Bringing Your Business into Focus
When you're first getting started in your consulting practice, there are some important details you've got to iron out. You need to decide what your practice is going to look like. For example, you need to think about what niche you'll operate in, how much you hope to make, how many hours a week you're willing and able to work, who your target market will be, what kinds of marketing you'll need to do.
It's best to start with the big picture first, and work your way down to some of the details. That sort of planning starts with thinking about your niche specialty.
Understanding Niche
In the most basic sense, your "niche" is the interest area your practice operates in. A niche can be broad (such as physiotherapy) or it can be more narrow (such as a specialty in lower-back physiotherapy).
The first challenge is choosing a niche that isn't too broad. If you choose a broad niche (such as back pain) you'll face a huge amount of competition. There are plenty of other sources online where people can go for back pain help. The further you hone in on a niche, the less competition you'll have. For example, the lower-back physiotherapy niche has much less competition than the back pain niche.
Your niche can become too narrow, however. Using our example, you might choose to focus on the "older men's lower-back physiotherapy" niche. Depending on the niche, there could be very little competition. Depending on the niche, there could be less consumers. This mean it will be more difficult for your marketing message to get across to others.
Local vs. Global Branding
If you're operating your consulting business online, you may be tempted to brand yourself in a global way. In some niche areas, a global branding may work just fine. You can coach someone in physiotherapy just as easy in the United States as you can in Australia.
However, don't underestimate the power of local branding, either. For example, you might choose to brand yourself as New York's leading lower-back physiotherapist. In some ways, this helps to narrow your niche. You are now competing for a clientele that is specifically searching for a local, as opposed to global, service provider.
Here again, going too narrow geographically can present problems. You're far better off branding yourself as Mississippi's leading lower-back physiotherapist than you are branding yourself as Tupelo's leading lower-back physiotherapist. In your quest to go local and reduce competition, don't reduce your target demographic to a nearly-useless number.
Local and global branding options can be enhanced by the internet. The question of global vs. Local branding is a matter of simple marketing techniques. It's a matter of the content of those marketing techniques.
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