How to Find Your Small Business's Niche with Todd Howard

How to Find Your Small Business's Niche with Todd Howard

The journey to business success is cluttered with one-size-fits-all advice, yet the secret sauce might just lie in a deep dive into what makes your small business stand out.

Today's insightful discussion with Todd Howard, the visionary founder of Grow a Niche Business, peels back the layers, offering a profound understanding of niche discovery. 

This knowledge empowers you to not only create a service or product that competes but one that unmistakably dominates.

We explore the transformative power of customer experience when tailored to a niche, transforming consumer transactions into enthusiastic advocacy. 

So, if you're spinning your wheels in broad market strategies and seeing less than stellar results, it's time for a pivot. 

Tune into our latest episode with Todd, and let's get excited about the specificity that'll not only light up your business journey but also spark the joy of those you're meant to serve.

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

• Niche specialization as a pathway to business prosperity
• The importance of aligning business strategy with personal values and health
• A comprehensive framework for determining a business's niche

Other Mentioned Links & Resources

Learn more about Grow a Niche Business:
https://growanichebusiness.com

Connect with Todd Howard:
Todd@GrowANicheBusiness.com

Get a Free PDF Guide: The Most Effective Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses: The Flywheel Marketing Method
https://treefrogmarketing.com/most-effective-marketing-strategy-small-businsses

Learn more about flywheel marketing:
https://treefrogmarketing.com/digital-marketing-agency-small-businesses

Save $20 on your first order from InstaCart
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com/instacart-coupon-code

Join the Priority Pursuit Podcast Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/179106264013426

Follow Treefrog on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/treefroggers

Follow or DM Victoria on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/victorialrayburn

Transcript

Todd Howard [00:00:00]:
A niche is the sweet spot. It's a sweet spot for your business. Everyone understands what it is to be in your sweet spot. Or another way you might say it is to be in your zone. People think of it almost like a location. You can be in your sweet spot, or you can be out of your sweet spot and you can tell the difference. When you're in your sweet spot, what you do is really, really good. It's the best that you can produce, and other people get the most out of you when you're in your sweet spot.

Victoria Rayburn [00:00:28]:
Hey there.

Victoria Rayburn [00:00:29]:
You're listening to the Priority Pursuit podcast.

Victoria Rayburn [00:00:31]:
A podcast dedicated to helping small business owners and leaders define, maintain and pursue both their personal and business priorities so they can build lives and businesses that they love. I'm your host, Victoria Rayburn. And today I have a question for you. Has your business found its sweet spot? In other words, is your business known for something? So just for example, Michael Jordan is known for playing basketball. Stephen King is known for writing thrillers. Yes, guys, these are famous people. But like these successful individuals, your business can find its sweet spot, aka its niche. And today on the show, our guest Tod Howard is going to break down exactly how and why to choose a niche as a small business.

Victoria Rayburn [00:01:17]:
Tod is the founder of grow a niche business, and he helps businesses determine what makes them unique so that they can stand apart from their competition and attract their ideal customers. Tod, I am so excited for this conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Todd Howard [00:01:33]:
Yeah, thank you. This is going to be, oh, well.

Victoria Rayburn [00:01:36]:
Tod, I gave a very brief introduction of you, but I know your business is doing truly amazing things. So if you don't mind, please introduce yourself and share what you do at grow a niche business. I know our listeners are going to be super interested.

Todd Howard [00:01:49]:
Yeah. So I help people find their niche. A lot of people are looking for their niche, but they don't really know where to begin. They don't know how to do that. Finding your niche is actually really hard to do. It's a little bit like finding your purpose or finding the perfect mate. Everybody understands kind of what they think the destination looks like. They know what they're looking for, but they don't know how to go about doing it.

Todd Howard [00:02:16]:
And it's incredibly frustrating for a lot of people who know that if they could find a niche for their business, it could really kind of gain some traction and get rolling. And when I saw that, I've started several businesses, I have a big background in product strategy on the corporate side, and I had a lot of stuff related to this. But when I thought about there's no methodical way to find your niche, there's no formula that someone can walk through. I thought, I can fix that. I think I can create something that would help someone do that. And instead of them spending years slowly inching their way into kind of a sweet spot, what if we could just meet for five or six times and nail it and find it? And so when I say I help people find their niche, what I specifically mean by that is they figure out what they are really, really good at. They find out who the market is that's going to be most excited to work with them. That's a huge eye opener that changes their marketing, their sales scripts, all kinds of things.

