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Benefit from differentiating market niche and offer
by Molly Gordon, MCC
One of the reasons that professionals resist choosing a market niche is that they confuse niche and offer.
Think of your market niche as the location or domain in which you make your offer.
By contrast, your offer is who you are and what you do.
Your niche is where and with whom you do it.
Here's an example of differentiating market niche from offer based on my own
coaching practice.
My niche is working with independent professionals
and artists to craft prosperous businesses or careers that fully align
with their values, aspirations, and desired way of life.
The offer that I am in this market niche distinguishes
me from hundreds of other business coaches. As an offer, I am a gifted
somatic coach, helping my clients embody success. I am an artist and a
business owner myself, and my coaching springs from a deep personal engagement
with the concerns that my clients bring to our work.
The offer that I am also includes my spiritual beliefs and practices, my
training as a singer, my skills as a writer and editor, my passion for
learning, and much more. The offer that I am, in short, encompasses a
lifetime of experience - past, present, and future.
When I tried to discern a market niche based on the offer that I am, I was stymied.
Was I a somatic coach? A creativity coach? A spiritual coach? Every niche
seemed to be a too-small box, a dead end that limited me as an offer.
When I conceived of niche as a location relative to the people I can best
serve, niche became a refined point-of-focus for my unlimited and unique
offer.
Having chosen a niche (or, more accurately, having acknowledged and
accepted the niche that chose me,) I am now committed to honoring
standards and boundaries that support that niche. I refer prospective clients
who do not fit my niche to other coaches. I am careful to clarify my market niche
whenever I write or talk about my work.
By focusing my market niche in this way, I can make a very strong impression. So
can you. What's more, referrals have increased substantially. Every time I
refer a prospective client who wants career coaching or some other service
that I could easily do but that does not fit this niche, I create a source of
referrals. The client I turn away knows where my offer is of maximum value.
He knows that I have the integrity to work within the domain in which I offer
the greatest value. He won't hesitate to send people my way when they
want business or marketing support.
Showing Up in Your Market Niche as a Powerful Offer
I used to see people's eyes glaze when I tried to tell them what I did. I
knew I was losing them, but I didn't know how. Now that I name my niche
before I describe my services, it is easy for people to connect with what I
am saying.
There's a paradox in naming your market niche. When you give people a category
to put your products or services in, it is easier for them to get a handle on
what you do and to remember it. It's also much easier for them to
appreciate how you differ from other professionals in that category. In other
words, by putting yourself in a category, you can also make yourself stand
out because you distinguish yourself from others in that category.
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© Molly Gordon, 2006. If you'd like to republish the above article,
please read our simple reprint terms.
 Learn
more about Authentic Promotion - a comprehensive small
business marketing resource that turns marketing and promotion into a
path of increasing self-awareness, authenticity, and right livelihood.
In particular, you will discover and understand the paradox of niche
marketing and learn to define an expansive market niche
-- a niche that will allow you to express all of your skills and strengths
while focusing your marketing for maximum results.
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Niche Marketing Index
|| Declaring an Authentic
Niche Market || Helpful
Questions and Tips on Niche Marketing || Focus
on Your Niche Market Audio || Niche
Marketing Resources || Reprint
Terms for Niche Marketing Articles from AP.com
* * *
Contact an acknowledged expert
on niche marketing Molly Gordon at:
Shaboom Inc. Life could be a dream…
PO Box 195
Suquamish, WA 98392-0195
mgordon@authenticpromotion.com
As a business coach and small
business marketing consultant, Molly Gordon, MCC, is available in Greater
Seattle Area and internationally
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