How To Choose Who Gets To Give You Money

Would you like to choose who walks into your clinic/office and who pays you for the services you provide? Who wouldn't right?! Now if you are still stuck on having to save the world from the goodness of your heart (i.e. for free) then this article may be a little too unconventional for you. I'm going to show you how to choose who you serve and how to make money too (they are not mutually exclusive).

I'm talking about niche (not Nietzsche the German philosopher), the people you want to reach in your work. The old business model says the market dictates your niche. The new model says you choose your niche. You choose who you want in your practice.
Who Will You Choose?

* 'anyone who wants my services'
* 'as many people as possible' (splutter, cough)

The old model is based on the idea that you must choose a lucrative market and be sensible. Be sensible! sensible=unhappy=unsuccessful

Why Have A Clear Niche?

If you work with the people you love, you'll be happier, grow your business faster and make more money. When you work with the people you love, you can't help being happy. Your happiness is attractive and your people will be more attracted to you and refer more people. Your growing business makes you more money which makes you happier which makes the people you love bring more people you love, which makes you happy and attractive which.........you get the picture.

So Who Do I Love?

Figure out exactly who you love and you suddenly become a big fish in a little pond. Be very specific about the niche you choose. Don't start thinking: 'female, 20-40, two kids.' That is your demographic. It is a small part of niche but the bigger part is your niche's psychographic (their attitudes, their desires in life, their hobbies, what they read, where they hang out).

5 Steps To Choosing Who I Love

1. Make a list of 10 things you are really good as a service provider
2. Of the above list which things come naturally to you (your talents) vs. the things you learned to do
(your skills)
3. Make a list of 5 things your competition does badly and look here
4. Make a list of 10 of your favorite clients (go on I won't tell)
5. Look at your lists and see if you can extract 3 or 4 themes

Concentrate more on your talents than your skills. I'm a very good technical chiropractor and a very good teacher but teaching is my real talent and joy. As an example, some of you may have been born to do something manual. You may feel the magic in your hands. You may be a natural comedian and your favorite people are the ones that laugh at all your jokes.

You may be a talented organiser (you've been organising your life since the age of five) and you could run your business with your eyes closed. For others it may be that you have a real talent for being patient and calm and could spend days working with the older clients who come in wearing three piece suits. Now extract 3 or 4 themes from the above lists.

If you really look closely, you will start to get a sense of your niche. My themes confused me initially (creativity, style, teaching, ideas, fun, posture, writing). My themes made it clear that my niche weren't really the clients that I see in practice. I now spend 2/3 of my time working away from practice on other projects (mostly within chiropractic and health).

'Sell To The Problem'

One of the most important lessons I have learned about niche is to sell to the problem (that lesson I learned from best-selling author John Williams). Once you know who your niche are, ask yourself what problem you are solving for them. Is it solving acute leg pain from disc herniations (a friend of mine is crazy about a chiropractic technique for people with slipped discs and would happily choose to work with these people all day-his niche).

Are you solving the problem of time? You could be offering business executives a quick in and out service. Are you solving the problem of boredom? Maybe you could provide a slow-paced office where your clients linger before and after their appointments.

Get really specific about your niche's problem and then sell to that problem. Market yourself as THE person who solves THAT problem. Spell it out in your marketing and advertising.

Stop selling that which is marketable unless the current trend is truly 'your thing' (your niche). Everybody does that. If you want to be truly happy and successful then you need to choose who gets to give you money.

So, who do you want to love?

Paula Moore is a Brighton based speaker, chiropractic and co-author of Abundant Health. She has a fanatical interest in posture correction. She teaches people, interested in health, how to get great posture so they age well. You can visit her at PostureVideos.