Todd Howard [00:03:32]:
Once they get into that place, they love what they do. If you're a solopreneur or you're a small business and you're doing something you don't like, five years into it, you're kind of thinking, this kind of sucks. This is not a whole lot different than a job. But when you find something that you're really good at and you get to work with people that really love what you do, that's incredibly invigorating and you can spend the rest of your life doing that. So there's lots of benefits to finding your niche. And I just thought if I can help people get there faster and understand what a niche is, how it works, how people think about a niche versus a general business, then they can not only do what they love, but also I would like to see more niche businesses out there. I think we're in an environment right now where you can get really creative. I'd like to see people bring their creative sides into their business and say, I can do this really well.

Todd Howard [00:04:34]:
Somewhere in this industry is a home for my skill set. So let me figure out how to marry those two things and put this out there. So that's what I do. I help people find their niche. And once they find their niche, I help them develop what I call niche thinking. There's a certain perspective. Once you have a niche, you need to have a certain perspective on marketing. You have a certain perspective on who you hire, how you train them.

Todd Howard [00:05:02]:
Every part of your business is touched by the niche that you are serving. And so what I do is I help the leader of the company think about their niche in all of these different situations. So when they meet with their marketing team, they can say, listen, I need you to help me lean in this direction. These are the customers I'm going for this is how I'm differentiating myself from the competition. And if you're the CEO of a company, even if you're a solopreneur, you need to have that strategic mindset of this is my niche. And when it comes to marketing, I need to think about that. When it comes to sales, I need to think about that and try and get the people you work with to follow the direction of your niche.

Victoria Rayburn [00:05:50]:
Absolutely. And I mean, we talk about the importance of audience identification all the time. And I mean, this is the very first thing that we walk our clients through. And a lot of times, small businesses, they want to serve anybody and everybody. So I love this process of niching down because from a marketing perspective especially, but the more specific you can get about who you are serving and what you're offering, the better your marketing is going to function. So again, Tod, I'm so excited to have this conversation. Also, I think know, it's like we got to know, like, niche. Niche.

Victoria Rayburn [00:06:22]:
I always think it's so funny that people say that word differently, but anyway.

Todd Howard [00:06:27]:
Okay, I got something for that if I can jump in. Yes, I had to look this up. I'm not this smart. So you can say it either way. Niche or niche. The word originally comes from a french word, niche, which means to nest. And we can talk about that later and how that wraps into the definition of a niche. But it's a french word, so of course, in the UK, where they do everything different from the French, they say niche.

Todd Howard [00:06:55]:
And so in America, we get our English from the English, so we typically say niche. You can say it either way. Typically, if I want to feel a little more sophisticated, I say niche. Most of the time I just say niche. Either one is fine.

Victoria Rayburn [00:07:09]:
Hey, I mean, so cool to know where words originate from. Yes, exactly. It's one of those words that I always just kind of say almost a little timidly. I'm like, I hope they don't think it's weird that I say it this. So. Yes. Oh, good to know. Either way is correct.

Victoria Rayburn [00:07:24]:
Now, Todd, before we get into how people can niche their businesses, we've already talked a little bit about why we do have to have a quick priority conversation. After all, this is the priority pursuit podcast. So, Tata, I want to start on the personal side, especially as somebody who has operated multiple businesses. But if you don't mind me asking, what are your personal priorities and what kinds of boundaries do you set to protect them?

Todd Howard [00:07:48]:
This is a great question. On the personal side, the first one's health. I'm 52. When I wasn't 52, I thought 52 was old. Now that I'm 52, 52 is not old. And as time has gone on, I've realized medical technology will probably extend my life longer than my dad. Sorry, dad, I'm not trying to knock you off. My dad's still alive, but medical technology will make me live longer, but they can't make the quality of my life any better for those years.

Todd Howard [00:08:30]:
And so I've been fortunate enough. My wife is really into fitness, and she's influenced me to really think about this. My health is tremendously important. I think if it is more important than any amount of money that I can make or other success that I can find. And so that's really a big one. It's been easier to have way less wine, definitely less sugar, sleep better, be more conscious of these things, because I think we will be the generation that starts living longer noticeably. People will look back and go, man, it was around this time that it jumped several years, the life expectancy. And so that's a big one for me, is health.

Todd Howard [00:09:21]:
The second one is the connection with my wife. I got married in 2017, and so I found her kind of late in life, but we're very deliberate about spending time together. In our connection, you were asking about ways that I protect this. We have some rituals, and we never really sat down and said, let's come up with these rituals, but we just sort of fell into them. We have coffee together every morning. We take several walks during the day, at least when it's not boiling outside. We like to cook dinner together. Little things that we just think, let's make this part of our daily routine.

Todd Howard [00:10:02]:
And I really enjoy that. There's nothing better on television than the relationships that you can have in your own home. And I'm really enjoying just spending that time with her. So that's a really big one. And then the third one is purpose. I need to feel like I am really involved in fulfilling some greater purpose. And I don't check my bank account. Fortunately, my wife is on top of all of that, so she's watching that stuff.

