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Creating a product or providing a service has always been about solving problems. Whether you're eliminating a step to a process, giving someone aid, or simplifying an action, businesses are built to solve problems.

So my question is: how do you determine who to serve in your business?

There are two answers to this question and they can both revolve around similar people.

First, you should determine your niche for your business start-up. What topics or overarching themes do you associate with your business? A niche helps you determine what type of topics, products, or services you can provide. If you are an interior designer, you would relate your posts, clients, and suppliers with your overarching theme of interior design. You can whittle it down to a particular type of interior design, like upper-class, minimalists, or businesses, but essentially you would want to remain close to others within your niche.

So, how do you determine who to serve? Let’s dive in.

Defining your niche

As previously explained, your niche can be pretty general in the scheme of things. You can have sub-niche that further identifies what your interests are for your niche, but you essentially want to understand the overarching topic your business is covering.

Determining a niche can be a really fun process. You aren’t going into much detail here, but you do want to be fairly passionate and interested in this topic and its problems.

Interests

Look into some of your favorite interests for inspiration. While you might not do anything professionally with it now, you can still turn your hobby into a profitable business. Many people have been able to take up a skill that can be in high-demand without them realizing it has value to a particular community.

However, just because it interests you, that doesn’t mean you should profit from it.

For example, I’ve always enjoyed calligraphy and lettering as a designer, but I know very little and have never practiced as a calligrapher. While this is an interest, you should look into interests that you invest your time in regularly if you pursue them as a small business or money-making blog.

Educational/Professional Experience

The easiest way to determine your niche is to play off your professional and educational experience. Using your education and professional experience helps you understand and gain expertise within a niche quickly.

I’ve seen many people start on their businesses after working under a big or smaller company for several years. If you’ve learned a lot from another profession or career, expand on it in your business.

On the other hand, if you are burnt out from profession or no longer are passionate about your career or education, consider another niche that you are passionate about. If you don’t have a driven attitude about your topic, you won’t want to pursue your business start-up for long.

Lifestyle

You’ve probably seen this in many different ways, like momtrepreneurs, frugal-living, and healthy-living lifestyle blogs who can cover a large range of topics but keep their business ideas under the umbrella of a lifestyle.

Not only does this niche allow you to cover a broad range of topics, but it allows you to go in many directions as well. You can still cover other niche topics without leaving your own, such as talking about travel destinations, interior design tips, and personal banking, all within one lifestyle niche.

Creating a business within a lifestyle niche can be eye-opening. You can use your personal experiences to create a business and make money from your lifestyle. It might seem super easy, but can be fairly difficult when you don’t specifically stick to one topic for your viewers to depend on.

Defining your target audience

Your target audience is much more defined than your niche. Way more defined. If your niche is the umbrella, your target audience should be a specific raindrop that lands on your umbrella. You should only let certain raindrops land on it and the others should fall off accordingly.

While, essentially, you might want to attract more customers, defining your target audience will help your business find and retain loyal customers to your brand. In comparison to attracting shallow customers who contribute very little to your small business.

Research your niche

Researching your niche is a great way to determine your target audience. By researching, you should be able to find common problems that surround your niche, who is affected by those problems and can start thinking of ideas to fix those problems.

As you determine the typical stereotype that associates with your niche, see if the stereotype needs help or if you would be better assisting the opposing stereotype. You might find interior design niches are populated with single women, but should you cater to men living by themselves? Or do you care about their gender enough to include it in your target audience, and focus more on the fact that single-living people need help with interior design?

Not every research idea will come back fruitful but it will help you determine where and what problems you can solve for your niche.

Talk to others in your niche

You might get tired of people saying this but: physically talk to people about your niche.

In today’s world, it can be easy to hide behind a computer monitor, I’m doing it right now, but it’s important to have verbal feedback about your target audience. Talking with others will help you have a first-hand account of the perception of your business.

By talking to people, you are more likely to determine what your business can do within your niche. Not only do I suggest you talk to potential clients, but also competitors, vendors, and mentors. These people will help you narrow down exactly who you’ll want to connect with when your business starts.

Observe groups, social media, and hangout spots

There are very few ways for niches to be anti-social about their niche. Most people will pursue that common connection and take advantage of it.

This can be seen in many ways, either in a public space or virtual. Most public spaces can offer you a way to interact with like-minded individuals in an easy-going manner, such as a club at school or the library perhaps.

Virtually, you see many people creating a hashtag for their niche or interacting with a Facebook Group that is invested in similar interests. Checking out these forums will help you determine who might need the most help or who isn’t interacting and why that may be the case.

Build a Negative Persona

Kothand refers to a negative persona as the last portion of your target audience. Once you’ve determined your target audience, try to envision your negative persona, anyone you would not want to participate in your business start-up.

Your negative persona doesn’t have to be the complete opposite of your target audience. Your target audience might be specific, but remember that the negative persona would be a bit more general in who you would not like to work with.

Such as, I prefer to work with singles who want to start their own business. I wouldn’t say my negative persona consisted of married couples, partners, or groups looking to start a small business together. I would probably refer to my negative persona as being a family start-up business or family-oriented.

Starting a business can be fairly daunting, but with the right tools and research beforehand, it can become easier and profitable. No one has all the right answers to what you should do in or for your business, but following your target audience and niche should give you a better idea for how to accomplish your goals.

Need more business advice or help determining your niche and target audience? Join my e-newsletter for advice, tips, and recommendations for your business start-up.