Lori Kelman

Far too many entrepreneurs launch into business for themselves without really knowing who or what they want to be to their prospective clients or customers. This doesn’t seem likely, but it happens often and it’s a costly and time-consuming reality that forces all sorts of backpedaling and professional reassessment.

It’s critical to look at your business, product, or service offering from the outside in. Meaning, look at it from the client or customer perspective. Why do they need it, what will it do for them, what hole in their life does it fill, what problem does it solve and can they afford it?

No business or businessperson can be everything to everyone, despite the desire. Finding where you fit in the marketplace is the best way to gauge your success early on.

Is there already a need for what you bring to the table? Do you have to create a need? Do you have to validate the efficacy of your offering? Is there a learning curve associated with the use or operation of your offering?

I am often hired to help entrepreneurs pinpoint their marketplace niche and create a marketing strategy around it. Few starting out can afford the cost of entering a marketplace duplicating a product or service that already exists. Do you know your key differentiator? If the answer is “no”, you may want to backtrack and recreate your marketing strategy. It’s critical to your success in business to know both where you fit and why you fit there. It’s just like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. If the piece doesn’t go in easily, you can’t force it without reshaping part of the puzzle piece.

Review your goals

I’m not suggesting here that you scrap a unique product or business plan. But I am suggesting that you review your business goals to align them with your niche. Have you defined your ideal target audience? Do you know what other audiences would make sense for your offering (known as “verticals” in marketing lingo). Don’t be afraid to start small and grow bigger in terms of the target markets you hope to penetrate. It’s far better to become a known (and valued) entity in one arena and branch out from there. That way you will always have your core to fall back on if the activity within the vertical markets you’ve defined slow down.

To define your niche, take a look at your price point first. You should position yourself within $5 of anything else out there that is similar or related in value. Next, consider the geographic region you want to penetrate. If it involves marketing online, you will still need to target your offering to a specific audience in light of age, gender, country/region, etc.

The lifestyle of your target audience also plays a big role in the marketability of your offering. Your initial goal should be to make your offering so distinct that there’s no way anyone could confuse it with something else on the market. What makes it different? Is it intended for someone that the other products on the market aren’t servicing? Is it more convenient, cheaper, more attractive, more user-friendly, etc.

Compose a list of all the features and benefits that your business or your offering provides, and then determine where it would fit best in the market as far as target audience, location, and cost-effective marketing avenues available. It’s a bit of hard analysis at first, and should include a “devil’s advocate” perspective: What if I don’t like it, what’s the guarantee, return policy, etc. Make sure you are keeping the client or customer first place in your thoughts and direction.

Everyone knows how important it is to fit in socially. It breeds good friends, good neighbors, and a good feeling overall. Business is no different. Finding that “sweet spot” for your business or offering yields similar rewards — and a monetary profit to boot.