How to Build a Niche and Grow Your Practice

How to Build a Niche and Grow Your Practice

The struggle for many professional services firms is the perceived competition between various options for the niche you will try to develop. There is certainly something to be said for an approach that chooses the niche to focus on by just deciding that you like a particular industry or a particular type of work best.

I tend to believe, however, that the world tells you what you're good at. If you have a ten-year-old firm, a better way to decide where to build a niche might be to look at your book of business and see where there is a large cluster of clients. Then you carve out your niche by building upon what the world has already recognized in you.

Having determined your niche, you are then ready to start doing the work that will enable you to do the carving. Here are the steps in growing any niche.

Identify how big the niche is. How big is the industry? How much is it growing or declining?

Identify how much of the niche you can hope to own. How many businesses in the chosen sector are located near you? How many of those businesses can you hope to bring into your firm? Can you do business with others in the niche outside your city? How many can you reasonably expect to make your clients?

Conduct a SWOT analysis of the competition. How many competitors are there? What are the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities of each? How does your firm compare to the competition? What competitor weaknesses can you capitalize on to grow your place in the niche? What tactics will be necessary to do so?

Plan your messaging and your marketing. It is important to start with the message. Clarify what you want to say before you start down the road of how to get the message out. To some degree, the message determines the medium. How will you define or characterize your firm and your expertise over and against your competitors? Then determine how you will spread the word.

Grow your niche. Get busy, get out there, and get the clients. If you accomplish each of the first four steps, you will have everything you need to build your niche.

By clarifying how you can/do serve a niche, by considering what you hope to accomplish by carving out a niche for your firm, and by following the five basic steps to building a niche, you will be well on your way to growing your business. Practice development is like anything else in life if you do your homework, focus your attention in the right ways, and step out knowledgeably, you can earn your right to claim expertise in a particular industry or segment.

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