Last week, I was honored to be the first guest in Brad Swift’s Building Your Business On Purpose with Passion & Play teleclass series. A big thanks to Brad for making it so easy and fun, especially for someone (me) who doesn’t usually do teleclasses!

As part of the series, Brad has a blog where we are posting our insights as the series continues, and where registrants can post comments and get feedback. Someone posted this question: "Could an opportunity for personal growth and development be rejected
because it at first disguises itself as being out of one’s niche?" and I thought I’d share my reply with Solo-E blog readers!

The question about an opportunity outside one’s niche vs. a personal growth/development opportunity is a great one. I was pondering this exact question myself yesterday! I don’t have a proven answer, but I’ll share my thoughts.

I believe that part of the answer is timing. Early in your business-building, you want your niche — the products and services you provide to your ideal clients — to be as focused as possible. So I’d suggest that unless it is something you already are very skilled at making/delivering, it’s outside your niche (for now). Exception: If it is absolutely the *one* thing you want to do/offer — in which case, go get the skills and experience! Either do it on the side while you hold down a "make a living" job, or if you have the flexibility, learn and do as you slowly start your business.

Later, as your business is established and really starts growing, is the time to consider expanding your niche. Deciding whether a product or service is something you want to add to your business depends on your skill (do I have the skills necessary or can I/do I want to get them); your desire to do it (would I enjoy delivering this product or service); and your business strategy (does this further the big picture of where I want my business to go).

If you are having trouble discerning between a growth opportunity and an "outside my niche" opportunity, I’d want to pay close attention to where the "opportunity" is coming from. Am I being told that I "should" do this, either by a well-meaning colleague or friend, or because "everyone else is doing it"? Can I envision myself doing this well and enjoying it, if I could just learn "x" or let go of limiting belief "y"?

This is a great time to tap into your intuition, because this isn’t going to be a black-and-white answer. You may need to experiment — try it out and then see how you are feeling about it (scared but excited? tired and drained?) Whatever you decide, it’s never a "forever" decision. You can always change direction later!

Last 5 posts by Terri Zwierzynski

• Email Marketing: 5 Keys to Gold Medal-Winning Thank You Pages - September 7th, 2008
• Can You Use Twitter to Build Your List? - September 3rd, 2008
• Twittering, Twhirling and Twellowing...Oh My! - August 16th, 2008
• 5 Steps to Get Website Visitors to Subscribe - August 6th, 2008
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Personal Development, Niche Marketing, Vision/Goals/Plans, Education/Training. 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.