Todd Howard [00:10:33]:
But I never check my bank account and think, how am I doing? Am I kind of doing well here? But I do think about, am I engaged in things where there's some kind of purpose involved? And so I help guys lead men's groups, this business. I feel like there's a lot of purpose behind this, and that's really important to me as well. I want to feel at any given time like I'm really doing something significant and not just thinking about myself, not just working for myself.

Victoria Rayburn [00:11:04]:
I love that. And you know, with what you do, you are very much helping other people find their purpose as well. So what an amazing purpose to have. And then Tod, we also want to talk about your business priorities. So what are your top three business priorities and why are they important to you?

Todd Howard [00:11:21]:
Yeah, the first one, I want to contribute, and I think of this as kind of a business philosophy. There are some businesses, and I hate saying this because I want to criticize other businesses. I understand why they do this. There are some businesses that will come up with an idea and then they think, how long can I string a client along and drop out value as gradually as possible so I can keep them on the hook, keep them a client. I don't really want to share all my information up front, and they're very protective over what they have. And I think that's an idea that kind of comes out of fear, this idea that, well, if I just come out of the gate and start sharing all this proprietary information, I'm going to not make as much money. And I don't mean to throw stones at people who think like that, but it's made me think I want to go the other direction. I want to be very generous, whether it's a podcast, whether it's an email, if I have a bit of knowledge, I want to share it and trust that whoever I'm working with will probably want to pay me to walk through my methodology with them.

Todd Howard [00:12:35]:
But this idea that, well, I've got this secret and for three payments of whatever, I'll give it to you. I don't like that. I want to be generous. I want to be contributing open handed and trust that business is going to come because people will want to work with me. But it's because I'm contributing, because I'm being generous. The second business priority is mobility. I want to have a business where all I need is my laptop and I need to know where the closest airport is. Now, I don't want to travel a lot, that's not my goal, but my wife and I want to go check out Belize next year.

Todd Howard [00:13:18]:
I have some relatives moving to Costa Rica. I just this, again, the generational thing, this is a generation that you can work anywhere as long as I'm kind of within the time zones of the US. And there's a lot of geography that lines up with that. I want to have a mobile lifestyle and that starts with the business that I run. So I live in North Atlanta, but a client that I was working with the other day is in New Zealand. And so that just changes everything. And I love thinking about mobility because that's a way of prioritizing my lifestyle in the context of my business. And that will allow me to be in business longer, I think.

Todd Howard [00:14:03]:
And then the third is I want to create. I'm a guy that helps people find their niche. My niche. Part of it is that I am good at creating things. I'm good at creating products, ideas, workshops, classes. I need to work with other people who are good at marketing and I'm fine with that. So leaning into my strengths and not trying to hang on to everything, I think that's just going to sink me. And so at one point I wrote down, I am going to be a creator.

Todd Howard [00:14:39]:
And in every business situation I thought to myself, okay, what is my role? My role as a creator? What does that mean? Do that and stuff that doesn't fall under that umbrella. Find someone who can help. And I think that has taken a lot of the stress out of starting and running a business.

Victoria Rayburn [00:14:56]:
Oh man, we could have a whole conversation just about that. I love it. Well, Tod, thank you so much for sharing. So as we get into talking, know, niches and niches or whatever you want to call them, let's start with a definition if that is okay. So if someone is listening and they're like, I'm not really sure what you mean, but what is a niche and why should businesses consider niching down?

Todd Howard [00:15:24]:
Yes. So a niche or a niche either way is you started out with a great example. It's a sweet spot. It's a sweet spot for your business and everyone understands what it is to be in your sweet spot. Or another way you might say it is to be in your zone. People think of it almost like a location. You can be in your sweet spot or you can be out of your sweet spot and you can tell the difference. When you're in your sweet spot, what you do is really, really good.

Todd Howard [00:15:53]:
I mean, it's the best that you can produce and other people get the most out of you. When you're in your sweet spot, your business can have a sweet spot and it's called a niche. So it might be different than your personal sweet spot, but your business can have a place where you can kind of situate it and say, when we're doing this, when we're producing these products and services, when we're dealing with these customers, we're at our best. And when we're not, we're not. And so you really want to think about where is my business? Just like you would think about yourself, where am I? Am I in my sweet spot or not? Is my business in its sweet spot, or is my business in its niche? So that's the simple explanation. There's a more technical answer that I came up with. A niche is an identity that protects your business. And so let me give you an example of this.

Todd Howard [00:16:55]:
Most people want to have a niche because they don't want the competitors taking all their products. Sorry, their competitors taking their business. They want to sleep well at night feeling like I'm in a niche. I'm kind of safe. My customers are always going to come to me. I'm always going to be in business. So there's a company, they're a nonprofit, actually, called Charity Water. I love these guys.

