When I was starting out as a Solo Entrepreneur, I had what now seems like a rudimentary understanding of what niche was. In fact, in my mind, a niche was pretty much the same thing as a target market. So much for what I learned from my MBA!

Michael Port taught me the difference between a target market, ideal clients, and a niche. In a nutshell, a target market is a group of people that are distinguished by a set of characteristics. For instance, women over 50 in Sydney, Australia who want to lose weight. Your ideal clients within that target market are those that meet your personal criteria for being the type of people you want to work with; perhaps you want clients who are willing to pay upfront, open to alternative methods, and committed to following through to their goals. Then your niche is the kinds of services and products you want to provide to your clients; for instance, you may want to provide acupuncture, yoga and nutritional cleanse products.

From personal experience, I can tell you that knowing these definitions, and figuring out how to apply them in one’s own business, are two very different things.

You see, I took over a piece of someone else’s business last January. It seemed like a good fit at the time: the service was one that solo entrepreneurs need, and solo entrepreneurs, after all, are who I serve! The business was already profitable, and I figured I could attract more ideal clients through the right marketing and pricing, and get a contractor to actually deliver the service.

The good news is that the business delivered a nice stream of income. The bad news was the energy drain the business had on me. The current clients of this business ranged from solo entrepreneurs to firms with 20+ employees. Most were not tech-savvy (which drove me up the wall!) and needed repetitive assistance (also not my strength). They were accustomed to late payment being ok (I’m a stickler for payment upfront). And because I was unable to set up the kind of support assistance I needed, I ended up doing a lot of the work myself.

Looking back, I wonder if the profit was worth the hours I spent doing work that was not my best fit. I’m almost jumping for joy at the prospect of selling this business! (A special thanks to Andrea Lee for pushing me in that direction!)

It’s easy to get off track and drift from your target market. When the cash is right there in front of you, rationalization can let you ignore non-ideal clients. And not knowing enough about what is involved in providing a new service is a real risk.

So the next time you are presented with an opportunity, I hope you remember this story, and do a better job than I did of applying your criteria for target market, ideal clients, and niche!

Last 5 posts by Terri Zwierzynski

• 31 Time Management Tips - December 18th, 2008
• Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus - December 14th, 2008
• And now just for fun... - November 27th, 2008
• The Grateful Life of a Solo Entrepreneur - November 17th, 2008
• Can a Lifestyle be a Niche? - November 4th, 2008

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 11th, 2006 at 9:44 pm and is filed under Target Market, Marketing Planning, Business Planning, Niche Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.