Why do I need a business niche?

If I had to ask you small business owner, what is the product do you offer, what would you say? According to studies, you only have 10 seconds to respond to make your answer memorable.

You may know you didn’t give a memorable answer if you spend more than a minute giving explanations and examples trying to sound convincing in the hopes that your listener starts making an idea on his own and put you out of the uncomfortable moment. Most importantly and worrisome is that fact that, if you listen closely, you are trying to convince yourself. A few questions may come up to your mind while you speak such as “do I really do that? Hmmm…sounds like a lot and really complicated, am I sure?” It happens more often that you think.

Then the polite answer from that person comes back usually with compliments and additional questions and everything seems fine. But the actual result is that person will forget very soon what you do and much more rapidly your name, and you will end up losing a potential client.

Most of us are scared of focusing in just one niche and saying we do just one thing. We do that because we have a natural and human tendency to widen the list of services we provide because we feel our chances to get more clients is bigger. That sounds logical, but is certainly not true.  Here is the ugly truth for you and me broken down in three jabs just to make it a little easier to breathe it in.

We are never memorable

By not having a niche and one only dedicated service, we lose the amazing opportunity to be remembered by our potential leads. Think about it, if you need an alteration or a financial planner, don’t you go in your mind thinking who gave you the best impression or who do you want to see again? It is true that we tend to use the services of people we like, but to have a shot of being even included in that list of prospective service lenders, we first have to be remembered. If a potential client cannot explain what you do, you won’t be remembered and you have the lowest chance of being selected.

We are seen suspicious

What do you think of someone that tells you he can excel in most sports? Please don’t tell me you don’t get a bit suspicious. We all would! That’s our human nature. We all want to work with the best tailor in the city or the best hair stylist. No one wants to have a hair cut with a hair stylist just graduated. If we cannot be seen as a specialist on something, chances are we won’t be able to concrete business with anyone no matter how great we are or how impeccable our work is.

We never make a difference

The fact that we don’t have a niche and mention the many different things we do makes us questionable as people wonder why us and not somebody else who does something similar. If by any chance, our message gets across correctly, potential clients will start wondering what makes us stand out from a crowd of many other professionals. We are not seen as a specialty and for that reason, we are also forgotten really soon.

So, before you do anything else related to your business, stop for a moment and analyze how you want to be known for, as this is the only chance you have to start and grow a business. Next time somebody asks what is your business about? Make sure you have a short convincing self-explanatory answer that elicits questions but does not leave any room for interpretation. Dare to be that needle in a haystack we are all looking for.