How to Choose a Niche

Today’s training I’m going to dig into the topic, the concern, the issue of trying to choose a niche if you’re just getting started. I think for most of you, it’s trying to choose an angle within your niche.  We could call that a sub-niche, we could call that an angle, or a deeper angle within your niche.  The reason that I’m doing this is … I frequently get the question “How do you choose a profitable niche?”, “How do you choose a profitable angle?”, “How do you choose a profitable part?” of the internet. 

I’ve always avoided teaching on this folks, because, I don’t believe that there’s any one-size-fits-all answer.  It varies per person.  It varies depending on the type of niche that you’re going to go into. And, it varies over time.  And, so, when I do a training like this, I like it to be evergreen.  I want it to be something that folks can use.  I don’t want to create something that’s good for three weeks.  I like to create something that is long term.  And, yet, I get these questions a lot.

So, what I’ve done is I’ve put some thought into exactly how I can position this so that it’s something that everyone can use, and that offers you the various options.  Almost like branches on a tree.  Gives you different options.  If this won’t necessarily work, you can do this.  I’ll present it to you in such a way that you’ll be able to see the thought behind it.  Because the truth of the matter is, even though it’s very, very difficult, I’m going to try and to that today.

It’s very, very difficult to give you, it’s certainly not a one-size-fits-all, but even a tree solution, where there’s 3 or 4 solutions, but there may still be a 5th or 6th solution.  The truth of the matter is, if someone comes to me, and I do a private call with them, and I dig in, and I ask them a few questions, I can almost always, no matter what the niche is, I can almost always direct someone to a profitable corner of their niche.

Really, just by asking a handful of questions and digging in.  They’re going to be different for each person.  But, really being able to dig in, I’m able to come up with that.

And, so the more I think about it, I say well, if I can come up with it, and if I give you enough information, then you should have a starting point to be able to come up with it for yourself.

Without further ado, let’s kind of dig into it.

There are two different starting points when you choose a niche. You may be looking for a niche or a sub-niche, or an angle in your niche, because you already have an interest in something.  You have an interest, you know that that interest is something, well, it interests you.  But, you don’t know what part of the business might be profitable.  You don’t know what part of the business people are looking for information.  One of the things it’s important for us to remember in this industry is, we can have the best information in the whole world, but if nobody is looking for that information, you’ll never sell any of it.

I want you to just imagine that you’ve created a brand new recipe, for a new salad.  But, it’s absolutely disgusting, and nobody would ever want to eat it, nobody would want to serve it.  You could make that recipe, and you could put it online.  You could make pictures of it. You could put a price on it.  It may be a phenomenal recipe.  But, nobody wants it.  Because it tastes bad.  Nobody is going to be looking for it online.  So, you won’t have any buyers.

When you’re in a position where you say.  I have a particular interest.  I want to be able to help people.  I know there’s people out there who need help, but I don’t know exactly what they need help with.  That’s what we’re kind of talking about right here.  You have an interest, and you want to dig deeper.

There’s another branch here.  That is, you may be in this boat as you’re listening, you’ve got this idea that you want to get involved online, and all you want to do is make money.  You don’t care what niche that you get involved in.  All you want to do is make money. 

I would submit to you, that until you develop an interest. You’ll probably never make money. 

Here’s the thing, we hear a success story.  You hear them on the radio, or the TV, an infomercial success story, every so often.  Somebody will say, “Oh, all I wanted to do was to make money.  And, I found a friend who was making money in a particular niche.  And I just copied what he did, and oh, I’m making money too.”

The problem is, that’s a rare occurrence.  Like, maybe one in a million, or one in two million.

The question is, you’re building your business right now.  Do you want to take a one in a million shot?  That you MIGHT be able to do something that will make you a full-time income. That might do really, really well.  Or, do you want to be a part of a one in two shot, or one in three shot that you can build something solid?

The thing is, if you’re going into the business just for the sake and the purpose of making money.  With NO outside interest at all.  That’s exactly what I believe you have.  You’ve got a one in a million, or one in two million shot.

Unless you’re willing to stake your family’s future, the other 999,999 slots on FAILURE.  I think a lot of times when people hear odds like that, they’re like “Hey, one person did it! So, I can do it”.  Hey, you’re right, you can do it. 

But, if 999,999 other people failed, in order for that ONE person to succeed.  What we’re really talking about is a 99.9999% failure rate.

Is that what you want?

My guess is, it’s not.

In order for you to choose a niche where you’re going to make money … I believe … you’ve got to start with some interests.

Throw the money aside … forget about the money … find places online where people have needs, real needs.  Then work on filling those needs. As you’re filling those needs, you can then look for pockets of needs where people are willing to pay money. 

Because if people are willing to pay money, and there’s a lot of people that have that need, then you can make good money selling in that particular arena.

But, if you just start from a position of making money, the odds are very, very slim.

In either case, whether you’re looking for a niche, or a sub-niche.  Looking for that best angle.  Or, if, unfortunately, you’re in the place where, hey, I just want to make money, I’ve got 1 or 2 ideas of things I might be interested in.  What I’m getting ready to share with you will give you kind of the road map to making that happen.

The first thing that we have to do.  We have to find out what are interests and needs that need to be met.  We can brainstorm this, and by the way, rather than just giving you four different ways that you can do this. I want you to understand the why behind it.  Because if you happen to be in a niche, or an interest, where the 3 or 4 ways I give you won’t work.  If I give you the background for WHY you would use these, then you can find something that will work for you. 

The bottom line is, what you’ve got to do is find out 2 things.  Number 1, are there people in your interest area that have needs that are being unmet?  And then 2, are the people who have needs that are unmet, are they willing to invest money with you?

You’ve got to find out both of those things. 

Folks have talked about in the past, and it’s a fallacy, that you can just go online, do some quick research, find out how many people have needs, find out how much money they’re willing to spend, and well, voila, you have your answer.  I don’t know that it EVER worked, but, if it ever worked, it doesn’t work anymore. 

One of the old methods, and I think at one point I even taught an iteration of this, one of the old methods, when the internet was young.  You would go online, and you would look for something that had lots of searches online, and it didn’t have too many advertisers.  But, it had some.  The theory was, if there were some advertisers, well some people must be making money.  People don’t pay advertising if it’s not working in the long run.  You might start out advertising, but after a few weeks, or a few months of not making money, they tend to quit. It just works that way.

We could look at some old formulas, and we could say, hey, if people are advertising, and lots of people are asking the question, well then, somebody is making some money, so maybe there’s room for one more entrant.

Another thing we could look at. We used to create these fancy algorithms to say if there’s 100k searches, but there’s only 5 advertisers, or whatever the case is, then we would say, well, now, that’s a competitive niche, that’s ultra-competitive, maybe stay out of it.  All of these different types of things.

The truth of the matter is, that today, number 1, it’s much more difficult to get that search information.  And, by the way, if you think you’re getting that search information today, double check.  There’s a strong possibility that wherever you’re buying it from, is selling you information that’s really 3 years old.  But, they’re recalibrating it so that it looks like new information.  The reason I say that is, to the best of my knowledge, for the most part, the providers of that information are no longer providing it anymore.  The raw data is no longer there.

Now, there’s a huge industry around selling that information.  But, the information doesn’t really exist anymore.  Certainly not, to my understanding, they way that it used to.  If that’s the way they used to look at it, but it doesn’t work anymore.  What else do we do?  We’ll talk about that in the next post!

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