call with me. We’ll discuss your business and services and I’ll introduce you to how I support you in a fraction of the time it will take you to do it on your own.
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