Todd Howard [00:17:18]:
They drill wells all over the world for people who need water. But they ran into a problem. They realized people don't like to give to charities because they feel like charities waste money. A lot of them do. I mean, that's a very valid concern. And so the founder of Charity Water said, we're going to come up with a unique approach to running our charity. We're going to tell people 100% of the money that we collect for water projects will go to water projects. Nothing will go to admin.

Todd Howard [00:17:51]:
And so now people who are kind of suspicious of charities, they want to give, but they're hesitant. When they heard charity Water say that, they were like, cool. Yeah, we'll write you a check today because you just solved that problem for us. And now charity Water is, among other things, a charity that's a great fit for people who don't trust charities. So they've kind of developed a niche for themselves. But here's where the protection comes in. Charity water. Since they're the only ones that I know of that do this, that's created a level of protection for their business.

Todd Howard [00:18:26]:
Other charities can't really compete with that because they're not willing to take that step and say, we are going to give 100% of our funds to our water projects. And so by making this decision, charity water not only solved a problem for customers or donors, sorry, but they also protected themselves. They're the only charity anywhere, again, that I know of that does this. And as long as they stay with that model, they are separating themselves, standing out from all of the charities, and they're going to enjoy a level of protection that's going to keep their nonprofit going.

Victoria Rayburn [00:19:08]:
Amazing. And, I mean, this is, as you're saying this, I'm thinking back to my photography days, and for a lot of people when they start a photography business, they start by shooting everything, families and newborns and seniors and weddings and all the things. And it took me a few years to decide like, okay, weddings are my niche, but it was crazy just how much peace really, and protection that it did give my business. At that point when you're able to focus on one thing and you're just expected to do one thing as opposed to going into somebody's house to mean, you know, I love babies. Don't get me wrong, newborn photos are not my thing. So I was really glad to be able to niche down and never have to do that.

Todd Howard [00:19:52]:
Yeah, when my wife and I got married, we were lucky enough to go down to cancun and get married. We got married on a beach. And when you're just looking for a photographer to shoot your wedding, you get one sort of category of results. But when you start googling wedding photographers who have beach experience or something like that, it narrows it down really quickly. And I thought, man, if I was a photographer, I would pick something. It would be. And again, you probably can think of all kinds of things, but the more you can really niche down and say, I'm not a photographer. I work with couples who get married on a beach.

Todd Howard [00:20:36]:
Yes, I'm a photographer, but I do all these things to help facilitate this experience that I do. Things that you would only do if you were on a beach. Certain kinds of shots, certain kinds of videos. I have to deal with the sun that's moving over a six hour period, whatever. You can really offer this specialty to people and anybody who's going to get married on a beach is going to say, I pick you over someone who just says, oh, I can do anything that's not compelling.

Kelly Rice [00:21:07]:
Many small businesses don't have an effective marketing strategy, and because of this, they try one tactic after another without seeing results. This not only prevents consistent business growth, it makes managing marketing efforts more difficult.

Victoria Rayburn [00:21:20]:
Than it should be.

Kelly Rice [00:21:21]:
As a marketing agency for small businesses, we understand how frustrating it can be.

Victoria Rayburn [00:21:25]:
When hard work doesn't deliver the results that you want.

Kelly Rice [00:21:28]:
Because of this, Treefrog has developed a proven four step marketing system that will help any small business grow. On our website, you can also schedule a 30 minutes discovery call to discuss working with Treefrog to build a marketing strategy that will allow your small business to finally see the growth you've been working so hard to achieve.

Victoria Rayburn [00:21:45]:
As a small business owner, you probably have a seemingly endless to do list, but I can almost promise that there are things on your list that can be outsourced, like grocery shopping. I mean, as a wedding photographer, the last thing I wanted to do after shooting a weding on a Saturday was to spend my Sunday in a grocery store. So I am forever thankful that a friend told me about Instacart. Instacart is a grocery delivery service. Basically, you use the Instacart app to make your shopping list. Then a personal shopper goes to your preferred store, selects your groceries for you and delivers them to you, typically all within just a few hours. You can also schedule your delivery time. Personally, I will sing Instacart's praises forever because one, it has saved me countless hours.

Victoria Rayburn [00:22:28]:
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Victoria Rayburn [00:22:50]:
If you'd like to avoid going to.

Victoria Rayburn [00:22:51]:
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Victoria Rayburn [00:23:09]:
Right now and they're thinking like, okay, that sounds nice, but I can't possibly niche down, I'll lose business. What would you tell them?

