Category: Moving Ahead

Finding Your Niche & Making It Your Own

If you had been in a discussion about starting your own business you have heard most of these before:

  1. Oh, that’s already been done.
  2. Nothing new or great in that.
  3. Too much competition there.
  4. Nobody will buy that.
  5. That’s impossible.

There are a couple of things I want to point out here. If you are in these discussions or these aspects demotivate you there is a very vital part of starting a business that you have missed.

How To Find Your Niche Market

All these doubts and uncertainty will melt away as soon as you zero in on your niche. Unfortunately deciding on your niche is not as easy as it seems. When you work on zeroing your niche a strong counter intuitive force will come to play that will leave you confused and undecided.

When you niche it down your target market becomes specific and then you get worried about ignoring all the business that could otherwise come to you.

Strangely you will find this dilemma so deep-rooted that it may leave you almost perplexed. But here is what you need to do:

  • Identify problems you can solve
  • Research your target market and competition
  • Determine Profitability of your niche

If you completed the first exercise and used the idea generation tool, it’s time to expand on it and pass your ideas through above three filters.

What are the pain points of customers that you are planning to solve? “What keeps them up at night” The viability of your project greatly lies in correctly finding a pain area and then providing a solution in a “right way” at the “right time”

Don’t hesitate to research your target marketing and the competition. The most effective way of doing this is directly talking to your target market. Have one to one conversations with your target market, extract ideas and peel off the intricacies. This will help you pinpoint the problem and design an effective solution.

Don’t forget to use other obvious resources like peruse internet forums (Quora) or Google AdWords for your research. You will get some great pointers there.

Here is an important point… if you find competition in your niche there is a possibility that good money is being made in it. But you could avoid getting into a niche that’s too competitive or even finds ways to stand out in a competitive market… create a unique offer or bring one with a twist.

Keep your eyes open and sense the opportunity, You could be immensely successful in a crowded market or in the one still untapped.

Here are some pointers:

  • Low-quality content on websites, poor presentation of problem solution, lack of sense of service to the customers.
  • Presence of faceless or overly corporate players (You may disrupt these markets with just being authentic and transparent)
  • Niche with high “search volume” with low competition which also has a lack of paid competition.

If you reached this far the things will start unraveling for you and you will have newfound comfort with the target market you want to operate in. You will have clarity of your niche and at-least a couple of ideas that you would bet on.

But be cautious… You should assess the profitability of your ideas. This will greatly enhance your chances of success.

If your business is brick and mortar open up the yellow pages or do an actual “walk and jot” about what your niche looks like. If you are into internet based niche go straight to site like clickbank.com and search for your keyword.

In any case, if you don’t find an “overabundance” of operators it’s a good sign. You are in luck. Do make a note of price points and what the offer looks like. This will help you later to design a really competitive offer.

Side Note 1: Remember that you don’t have to necessarily start a business with a product offering of your own. You can always partner with product creators, advertisers or site owners in your niche. This will help you begin generating commissions while you’re working on your own unique offering.

Side Note 2: While due diligence is important to find a viable niche it’s better to get up and running than wait around forever. You want to enter the market sooner and take home all the success and failures. If you succeed, well and good, if not, you should be ready with your next big idea.

So there you have it…Almost everything you need to know to finalize your niche. If you are still have questions and need help to get this going (finalizing your niche). Just claim your FREE 15 minute consult by clicking here.

How To Find Your Passion and Become a Successful Entrepreneur

The best way to succeed is to work on your passion. Doing what you are passionate about automatically increases your chances of success…Why?

Because once you are working on your passion you don’t have to answer those intelligent questions:

  • Why are you doing this?
  • What will it do for you?
  • Will it make you money?
  • How long can you do that?
  • Why not do xyz… Joe did that and made millions.

Being passionate about something will help you overcome challenges. People would love to know more about what you are doing and if they can do it too. Everyone wants to find their purpose and they want to work with someone who is passionate about what he or she does.

But what if you don’t know what you are passionate about? Whatever you do you just can’t figure it out. If you are putting off your dreams to be successful in life doing what you are passionate about…you are not alone.

The trick is to somehow zero in on something that you might love doing and people would be willing to pay you for it. Now, how difficult is doing that?

Finding out what you are passionate about.

Now here are some pointers on how you might uncover what you are passionate about…

  • Follow your curiosity. What are you generally curious about? Even if you are not sure what passion you need to follow in life, everyone has one curiosity or the other. Nurture it! Find out how far can you go with it. Would you like to know more, learn better something about or even teach others? You might well be on to something.

It might not be initially obvious but as you uncover layer by layer what you are curious about and why… You might well have a cue or something you would be passionate about.

  • Don’t think about feasibility and money. Believe it or not, but years of conditioning and logic can kill an idea even before it is born. Some of the best ideas or inventions that made a fortune were initially ridiculed or banished as a waste of time. If you have the filters of feasibility and money making from the start…There is high likelihood you will severely limit your possibilities.

