One of the most important things any Nichepreneur can do is define their target audience. Ask yourself: Who is my ideal customer? If your answer is "Everyone", you've got some work to do!
While it would be nice if every single person in the world wanted your products and services, the truth is that by trying to appeal to everyone, you often wind up appealing to no one. Increase your chances for success by narrowing your target audience: selecting a crowd of likely customers and concentrating on meeting their wants and needs.
You might immediately know who your ideal customer is. Great! Having a clear concept of your target audience is a great first step. However, if you don't have a target audience in mind, it's never too soon to start looking.
Not sure where to look? Don't worry. Here are six strategies you can use to define your target audience. Use these options as starting points: each one can be further refined to meet your needs. Keep narrowing your niche until you find the one that's right for you!
Look Younger:
Children, especially teenagers and those just about to enter their teen years (known as 'tweens'), are big business. Direct spending by teenagers accounts for over $150 billion annually, with tweens hot on their tails. Brand loyalties developed during these critical years tend to endure for a lifetime.
Look Older:
The arrival of the Baby Boomers may have been yesterday's news stories, but it's today's reality. Those in or about to enter retirement have arrived at this stage in life well-financed -- and ready to spend. They're also well-trained, if demanding, consumers: they know that there's a product or service out there designed specifically for them, and they intend to find it.
Explore a Common Passion:
Consider your own personal passions. Is there a target audience for your products and services among people who share one or more of those passions? Could you offer financial advice to NASCAR fans who want to get on the fast track to retirement? Is there people in your quilting circle who might need small business advice? Shared passions can create a bond and trust that extends into other areas of life -- great news for your business.
Religious Affiliations:
Religious affiliation is certainly not a new way to niche, but it's a powerful one. In fact, understanding the wants and needs of a particular religious community is a great way to target your products and services. For example, clothing designers and wedding planners who cater to the Latter Day Saint community in the Midwest enjoy their success because they understand the modesty requirements of that group and offer products and services accordingly.
Ethnic Groups:
Ethnic groups make up some of the largest niches going. In fact, I hate to include this as a niche strategy, but will do so with the caveat that you'll have to refine your niche further. Targeting your services to the Hispanic market, for example, does offer you some of the advantages that being a Nichepreneur brings. However, because these groups are so large, and growing so fast, it would be a good idea to further refine your identity.
Economic Class:
Every market segment has a high end and a low end -- consumers who can afford to pay top dollar and others who are far more price conscious. There's money to be made at either end of the spectrum, but you need to position yourself carefully. Do your market research to identify where the most lucrative opportunities lie.
Finally, don't forget the GEL formula. As you narrow your niche, searching for your ideal target audience, keep the following in mind. Your niche should be Growing, in an area you have some Experience in, that you Love. If you're niching yourself by the age of your target audience, you have nothing to fear: people continue aging at a fairly steady rate, and birth rates in most of the world have been steady or climbing for decades.
However, population changes and socio-economic shifts mean that niching by religion, ethnic group or even economic class can prove problematical. Do your market research to make sure the group you're targeting is going to be around for a while: you don't want to be the only florist specializing in traditional Chinese weddings when there aren't any Chinese families in a hundred mile radius.
Good luck! Remember, your niche is out there, just waiting for you to find it!
Written by Susan A. Friedmann,CSP, TheNichePreneur Coach, Lake Placid, NY, internationally recognized expert working with service professionals to increase their niche marketing potential. Author: "Riches in Niches: How to Make it BIG in a small Market" (May 2007) and "Meeting & Event Planning for Dummies." http://www.richesinniches.com
Strengthing Team Performance With Management Training
Leading groups in the workplace can be more difficult than expected, especially if you are not a seasoned leader. Even though you may have the basic organizational, management, and communication skills needed to ensure that all aspects of the project are completed on time and in full, your team may not be as productive as others. This can be for several reasons:
• Personality conflicts
• Work ethic conflicts
• Work assessments not performed beforehand
• Goals different for each team member
In order to lead effectively, you will have to plan how to use the members of your team the same way you approach your project planning – by analyzing individual strengths and weaknesses and assigning portions of the project that fit those needs.
