Finding a niche the key to entrepreneurship

© alphaspirit – 123RF.com

We had lunch together in the late 1980s and after lunch we went to one of the presentations together at the national speaker's conference. We came in a little late; the conference presentation had already started, and there was a speaker who had just published a book about megatrends who was talking about the trends of the future and how if you're not into those trends, you're not going to be in business soon.

Brian and I are sitting in the back row and Brian whispered to me, "Do you buy any of this?" I replied, "No." "Do you follow that?" "No."
And the audience was buying it. They believed the message; they were missing out on one of the keys of entrepreneurship, which is that one has to find a niche where the service provided matches the world's needs. Yes, you have to find out what people are needing.

But you don't want to sacrifice your inspiration and most meaningful service for only doing what you're going to make a lot of money or you're going to end up being unfulfilled. And people who've made money who are unfulfilled with that money, often become, impulsive, immediate gratifying or even addictive in their behaviour to compensate for the unfulfilment.

Fulfilling your values

Any time you aren't fulfilling your highest values, you'll automatically be vulnerable to immediate gratification. You'll start buying items to give you immediate gratification but that won't fulfil you long-term. The people who are fulfilled are the ones who are doing something they love doing; they've found their niche where they can tap dance to work.

Donald Trump loves education and loves what he does. Richard Branson loves what he does. Real entrepreneurs are the people who are actually inspired by what they do. And it doesn't necessarily have to be one business, they could have multiple businesses. They love inventing, innovating creative ideas that fill niches. And they find the niches that inspire them or that they can find specialists who love what they do, and delegate to them lower priority actions.

You don't necessarily have to be the one that does the work to fill those niches. You don't have to be the innovator and the inventor. You may find somebody who's already created the innovation or the invention and they have somebody else taking care of it, somebody who they have delegated to. You can go into partnership or you can do it solo. You can do it in a big organisation or a small one. Finding a niche can be within an existing organisation or it can be a completely new idea.

Entrepreneur inside a company

There was a woman who I once consulted for. She was afraid of going out on her own and becoming an entrepreneur, so I suggested, why not be an entrepreneur (intrapreneur) inside your company? She asked me to explain. I said, well, an entrepreneur inside a company is somebody who finds a niche inside a company that can be valuable. I asked her, "What is done inefficiently inside the company that you know you can do a more efficient job at and that you would love to do, something that would make you more effective and valuable in the company?".

I suggested that she put a proposal together and offer a better and more effective and efficient service to the company, possibly at a lower price, so that her service would not only be better, but would also save the company money. That way she could expand her business inside that company. And we sat down and we brainstormed for a couple of hours. Then she put together a little business plan and she sent the proposal to her company in Dallas, Texas. And guess what happened? She got a promotion and her offer was accepted, because she cared enough about the company to go and fill a niche.