So I wanted to talk about one of the things I keep seeing and people keep asking me to write about, which is finding your B2B niche.
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I work in the B2B space and it’s very common that you narrow things down and appeal to one type of audience. In marketing, obviously, finding your audience is key to being able to target ads and things like that.
Finding a B2B Niche can be Challenging
But from an individual point of view, if you’re a consultant or freelancer, finding a B2B niche, in the beginning, can be really hard because you’ve developed no expertise. You’re not an expert in one specific drilled-down field yet. A lot of people are starting from scratch—especially with Covid—they’re coming on and trying to build their own businesses.
It’s really hard to differentiate yourself if you haven’t done a lot in one particular industry yet and you haven’t really decided who you cater to best. I mean, I know for me that my audience has changed based on my experience. Now, I focus a lot on technology companies and cyber companies but I still work extensively with marketing agencies with their marketing.
Limitations When You Don’t Niche Down
I didn’t always have a B2B niche. So it doesn’t mean that you won’t succeed if you can’t find one. It just means that you’re not going to be able to scale.
I think a common misconception is you can’t be successful or you can’t earn the salary you want to earn without having to find a niche, but that’s not true. Where it actually becomes a problem is if you’re servicing ‘everyone’ for ‘everything’, you can’t standardise and take a step back from your business.
- You can’t scale.
- You can’t streamline things.
- You can’t create a benchmark because everything you offer is different each time.
Now, when you’re on your own, that’s fine because you can just cater to that yourself. But when you’re looking to scale up, it becomes a big problem.
It’s Okay to Have No B2B Niche Yet: Focus on More Important Things
I think if you’re just starting out as a freelancer or a consultant if you don’t have a lot of experience and you don’t know what you want to do yet, don’t feel like a niche is going to freeze you or you can’t do anything because you haven’t found a B2B niche.
When I started, the most important thing for me was to get clients and to make some money. Get some experience, know what you’re doing, and find out if this is for you because it’s not for everyone. I don’t know the exact statistics but I know a lot of people who quit their business or their freelancing within the first two years of having a business.
So focus on the most important parts first and then worry about a niche and the way you pick one of those later. The way you pick the clients that you want to work with and knowing exactly what they want comes with the experience.
Are you the best person for that B2B niche? Do you have the best experience? Can you cater to that niche? There’s nothing worse than limiting yourself and you don’t have the knowledge when you get a client.
Remember that the client wants to work with an expert. There’s nothing worse than choosing a niche too early and realising (as well as the client) that you don’t understand the unique challenges they’re facing in the market and it reflects badly on you. This is what can impact your business long-term.
Overall:
I suggest that if you have experience, use your experience to pick an industry or area and work your way down from there. If you are a consultant or someone just starting their business, it’s important that you get the basics first—the foundation and experience. That way, you know exactly what you want to do. You can worry about everything else after that.
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