CREATING A GROUP DYNAMIC
Have you ever wondered why some groups work so well together? This is not through luck. Groups that are in synch understand that individual roles in a project are important. Group members can count on each for assistance when they need it.
Those who lead these types of groups are willing to take risks, understand the limitations of everyone in the group, and are able to clearly state the purpose and goal of each project. Understanding the goal of a project gives everyone in the group a sense of purpose, which helps them meet deadlines and turn in excellent work.
Taking a management course is one way to learn how to create a productive group that works well together in any circumstance.
MANAGEMENT TRAINING
Regardless of whether you have led a team or not, taking a management training course can offer new insight and give you practical advice and tips on how to better utilize those within a group. Employees who are able to use their skills will be more productive. By giving group members the proper tasks, they should be able to complete them in the amount of time allotted and be available to help others when necessary.
In a management training course, you will learn:
• How to effectively communicate with a team by outlining each phase of a project, the timelines, and what is expected from each group member.
• How to assess individual strengths and weaknesses by talking with group members, talking with their supervisors, and reviewing past work contributions.
• Ways to forecast issues that could come up during the project, how to correct them early, and how to cope with additional issues as they arise.
• How to delegate responsibility so each member of the group feels they are contributing equally to the project.
These skills are invaluable and will help you throughout your career in management or a project lead. You can tailor them to fit your needs and build on them when necessary.
Timothy Millett, head trainer at i perform, has extensive expertise in performance training, sales training and customer service training. Tim has helped participants from organisations such as SWIFT and UBS achieve peak levels of personal performance. For more information please visit Leadership Training.
Government mandated information with Visio
If you work in government - particularly in security - you understand the importance of documentation. Government work requires a great deal of it, and such documentation often involves charts, diagrams and other visual aids in order to supplement and clarify written information.
You also understand that creating such visual information using drawing programs and graphic editors can be a slow, painful process unless you possess an uncommon skill working with the more arcane aspects of an application such as Photoshop.
Microsoft's Visio 2007 can make the creation of charts and diagrams almost effortless. Visio offers a vast database of ready-to-use templates that allow the user to quickly create a wide variety of visuals for any type of documentation.
For example, a chain of command is vital to the smooth function of any governmental agency. Visio templates help to make organization charts more useful with the ability to link to additional data, providing a more complete overview of levels of authority and responsibility. Access to such information at a glance can increase efficiency and effectiveness.
Those who are responsible for the development of security software will appreciate the way Visio shapes offers a means to create database models and software diagrams that is as flexible as your organization's unique needs. Visio shapes can be used in documents to show design of a security system, configuration of the system, as well as provide an easy-to-understand visualization of process improvement in the application of your security software.
Visio offers security developers a simple way to incorporate professional-looking diagrams into your company's documents. Process and network diagrams come standard with Visio, but they can be customized to your exact specifications. In current versions of Visio, you can copy information from Microsoft Excel and have it transform before your eyes into diagrams that make the pertinent information stand out clearly. Compatibility with Outlook e-mail, Powerpoint presentations, Access databases and Word documents makes integration of the various programs in Office easy to establish.
One of the great benefits that you will gain when using Microsoft Visio is the ease with which you can track trends. Select specific data to examine in greater detail, put it into Visio, and you can see at a glance whether you are experiencing increases or decreases in activity in specific areas that you choose to target. In this way you can explore trends that make a difference to your specific security and reporting needs, and use the diagrams in Visio to present the information to co-workers without the technical knowledge of your specific area in a way that everyone can understand.
Let visio software be the platform from which you create customized visio shapes that will help you design and implement an effective security program tailored to your company's special needs.
