Ally Woodrum's Making Money Blog

If you’ve read any internet marketing books or reports, you know that they all talk about niches, and finding your niche.   Now you might think that since you’re not planning on becoming an internet marketer, finding a niche doesn’t apply to you.  And you’d be wrong. 

First, what is a “niche?”  A niche is a small segment of a larger market — for instance, “eBay” is a large market and “selling antique lace on eBay” is a niche.  “Selling Books on eBay” is a market, but ”Selling Cookbooks on eBay” is a niche.   And an even better niche example would be “Selling Italian Cookbooks on eBay.”

Or “Dogs” is a large market, and “Dog Training” is a sub-market in the larger Dogs market, and “How to Potty Train Your Dog” is a niche in the Dog Training market.  Do you see?  Dog Training is not a niche, it’s too large.   To get to a niche you have to drill down into the subject.

So why does this apply to you?  Well, if you’re starting a home-based business, even if it’s not internet-based, you still need to decide what market you’re going to target — what product or service are you going to sell?  And in most cases, you’ll have more success if you specialize in one small area in a broad market. 

You can’t compete with WalMart or Hobby Lobby or Petsmart or any other large retail outlet, or with large, well-established service providers in your area – and you don’t want to try.  You want to provide something that the big companies can’t, you want to be the person who fills the more individualized need.   It’s all about focus, and building a client base.

So start your business doing one or two things, do them well and make your customers happy.  Find out what other related things your customers want, and expand to these areas later.  Find the need, and fill it.   Start small and grow.  That’s a niche.

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