Todd Howard [00:23:18]:
Yeah, the exact opposite is true. I don't expect anyone to believe that out of the gates. Let me explain how that works. So if you are marketing to a general audience, you're casting a wide net, you have a wide funnel. However you want to think of that, you're trying to get as many people to you as possible, and then you say, well, now I'm only going to work with a subset of these people. That's scary. Yes, in the short term, there are customers you work with today that you're not going to work with tomorrow because you've decided a niche. And there's a few ways around that.

Todd Howard [00:23:52]:
You can do it very slowly, kind of a phased approach. It's not like you just call people and say, I'm not going to work with you anymore. You can do this over time, but as you niche down, when you go from a general focus to a niche focus. There's several things you can do. You can bring a whole nother level of focus to your marketing. Think about the email that you would write if you had to write to, well, let's stick with the photography thing. People who want pictures, that's one kind of email. And then if I say, okay, I want you to write an email, a sales email to photographers who do underwater photography of couples where the woman's wearing her wedding dress.

Todd Howard [00:24:39]:
And I saw this. I walked into a friend's house and they had these pictures. You're nodding. This was new to me. And she was in her wedding dress and he was in jeans and a shirt, and they had these beautiful underwater photos on the wall. And I thought, that's fantastic. And she said, yeah, you have to have the right kind of camera. You have to explain to people how to do this.

Todd Howard [00:25:01]:
Obviously, everybody's holding their breath, so time is kind of an issue. You have to have a pool available. And this person had kind of niched down. So let's go back to the scenario. Imagine you had to write email copy advertising that those are completely different emails. One is a general email that says, hey, I have a camera. I'm a really nice person, hire me. The other says, this is what I do.

Todd Howard [00:25:29]:
This is a lot of fun. Here's a bunch of people who have done it. Very specific. That second email of the underwater photography is going to make a much bigger difference. People are going to refer you. And so, yes, in the short term, you're turning some of that general business away, but the group of people that you're working with are so much more excited to work with you than the general market ever was. And so you go from a situation where these customers are coming to you and saying, well, you're okay. And you were kind of the best price out there.

Todd Howard [00:26:06]:
So I'm going to go with you. That's what happens when you're working with a general market. But when you niche down and you've really got this focus, you get people that are excited to work with you and they say, oh, my God, I saw these pictures. Yes, we're doing that. I don't even care what it costs. You end up running an entirely different business. And now that we're in a world where there's 8 billion people out here, I mean, the game has changed. There's the Internet.

Todd Howard [00:26:36]:
You don't have to cast a wide net and then slowly bring people through your funnel. Over time, you can just come right out of the gate and say, I do this one thing and you are going to find more than enough people to not only float your boat financially, but make you very successful. I have never ever met someone who went the direction of becoming a specialist and then said, I ran out of customers. The market is not big enough. That is not true. The market is looking for things that are different and interesting and unique. And when you walk out of the general population and stop sounding like everyone else and offer something really eclectic and interesting, people gravitate to that. So your original question, people who would say, if I niche down, I'm going to lose business.

Todd Howard [00:27:28]:
There's a way in which you do that. You slowly move to your niche and I help them understand kind of what that means. But you are getting out of the slow lane and into the fast lane big time. Make the transition, do it. It's going to pay off. And you come back around to the idea. You get to love what you do. Years from now, you're still that person doing that cool thing and that's fun.

Todd Howard [00:27:52]:
Why not do that?

Victoria Rayburn [00:27:53]:
Absolutely. And then Tod, on that note, too, have you found in your clients experience that when they do niche down, can they typically charge more? I mean, I know I kind of keep going back to photography examples, but definitely within the photography world, photographers who are shooting anything and everything tend to charge a lot less than those who are specialized in one area. Has that been like your experience across other industries?

Todd Howard [00:28:22]:
Absolutely. You can charge more. It's very important that you associate your higher price to that differentiator. So if you just say, hey, I'm really good at this, so I'm going to charge you more money, in the client's mind, they're kind of shaking their head, going, that doesn't add up. But when you say, I do these underwater shots, and so it's a different level of equipment, it's running a pool. There's several things that go into this. And so I charge accordingly. People go, that makes sense.

Todd Howard [00:28:54]:
People will spend money when it makes sense. You can't just say, I'm going to focus on a small group of people and charge more money, but not really give them justification, not give them a reason. And so when you find your niche, you find that justification. You all of a sudden have this story to tell and it doesn't sound made up. It's very legitimate. And people go, I get that. That makes sense. And once they realize they're getting a superior product, it doesn't feel like they're being charged for more.

Todd Howard [00:29:27]:
And so it's really important to take the customer to that point where they realize, oh, I'm not getting wedding photos, I'm getting these kinds of photos. I'm going to be able to do different things with these. This is art in my house, whatever it is, whatever it is for photography.

Victoria Rayburn [00:29:47]:
Absolutely. And then like Todd, like you mentioned, know, it's like when you niche down, you can make your marketing more specific, but I think it's also safe to say that you can make your client experience more specific. And I mean, in our experience, that's a great way to add value to what you're offering. Could you speak a little bit to that?

