What Business? Clarity On Your Niche.
Why is a Niche important?
- You want to be known for SOMETHING.
- You have to become the GO-TO person for a specific subject.
- Once you are known as the AUTHORITY on a specific subject you will attract your tribe which will eventually transform into your first clients.
Now, it is clear that the different moving parts of the online world, such as YouTube channels, PodCasts, Blog Sites, E-Commerce sites and Online Course hosting platforms all work together to form a successful online business.
Ultimately we want to create an online course that will eventually be complemented by additional courses while the other social media 'plugins' will help to promote your business.
Just keep in mind that close to 2 Billion people are shopping online. Someone out there is looking for your product or service…
With that said, I want to ask you a question. If I give you two products to promote and sell online, I want you to figure out which one will have the most success?
Here are the details:
Product 1: Solar Panel for home use. Each sale will earn you $100 in profit.
Product 2: BBQ Set for outdoor use. Each sale will earn you $40 in profit.
Which product will you choose? Product 1 of course, right?
Now, let's change the scenario. Say, you have no interest in solar panels, you can't stand them. On the other hand, you love to BBQ and could talk for hours about different recipes and tools about outdoor life and how to BBQ.
Will you still choose Product 1?
The point I am trying to make is that, if you choose product 1 just for the $100 then you will have a problem in the future because how long could you speak to potential clients about a topic that you despise?
If you choose Product 2, you will make less profit, but you will make more sales. Your passion for the product will come through in your voice and clients pick up on that.
So, when you decide on your business niche, you need to be very specific. You need to kick-start your empire with a niche that excites you, something that you are passionate about. A topic that people come to you for help.
As a side note, I would like to add here that, initially you need to become known for a specific topic, skill or talent, but eventually you could scale your business with additional niche topics.
Why is this? Simply because u cannot start with 4 diverse niche topics as your initial small audience will get confused as to why they should follow you or see you as an authority on a specific topic.
Fast forward a year later, and you have built an audience around a specific topic, you have created a couple of digital products around that topic and success came your way. Now is the time to introduce your expertise to another niche. I hope this makes sense.
Brainstorm exercise.
To help you figure this out, I want you to take a pen and jot down the following:
- Your top 5 passions in life.
- Your top 5 skills or talents.
- What are you good at?
- What do you LOVE to talk about?
- What do people come to you for advice?
- Be very honest and truthful in this exercise, this is very important.
Some of these answers could be the same, and that is good as it will help you to narrow down your niche.
As part of the same exercise, take your top two passions and your top two skills and come up with a business idea that would complement them.
Passion…………?
Skill…………….?
Business Idea……?
Here are a few examples:
You might be passionate about cooking.
Your expert skill is to bake sourdough bread.
Your business idea would be to create a mini-course called: 'Baking the perfect sourdough bread'
Or
You might be passionate about painting.
Your expert skill is painting nature scenes with oil-based paints.
Your business idea would be to create a beginner's course called: 'The basics of oil painting – with a focus on nature scenes'.
Or
You might be passionate about model train sets.
Your expert skill is the design of model train set platforms.
Your business idea would be a mini-course on the creation of model train set platforms.
Validation
Now, if we go to the drawing board with these three passions and potential business ideas we will have to validate them before we decide on either of them becoming our niche.
We need to make 100% sure that there is enough market demand for your niche topic to grow a sustainable online business.
Ask yourself this:
- Will you be able to write 150 articles on this niche?
- Is there enough market demand for this topic to be converted into an online course?
- How much competition is there around this niche? (competition is good)
Let's look at different ways to validate your business ideas:
No 1: A beginners way:
- Search on YouTube for channels focused on your potential 3 niches.
- Search on Facebook for private groups that are focused on your 3 niches.
- Search on an online course hosting platform, such as Teachable, for courses on your 3 niches.
The Halal Design Studio
No 2: A professionals way:
- Reach out to your entire social media database and ask them a direct question: 'If you would create an online course on any of the above topics, would they be interested in buying it? Let them rate the topics from best to worst.
- Do an online survey on Facebook. Use free tools such as Typeworm, Jotform or QuestionPro.
- Create posts on linked in and Instagram and ask the same question.
- Create the framework, add a sales page of your potential course on platforms such as Teachable or Kajabi. This is done without actually creating the entire course. Use this sales page in social media posts and again, ask the 'audience', if this would interest them.
By doing the above you will get a pretty good picture of which of your top three niche topics to choose. As an example, let's use our chosen topics from above.
A mini-course on 'The perfect sourdough bread'.
- Your audience loved the idea and you found numerous YouTube videos and blog posts on the topic.
- Half of your audience indicated that they would potentially buy a mini-course on this subject.
- U found 2 online courses hosted on other platforms.
A mini-course on 'The basics of oil paint for nature scenes'.
- Your audience went completely bananas for this topic.
- The majority of your audience indicated that they would potentially buy a course if hosted by you.
- U found numerous online courses on this topic.
A mini-course on "Building model train set platforms'
- Less than a third of your audience even responded.
- Nobody indicated that they would buy an online course on the topic.
- U found a few courses currently available.
So, by analyzing the data, it seems that you have just found your niche!
The basics of oil painting!
You are passionate about it.
You are skilled in painting nature scenes & there is a market demand for it.
