You Will Never Know If You Are Solving A Real Problem Until You Work In Niche Markets

The details of a matter are its most problematic aspect, this is why they say “the devil is in the details”. This idiom refers to no matter how simple things may look, a mysterious element remains hidden in the details making the story or the thing complicated and causing problems. This analogy reveals the importance of niche businesses in explaining profit and sustainable growth. As an Optometrist, you can simply opt to solve everything for everyone but it will be hard to know whether you are the only practitioner to solve a specific problem or provide the only service available to a specific condition. Everyone will recognize that you are good at what you are doing, maybe you have been practicing for decades, invested a lot of money and time to improve your practice and skills, you have been satisfied with what you are doing, and you did very well. However, when the hits, you find yourself forced to downsize and maybe stop your business. No one asked about you, no one remembered you, and you couldn’t do anything. Your only mistake was that you fought to offer everything to everyone and no one recognized you for the one thing you did no one else can do. If you have been through this or if you understand what this means you certainly acknowledge the power of niche.

The last thing an Optometrist wants to become having invested many years studying and learning is a commodity entrepreneur. Susan Friedmann, author of “Niches To Riches: How to Make It BIG in a Small Market,” suggests nichepreneur is a better form of entrepreneurship that anyone can achieve by identifying a specific professional area and specializing by becoming an expert in something through continuous training, improvement, and marketing. In her book, Susan points to seven strategies for using a very small niche to make a very big splash. Author and marketing guru, Seth Godin, appears to agree on Susan’s thoughts about niche power. His book, Small Is the New Big, brings about the power to identify and serve niche markets. He provides cases of how savvy business owners take advantage of small markets, no matter how large their companies are. He is famously quoted as “obsessively specialize. No niche is too small if it’s yours”. In his book he asserts that companies don’t have to look at the biggest possible market. However, their mind should be focused towards identifying the smallest possible market that can sustain growth; meaning bringing something to that group of people that they can’t imagine being without.