The Book Fiend Info Center

Niche (n)

a. A situation or activity specially suited to a person’s interests,
abilities, or nature.

b. A special area of demand for a product or service.

Niching (tr.v.)

To place in a niche.

As a Virtual Assistant (VA), you know about filling a niche because you
are already doing it by being a VA. You cater to the administrative,
technical, creative, and financial needs of your clients by assisting them
virtually. This itself is a niche.

If you’re like many entrepreneurs when first starting in business, you
took every job that came along. You did it from a place of necessity.
Even if you thought yours was the exception, no company can meet
every need of every client throughout the life of a business. There is no
doubt, however, that this approach serves us well in the beginning!

If you are an exceptional entrepreneur who has developed a reputation
of excellence in everything you do, eventually you will need to make
important decisions about the future of your company because you have
more business than you are able to manage. What a dilemma! You are
no longer in a place where you must accept work because it provides
revenue. Your hard work has brought you to where you have the
opportunity to pick-and-choose your clients from this point forward.
What a thrill to redefine your growing business!

This is the perfect time not only to increase your fees, but also to decide
on the specific industry or industries and type(s) of clients you most want
to serve. This is known as niching.

By narrowing your focus, you:

• have the opportunity to work with people in the industry of your choice.

• have inside exposure to different aspects/news of the industry from the
perspective/experience of your clients.

• can position yourself as the VA expert within your industry and use this
to market your services, e.g. “We cater to the ____ industry and are the
first and only ones to do so. We are best equipped to meet your needs
because we know the industry from the inside out!”

• will have the passion and tenacity on those days when you question
your sanity and wonder if you truly have what it takes to be a VA. You
will be serving an industry you love and that will carry you to your next
new client/task.

• keep your focus on those clients/markets that most interest you and
will continue to interest you over the life of your business.

• are maintaining a concentrated marketing/advertising focus instead of
diluting your efforts by trying to meet every need of every client in every
field.

• increase your ability to get an hourly rate that is higher than a VA
business with no niche focus. If you have insider knowledge of a
specific industry, your expertise is more valuable and therefore, you can
charge more for your services.

Initially, you may think that you risk losing business because you are
niching yourself too narrowly. However, if your focus is catering to a
specific industry and all your marketing efforts are placed there, you will
soon reap the rewards of clients who come only from your chosen
industry . . . an industry you love and want to cater to anyway! You will
have more business than you’ll be able to manage and can soon raise
your rates again!

Okay, now that you’ve decided you want to niche tighter, you may be
asking yourself how to go about choosing an industry.

A key factor in deciding on a specific industry is to spend a few hours
assessing your own interests, work style, and personality characteristics.
With at least an hour of uninterrupted time set aside for this specific task,
use a blank sheet of paper and answer the following questions:

1. What are my hobbies?

2. What are other areas of interest that are not yet hobbies? What
passions have I not had the time to explore?

3. Which existing clients bring me the most joy? Why? In which
industries do they work?

4. What are the work and personality characteristics of my ideal
client?

In answering these questions thoughtfully, you will begin to see patterns
emerge. These patterns will offer clues about which industries to further
investigate as possible options for your new focus.

Now that you are thinking more about focused niching, it is a perfect
time to go through your list of services and cut out the ones that:

• you don’t love

• aren’t lucrative

• aren’t requested often enough to warrant keeping them on your list of
services

These points will move you closer to being in full alignment with
providing the services that you most enjoy! You are creating a vacuum .
. . an open space that will be filled with dream clients in your desired
industry! How does that sound? Think about it. If your current
circumstance is filled with an unfocused direction, clients coming in from
fields that hold no interest for you, and old service offerings, it is your
duty to yourself and the life of your business to draw in a situation that is
a much better match.

Okay, so you have chosen your niche market, developed a new plan of
how to market your VA services, cut out services that no longer play a
part in your new direction, and it occurs to you to ask the question: What
do I do with my existing clients who are not in the industry on which I
have decided to focus?

Great question! By all means, keep them! They are one of the reasons
you are in the place to be able to take this important step. And no doubt,
they will continue to be excellent clients and make referrals based on
your well-established relationship.

The primary focus is that NEW clients come from the industry you have
decided is the best match for the person/business you are now.

In following these guidelines, you will find your work becoming more
and more fulfilling because your efforts truly meet the needs of those
who most interest you! Only with a narrowed market concentration, can
you truly meet the specific needs of your clients.

Happy niching!

by Charlon Bobo, Muse works © 2005

All rights reserved. Charlon Bobo is the President of Muse works, a
dynamic trend-setting Virtual Assistant company in Southern California
that caters to the niche needs of entrepreneurs in the handmade beauty
industry. To learn more about Muse works, please visit Muse works and http://www.museworks.blogspot.com. You may
contact Charlon at 805.405.4944 and via e-mail at
charlon@museworks.org.

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