Todd Howard [00:30:04]:
Oh, yeah. So this is one example or one exercise I take business coaches through. I say, tell me your top five competitors. And they give me some names and we bring up their websites. Every single one of those competitors that they're working with offers the same sounding product. We meet x times per month, usually the same number of times per month. We charge this many hundred or this many thousand dollars. We give these kinds of things to our customers.

Todd Howard [00:30:35]:
Extremely generic, extremely similar. And I say when we get done, you're going to have a coaching product that maybe it's less, maybe it's more, but it's not going to be these average prices, it's not going to be these average offers. You're not going to meet with them the same number of times per month. You're going to have something extremely unique that caters to a specific thing that you're trying to accomplish. And sure enough, when we get done, and one of the things that I do when I help people find their niche is I help them build one product, one brand new product, or I can help them tweak an existing product and they realize there was an opportunity for them to come up with a product that was very different. It took their customer through a very different approach. The deliverables were very different, the price was different. And when you do that, people get really excited and you stand out.

Todd Howard [00:31:32]:
And so, absolutely, when you have a unique approach, the customer gets a unique experience. And customers want that. If they're going to spend a chunk of money on something, they want to tell somebody what it was like to go through the experience and they want to say, and then they did this and then they did this and sort of listing out these things that were surprises and that makes it fun for them to go through that experience. And it's hard to come up with these ideas until you find a niche. But once you find a niche, it's very easy to be creative and say, okay, what are the ways in which we could create this really unique experience as we deliver this unique approach?

Victoria Rayburn [00:32:17]:
I love everything about that. Okay, so, yes, niching down, it is a good idea. You can better serve your customers. You can stand out among your competition. You can most likely make more money. So, so many reasons to niche down now, Todd, I feel like people are listening and they're like, all right, I got to find my niche. I need to know. We got to get this together.

Victoria Rayburn [00:32:38]:
So you have a whole process for determining niches. Would you mind walking us through how a small business can determine their niche? And then also once a business has chosen their niche? Because, I mean, a lot of times, honestly, just working with small businesses day in and day out, a lot of times we witness small businesses, like, do the exercises, do the work, and then the implementation is where things get stuck. So how can people determine their niche and then how can they actually niche down?

Todd Howard [00:33:06]:
Okay, so the framework, at the beginning of the call, I was saying that I've come up with this methodical way that helps you find your niche. And so that has five components. The first component that I walk someone through is their unique abilities. You should not attempt to niche your business in an area where you cannot be a specialist. The positive way of saying that is you need to be a specialist. So we start with your unique abilities and find out what do we have to work with? What are your strengths? That's kind of the starting foundation. The second thing we do is we take a look at the customer journey. People are always interested in the customer transaction.

Todd Howard [00:33:48]:
They say, where do I make money? Okay, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do the thing that I need to do to make the money. And that's kind of as imaginative as they get. And I introduce this idea of a customer journey and say, look, your customer is trying to accomplish something much larger than just have this transaction. And if you can understand what they're trying to do, you can see that there's lots of ways that you can provide value to them. And so let's look at that and let's look for some ways that you can provide value. And I have a way that I help them do that. And we find some really good opportunities, niche opportunities.

Todd Howard [00:34:26]:
But before we sort of put a pin in it and say, okay, we got it. We got to do the third thing, which is we got to look at the competition. People get really worried about the competition. They feel like competitors are going to make it very hard for them to make money. There is a way to situate yourself in the competitive landscape and feel very confident that you are offering something unique. You might be even be offering something that's complementary to one of your competitors and gives you an opportunity for a partnership. Competitors are not bad guys. Competitors are people just like you trying to help your same customers in their way.

Todd Howard [00:35:09]:
And so we go through this whole thing. We make sure that you are doing something different from any of your competitors. And then we get to the point where we say, okay, now we have a unique approach. Now we have a niche idea that feels really solid. The fourth thing that we do is we take a look at your market. And this always surprises people. When people want to niche their business, they usually start with the market. That is a mistake.

Todd Howard [00:35:34]:
If you say to yourself, I really like working with. I'm trying to think of a photography example. I really like taking pictures of elderly people. I don't know. That's all I got on the moment. I want to do that. That may be who you want to choose, but that doesn't mean they would choose you. You might not have any expertise or any unique approach that really lends itself to those photos.

