Finding your own niche in a crowded market can be a long and arduous process. Some owners have had their own share of failed attempts and moments of success before coming up with a long-term business venture. As a small business owner, you need to establish a name and be able to carve your own space in the marketplace.
This goes to all kinds of business in every industry, whether it’s music and entertainment, goods and services, arts and literature, or finance. All businesses need a starting point. The question has always been, ‘What would I be as a business entity?’ or ‘What would they know me for as a business?’
Fortunately, we won’t have to go through the same route as other businesses have gone through in the past and we could start out with our businesses on the right foot from the very beginning. It all starts with a blank piece of paper and asking ourselves a few questions about the specific niche in the industry we’re trying to put our businesses into.
Can You Commit Yourself to It?
Small businesses need time, commitment, and patience. Usually, these three things stem from a more profound question: “Am I especially good at it?” and “Am I very passionate about it?”
When you’re good at something and are deeply passionate about it, you can devote your whole life pursuing your goals without running out of steam. It’s the inner drive that keeps you going despite the setbacks that gets along the way.
Please note that interest is not always the same has having that burning desire to achieve your lifelong dream. Interest in doing something can be just a short-lived pursuit. Being passionate means you can stay with it as long as it takes because you know you can achieve great things.
When you’re confident enough that you can run a profitable business out of it, you need to ask yourself how much time you are willing put into it, including starting up, running, maintaining, and upgrading your business from time to time.
Typically, the smaller your business, the more time you need to put into it. However, if you’re buying a franchise with the blueprint already in place – and you just have to fill in your workers, staff, and inventory – you need not to spend a lot of time since it’s already a well-oiled setup. But, unlike small business, a franchise is often too expensive and you don’t have full control over your business.
Will It Supply or Create a Demand?
The reality about business is that it should always center on the customer’s needs, address a certain demand, or at least be able to create one. This can be quite challenging, especially if you’re leaning to a specific kind of business that are either too saturated or have not gained enough popularity to become profitable.
This may differ from place to place and can be linked to particular a lifestyle, culture, or economic status of the community. In some communities, for instance, where food and dining is a thriving business, having your own little restaurant can be a lucrative source of income. If people in the community are into fashion, opening a small boutique that sells designer clothes on the latest trends can be an instant hit.
Often the challenge for aspiring business owners is that their chosen industry or specialty – although feasible and potential moneymaker – doesn’t have a popular appeal to the people in the community as of yet. In this case, they need to double their efforts and slowly work themselves up creating a demand for that particular product or service.
Dealing with a saturated market can be equally challenging for aspiring business owners. However, since customer demand is a given, they just have to use some creativity to attract customers and lead them to their business. Entrepreneurs should always have that creativity and innovation in order to gain a competitive edge in whatever business venture they’re trying to pursue.
What is Your Advantage over the Competitor?
This, perhaps, is the single most important question, especially when you’re going head to head with other businesses of the same nature. This can be answered by taking the many aspects of sales into consideration, some of which are fairly common such as pricing, novelty and innovation, accessibility, customer service, and customer experience.
Competitive pricing can be viewed in two ways. You can either give discounts or bonuses to your customers or you can raise the value of your product or service without changing the price, thus achieving the same objective. Basically, you’re just playing with the price to value ratio and make sure your value is always above the price in one way or another.
Novelty and innovation is another big factor if you want to gain the advantage over your competitors. For instance, aside from having a brick-and-mortar store, you need to have an online store, a Facebook or a Twitter account which will serve as your customer’s gateway to your business. Later on, you can incorporate a mobile application or CRM to your sales and marketing strategy as your business grows.
Your business might also need a fresh coat of paint from time to time to enhance your customer’s experience whether it’s offline brick-and-mortar or online. Your product range must also maintain its freshness and your business is sensitive enough to address your customer’s ever-changing needs.
What Ways Can You Upsell or A Customer?
Customers want to be able to choose from a wide range of products or service your business has to offer. For instance, if you’re planning to start a hair salon, you want to give your customers enough choices to suit their individual differences and preferences such as a specific hair style, hair treatment, hair color, and so on. Once you have a customer, they will trust you with other products as well. How can you upsell your customers to increase your bottom line?
If you’re dealing with car and automotive supply, your product range must be able to include different models and spare parts which also takes into account different price ranges for your customer’s budget.
This provides your customers a ‘one-stop shop’ to get what they need and not have to go from one shop to another. If your niche has a very limited product, service, or price range, you might want to expand on it a little bit to allow sufficient customer segmentation. One exception for this is if your niche is unique from other businesses that you could sell just one or two items.
What Does the Customer Data Tell You about that Niche?
All things being equal, any kind of business will also have an equal chance of having just the right amount of income to stay in business. But if you want your business to be more productive and competitive, you must be able to get an access to relevant customer information.
Customer data tips the balance between you and your competitors. Since you’re able to address your customer’s needs more efficiently using a CRM app or service compared to other similar businesses, you can strike deep into the heart of what really drives sales and just not rely on wholesale, yet inefficient traditional marketing strategies that doesn’t really make connections to the target market.
Small Business Dream is an excellent example of how you can take advantage of this valuable asset using sales and marketing application or mini-CRM. Visit our site and check out our FREE Small Business Dream app. It’s never too late starting up your own business. CLICK HERE and start using the app.