For a lot of consultants, picking a niche is hard. Good positioning hurts.
On the one hand, you can see the benefits of being a sought-after specialist.
But the other hand, it feels like you’re saying no to so much opportunity. It feels like being a generalist will broaden your appeal, but it doesn’t.
I do believe you can specialize and generalize at the same time. You don’t have to choose if you don’t want to.
At least for a while.
But by far, the most opportunity for growth and leverage for consultants is through specialization.
Nobody wants more information. They want more specific information. More easily applied to their unique situation.
They want to hire people who have seen their problems before and can bring solutions that will just work.
Makes sense, right?
If they can’t find such a person, they will then settle for a generalist. But you’ll never be their first choice when given the option to work with you or a specialist.
If you’re a newer consultant, I recommend working with as many people as you can until you start to see patterns around who you can best serve and how.
You can then begin tightening your focus as you build specialization.
But if you want to grow your consultancy past trading time for money, you’ll want to start refining your niche eventually.
Your knowledge and expertise will become rarer. You’ll become less interchangeable as as consultant. You’ll charge higher rates.
And the best part is, you’ll be able to package and sell your expertise more easily at scale. You can sell courses, books, membership programs, group coaching, subscriptions, and other forms of leverage.
People will go out of their way to work with and buy from people who specialize in their unique situation. That’s leverage.
You’ll also be able to refine your ideas down to a specific methodology that people will want to buy at a lower cost in the form of info products and one to many offerings.
Without leverage, you don’t have a business, you have a job.
Niche to find leverage.