Todd Howard [00:36:05]:
You're just saying, I like working with the elderly. I like working with older people. I want to take their pictures. I'm sorry, that's such a silly example now that I think about it. But you get the point. You can't start with the market because you end up saying, this is my favorite market. You need to first find your unique approach and then say, which market out there is my unique approach best set up to serve? And if you find out that you are really, really good at underwater photography, the older folks market is not your best bet. You need to realize, okay, I need to start with my unique approach, put market off till later, and then say, okay, now that I know I can do this and no one else does this, who is it that's best for this? And that would lead you to say, could be young couples, whatever it ends up being.

Todd Howard [00:36:59]:
So market is the fourth component, and you actually choose your niche product. And there's a lot of things we learn about, I'm sorry, your niche market. There's a lot of things that I talk about around your niche market. How they think, who they are, what they look like, what they value, all of that. The fifth component is product. Again, this surprises people. When people think about their niche, the first thing they want to do is pick a market. Then they want to come up with some unique product out of the gate.

Todd Howard [00:37:27]:
You can't do that. You actually put product at the very end. Once you know your niche identity and you know who you're going to serve, then you build a product just for them. Your product could be so niched that it really doesn't make sense for anybody else to buy it but your niche market. And that gets very exciting because when your niche market runs across your product, they go, that is exactly what I needed. That is customized to me. And then people that aren't in your niche market are going to go, that's a cool idea, but I don't need that. These people are not going to get in your sales funnel.

Todd Howard [00:38:10]:
They're not going to have sales calls. They're not sort of clouding your marketing strategy. The only people that land in your funnel now are people that are exactly your customer and you shorten the sales cycle dramatically. So anyway, those are the five pieces that I walk through and just kind of a little taste of the kinds of things we talk about in these five sessions. I meet with them five times so that we go through one component at a time and by the end of five sessions, they come out the other end. They have their niche identity, they have a competitive analysis, they have niche market information, they have a product that they built. They understand how to build products, and they're like, okay, I'm ready. And then they can get into their marketing, their sales and all of that.

Todd Howard [00:39:01]:
But it starts with going through this methodical process of discovering what is your ideal niche.

Victoria Rayburn [00:39:08]:
Oh, man. At Treefrog, we love formulas. That's why we talk about the flywheel marketing method so often, because there are clear steps. So I just love how clearly that you laid it out. And I mean, as well, I love that you start with talking about what you're truly good at because, man, we spend a lot of time in our small businesses and it's so much more rewarding when you can function in your own zone of so absolutely, absolutely love the order of that. Now, Todd, I think probably some people are listening and thinking, I was, if I were starting a business, that sounds great. Those are the steps that I would take now that I know to take them. But what about if there is an existing business? Should they try to find a niche? What is that process really going to look like for them when they already have customers coming in the door and contracts signed and just a lot going on? Should they still niche down?

Todd Howard [00:40:13]:
Yeah, I highly recommend if you think that you could have a niche focus in your business and that's kind of a gut feel for a lot of people. Absolutely. You should find that out when you can find out, I need to be over there. You can start working your way there either slowly or quickly, depending on what you think the opportunity is going to be once you get there. I've never had someone, they find their niche, and then they want to call their customers that day and say, oh, I'm not working with you anymore. But a lot of people want to develop new products. You're looking for new customers. If you understand what your niche is, you can start saying to yourself, I want to find customers that are at least one step closer to my niche, one step closer to my niche market, and you can go to your sales team and say, look, let's update our sales scripts and start telling people, this is what we offer.

Todd Howard [00:41:06]:
Slightly different. You can go to your product team and say, or, sorry, I'm talking like, these are big companies, even if it's a small group, look at your products and say, okay, we're always updating our products. We're always improving them. Let's improve them in this direction. As a business owner, it gives you a strategic map where you can say, I need to start taking us this direction. Now. Whether you get there in a year, you get there in five years, or you get there in six months, that's up to you. That's a project decision where you say, okay, what are we talking about here? How big of a lift is it? But that's a tactical set of conversations.

Todd Howard [00:41:47]:
But as the leader, it's your job to be looking out at the horizon and saying, am I taking this business in the right direction? And when you know the biggest opportunity for our business, where we stand out, where our employees get the biggest jazz out of showing up for work, where the customers are most excited, it's over there that is incredibly empowering. And I have never heard of this. I've never had this happen, but I can't imagine it happening where a leader says, oh, I wish I didn't know, because now I have to go there. That doesn't even make sense as a leader of an organization, as quickly as things change, as many opportunities as there are to pivot, you kind of need to be a little nimble on your feet. And if you have a direction that you can take your business and a focus kind of something in the back of your mind that you're wanting to bring into reality, that is absolutely the right thing to do. Any leader should do that. I would highly recommend it. And whether you've been in business 510, 20 years, there's still opportunity to make those improvements.