For a moment explore your ideas freely. Think about what you would love doing. Is it a hobby, interest or an activity? Is it something you were great at younger…? Is there something you are really good at now? Do you always get kudos for something from your friends and family? Catch those ideas and you would be sitting on a list of ideas that could be your passion.

  • Don’t be afraid to quit if something is not working. A lot of people realize what they are doing daily…is not their passion. They picked up a job, profession or a business they no more chime with… but still stay in the position they hate nonetheless.

The main reason they don’t leave what they are doing is they are not sure what they will do with there lives.

Staying with what you hate will not allow you to learn or discover your ideal career. If the current situation is not working for you its time you called quits.

So act fast, Start new and fail quickly! If you find something that ticks for you-you will know. But you will never do if stuck with the old. It’s time you stretch yourself and lookout for the new.

I have put in considerable time to find what I love doing and it has been changing over time. I never carried an idea for too long if it was not working. The process of unraveling your passion is continuous and many a times its peeling off the layers from what you are currently doing.

Here is a simple method that might help you find your calling. This is an idea generator tool. Struggling with ideas that you would want to go to the market and sell? Now methodically zero in on your best business idea. Use this worksheet to brainstorm and come up with a list of ideas that you would go to market with. Enter you details below to download- Idea Generator Tool: How to zero in on your money making the field.

The Duality of Life: Exploring Deeper Meaning In Life

Seems like yesterday when my Dad was in town with me and we went shopping with a “grocery list” in a mall. Now, this is the period when the Indian economy was in a boom, shopping malls were an “in” thing and everyone was discussing how our pet small shop owners will be pushed out of business…

The Duality of Life

Interest rates were at all-time low. There was a competition between cities on how much they could expand. This is also the time new employees were treated like god and goodies that would never stop… But then I digress…

In no time I had my shopping cart full of grocery items (full to the brim) I looked at my Dad and I noticed he was not amused at all… I was not sure what was going on. But then he patiently waited while I got everything billed.

Contended that I had bought everything that was needed this month. Since my parents are here this would be a big relief to my wife too. But I was also curious why my dad had this look all the while I was stuffing my shopping cart.

So I asked my Dad casually…Well, Dad, We have checked off all the things we needed this month and bit more (Me grinning).

I noticed my Dad get serious as he was gazing through the busy traffic. “You should not buy more than what you need”.

Now I was jolted but I kept calm and pretended to have understood what he meant.

I kept on thinking…

Maybe he is not comfortable with the “Shopping Mall” idea… or he can’t fathom the easiness our generation has brought in for everything. Whatever…probably a matter of generation gap.

Since Dad spoke less and meant what he said…I figured maybe I will strike this discussion later when it sinks a bit into me.

Fast forward some 10 years later I happen to read about the duality of life for the first time…

You know the sh#@t:

“Every aspect of life is created from a balanced interaction of opposite and competing forces” and Yet these forces are not just opposite they are also complimentary.

There is no canceling effect but these actually balance each other like dual wings of the bird.

The concept of duality opens a window for you. Through which you can understand the relative effect of an action or phenomenon.

For something to be of value to us, it has to have an opposing force. For example “up” means that because you know what “down” is. Similarly, you have young-old, sweet-sour, fast-slow, bright-dim, rich-poor, male-female, liberal-conservative and so on.

Get the idea?

Worth mentioning the most profound duality is the “Duality of life and death”. That must be the reason we find the idea of death so scary. Since we are alive we will experience death. But then that must be a gateway to whole another nonphysical world.

Life and death make the experience “Whole” and this applies to almost every aspect of life. Most of our value-based conflicts have roots in our inability to appreciate duality.

Just as death is incomprehensible to us. So is our nature to understand other people views or the values they bring to the table.

We lack perception to another side of duality because we were never educated about it. And the worst we were told to stay away from it! (success-failure, correct-wrong, good-bad)

We need to expand our consciousness to understand how this world works and what we are here for…

To live this life to the fullest understanding duality is a good starting point. Why should you not appreciate your life? Be thankful, filled with gratitude and live it out fearlessly while you are at it?

Coming to buying what you need…

Every-time you buy “more” than what you need someone in this world gets “less” than what he needs.

As for my Dad when I mentioned him about duality and that I understood why someone should buy just what he needs… He smiled and kept on with the daily chore. (Will have to catch up with him some time)

But the aspect of duality is much deeper and hidden almost in everything we see and encounter in life. Being conscious of your own and your surroundings are important. And it can help you live a much more meaningful and fulfilling life.

If you are not sure how you can step into higher consciousness, self-awareness and be at ease with your surroundings…

Click the link below right now and book a free 30-minute self discovery call with me.

Where I will help you ascertain your current level of consciousness and what you could possibly do to live a more meaningful and rewarding life. If you like what you learn you may follow them or if not just carry on with your life.

Click Here Now!