Find Your Niche in Less 60 Minutes
Ready to start your online boutique? Congratulations!
Creating a brand that attracts customers and investors isn’t easy. After all you will need to distinguish your brand from the other million startups that you’ll be competing with everyday.
It goes beyond your logo! It requires searching for the perfect products, finding a color scheme that speaks to not only you but your audience. Building a brand that embodies the style and look you love—if starting an online boutique sounds like heaven to you, I’m not surprised. However, you may be wondering how to start a boutique in the first place.
Consumers today are more equipped than ever with knowledge to begin a business. You will be tested constantly to not only create but be innovative when growing your brand. This type of demand can be a lot on anyone; but it can be done! It takes strong leadership and passion to stand by your purpose on a daily basis. However if you know what motivates you, what you stand for, giving up will never be the answer.
Being resilient is important but anything that requires work can be tiring. When this happens; your emotions tolerance will alter your mood and discourage you.
Fortunately, finding your niche can remove the likelihood of that overwhelming feeling. Dedicate one hour on each of the below four questions to find a killer niche:
1. Identify the talents and skills you’re good at.
Get your pen and pad it’s homework time. In order to run a successful business you must first be honest with yourself. These answers will better assist you with your next set of questions.
Create two lists:
1.) Of the things you’re good at vs
2.) the things you wish you were good at.
Understand the difference while you create your list. Don’t focus on whether these list will take off soaring or whether it’s a pipe dream. Put your judgements to the side in this step and focus on your talents. Stay in the moment while creating this list.
2. Out of the above talents and skills, what do you enjoy doing most?
Now this is all about passion. That satisfying feeling you get when you’re in the moment of doing what you love. Remember be honest with yourself.
If your heart and brain aren’t in the same place, then they’re in conflict with each other, which means you're in disequilibrium. When this happens, it feels as if your heart is telling the brain “this just doesn’t feels right” but the brain is saying, “No, do this -- this makes sense!”
Take a deep look at what you outlined in question one and rank order the skill you enjoy doing most to the skill you like the least. Now look at your list. Are there any you can eliminate?
3. With those talents & skills you enjoy, what do people need?
What problem can you solve?
If there is one talent screaming in your ear, congratulations, you have an audience.
At this point we have to begin market research to help narrow down exactly what competencies to focus on. Scaling in on the demographic.
4. From the above needs, what will people pay big money for?
The keyword here is “big.” In most cases your family or friends may throw a few dollars to support your brand whether out or pity or belief; but that’s not going to pay bills. That’s for sure. The question becomes, what is scalable? If one person will pay money for something then chances are so will somebody else. Make sure you know what a good decision looks like before taking the plunge toward action.
Be honest with yourself. You may love baking sugary sweets, but baking them for various customers with different demands may leave you in for a rude awakening.
Now by answering the above four questions finding your niche shouldn't take you longer than 60 minutes, if you know yourself well enough. If not, it may take longer, and that's fine. Take the time to identify what's important now so you don't get lost later or waste time.