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One of our favorite topics to talk about at LedgerDocs HQ is how to identify your firm’s niche. Having the ability to identify and attract a profitable niche for your firm is a key step to expanding because it allows you to position your practice as a specialized, value-adding service. It is equally important to note that a niche doesn’t have to represent a full industry, it can be a much smaller segment of the market varying from startups to florists. To help you define and attract your niche we’ve put together the below list of tips.
1. Assess Your Current Clients:
The best point to begin evaluating your possible niche is to look at your current clients. You should ask yourself do you see a trend in the types of clients you typically attract. If so, why are they attracted to your firm? Is it as a result of word of mouth within that community or something else? You should make a list of each of your clients and try to give each one a potential niche label.
2. Sort Your Favorites:
At this point you should have several clear niche types emerging from your client list. Next you should sort by favorites and remove those that don’t appeal to you or those that might be less valuable to you.
3. Sort Your Size Preference:
You can now refine your list depending on the size of the clients. If you are a smaller firm you may wish to include a limit on your niche’s business size depending on potential work load. If you prefer to work with fewer clients but with large businesses then you should sort accordingly also. At this point you will have shortlisted your favorite niche types and sorted them by size preference.
4. Define your Customer’s Worldview:
With your niche shortlist created, you should now attempt to put yourself in the shoes of your niche’s client type. Ask yourself if your firm would appeal to that niche type and create a persona for them. Ask yourself what they value in a bookkeeping service and if you fulfill those needs. The more detailed a persona you can create the easier it will be to market to them.
5. Market to Your Selected Niche
Your second last step will be to choose a potential niche and begin to focus your marketing efforts on them. For example, if your niche is in the construction industry you could begin to attend industry related conferences to build your network of contacts. You should get to know who your competition is in this niche and figure out how to appeal more to your niche. You should also leverage your expertise and specialization experience within that niche.
6. Test:
While choosing a niche to focus your efforts on is important, you should test your success rate with this niche first rather than dumping all of your current clients in favor of your niche. You might find that the niche you have chosen isn’t suitable for your work capacity or is particularly difficult to deal with. It is important to spend an adequate amount of time testing your selected niche before committing completely to it.
