On this week’s episode of The Breakthrough Year Podcast we are answering a listener’s question! Amrah reached out on Instagram recently and asked:

“I want to start something online, and have a few ideas but not sure which or what would work... I don't know where to start either and I'm terrified that it won't work and things will fail. What should I do? I love calligraphy, design and fashion. I'm not sure whether to expand with my calligraphy or start up a baby store online. I’m just worried about taking that step.”

This is a great question and I think it’s something that almost every creative entrepreneur has wrestled with at one time or another (or if you’re like me, it’s likely that you struggle with this regularly!!). We can have multiple ideas that all excite us, that are all viable and often we can have these multiple ideas all in one day!! It’s tempting to attempt to do it all.

In this episode I share:

• What it looks like when you don’t have a niche.
• The advantages of having a niche.
• Then if you’re struggling, we will also talk about how to find your niche - even if your head is a whirlwind of ideas!
• And finally, I’ll share some niching tips and a truthbomb right at the end!

When you tune in to this episode, you’ll also hear my three step method for finding your niche. I wanted to break it down for you here too so you can see it laid out for you:

STEP 1 | Firstly, a few places that you might look to find your niche include:

• Hobbies – sewing, art
• Skills – public speaking, keeping your home organised
• Existing career – teacher, yoga instructor
• Identified problems - what are your target market struggling with?

So the first step is brain dumping everything you can think of - all the hobbies and passions you have; all the skills you have; your existing or past careers, and any struggles, problems or questions either you have yourself or your target market have.

STEP 2 | Then you want to think about what you could offer for each of these:

• a physical product that you’ll package and ship to the client;
• an digital product like a resume template;
• a piece of software that is delivered digitally;
• an online course or training program;
• a service.

So go back to your brain dump list and expand each of your ideas with the kinds of offerings you could create and sell. There’s going to be things on that original list that you either can’t think of anything for or you have no desire to think of any offering for - pay attention to this and just scrap those ideas. If you have to push for ideas at this point - it is not the niche for you!

STEP 3 | Testing

Once you have listed all of the things you could offer I want you to pull from the list your top 3. At this point they might be related things that you’re gravitating towards or they could be really very different things.

Now I want you to score each of those 3 ideas out of 3 for the following criteria:

• Skill Level
• Passion Level
• Market Demand Level
• Knowledge Level
• How often you engage with or talk about it Level

Add them up and the option with the highest score is the one to consider!

Most of all, remember that niching takes commitment and bravery. There’s a tendency to not want to put all our eggs into one basket but one point or another that’s exactly what successful businesses need to do!