Todd Howard [00:42:59]:
And if you can move towards your niche, the payoff is so much bigger. If you don't have a niche in mind, you're stuck competing on quality and price. And that is hard. It's very hard to convince the market I am better at this than everybody else because that's not provable. And so everybody says, well, I'm the best at this, so choose me. But that's a losing game. It's hard to compete on quality, and you don't want to compete on price. You don't want to say, well, I'll knock a couple of grand off.

Todd Howard [00:43:33]:
Choose me because that's just going to put you out of business. So move in the direction of your niche slowly or quickly, up to you. But that's what's going to help your business sustain. You're going to enjoy it. Employees are going to enjoy it. Customers are going to be the customers that really love what you do. So I would highly recommend it. And actually, the majority of my customers are people who have been in the business for a few years and they plateaued and they've looked around and admitted to themselves, I'm not standing out.

Todd Howard [00:44:07]:
And that's hard to do. But it's an important thing to say. If it's true I'm not standing out, there's no reason somebody would go and get really excited about me. I got to solve that problem. And those are actually most of the customers that I have. They're looking for that angle, that niche opportunity.

Victoria Rayburn [00:44:26]:
Oh, that's so good. And Todd, this might be a funny example, but this is just what is coming to mind. Right? So we're at the time of this recording, we are expecting a baby. This week. We did the whole fill out your registry on Amazon and holy cow, like, talk about such an overwhelming process. But in the process of looking for bowls and spoons and that kind of thing, I just knew I wanted two things. One, I wanted them to be organic. And then the other thing, like, if you can't tell the background of my office, we like neutrals in our house.

Victoria Rayburn [00:44:59]:
Grays and tans and just things that are very. So, like, when you start looking at sippy cups and things on Amazon, you're like, holy cow. I feel very overwhelmed. Why is everything hot pink for little girls? I can't handle it. So in this process, I found, like one set of bowls that were muted and more muted colors. They were organic. And then it's like you click on one thing and then it's like, oh, like these matching spoons and then from there, I went to the search bar, just typed that brand in to see everything they offered. And I mean, I added hundreds of dollars worth of stuff from this company.

Victoria Rayburn [00:45:35]:
And their niche is literally making organic baby utensils and putting them in colors that are not so ever loving bright. And I mean, that was just like a really easy way to stand out among the thousands upon thousands of products on Amazon. And again, we registered for so much stuff from this company specifically.

Todd Howard [00:46:02]:
Yeah, that's a great example. And that company, at some point, either over time or maybe they just kind of lucked out and found this in the very beginning. They figured this out and they figured out when we really lean into this identity of these, you use the word organic maybe three times. When we really lean into this and make this our identity and tell everybody, this is how we're different, we do these things, you got really excited and the mundane work of filling your registry turned into this fun thing. And I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm guessing a little bit you felt like, I just found my people. It's a little exciting to find something. You're like, this is kind of cool.

Victoria Rayburn [00:46:48]:
Especially when you're panicking, thinking everything in your house is about to be hot pink. And I'm like, I can't handle this. So, yeah, it was great.

Todd Howard [00:46:55]:
And you spent more money. So even if their products spoon for spoon, even if they're not more expensive, you bought more because they had this identity. They were in this category that you were looking for, kind of the marketing way to put it. But you found your people, you found your niche. You found out that you were in the niche market for that company. And once you found that, you got excited, you spent more. That's how this works.

Victoria Rayburn [00:47:26]:
Exactly.

Todd Howard [00:47:27]:
It's a great example.

Victoria Rayburn [00:47:28]:
Well, Tod, this conversation has been so amazing. Before we officially wrap up and sign off, where can people find you? Connect with you, learn more about the resources and assistance you offer small businesses and work with you so that they can figure out what their own niche is.

Todd Howard [00:47:47]:
Sure they can. Go to my website, growanichbusiness.com. I've got some free resources out there. Just come and get them. You can have them. It'll help you start thinking about this. And even if you think you kind of already have a niche idea, and a lot of people do, there's some resources out there where you can start implementing your niche idea in your business right now. And then if you're interested in actually going through this methodology and really honing in and finding it.

Todd Howard [00:48:17]:
You can schedule a call with me there on the site and I can tell you how to get into that workshop. And then for the people who like to follow on social media, I'm on Facebook and Instagram. Grow a niche business and always putting out good information that it's going to get you developing that niche, thinking that I was talking about earlier and start to hone in on the clients that you are really excited to.

Victoria Rayburn [00:48:41]:
And guys, if you are listening to, please, please check out Tod's resources. It can be so hard to have an objective view of your own business and figure out, like, okay, this really is what my niche should be. So yes, check everything out and can't recommend working with Todd enough. But Todd, thank you so, so much for coming on the show. This has been a wonderful conversation and I can't wait to see how our listeners niche their businesses down and take advantage of the many benefits of niching.

Todd Howard [00:49:16]:
Yeah, thank you, Victoria. This has been a lot of fun.