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10

Niche Markets

I’ll never forget the first time I knew, beyond any doubt, that I would eventually work for myself. I was 20 years old and working in retail. Every day I ate lunch by myself at the same pizza shop. Predictably, I got to know the owner, Jim, quite well.

So one day I walked in, and there was Jim behind the counter, reading a magazine. I ordered my usual, and Jim put down the magazine and started making my lunch. It was then that I saw the name of the magazine he was reading. It was called Pizza World.

Pizza World?

Yes, he was reading an actual magazine called Pizza World.

I asked Jim if I could see it, and he let me take a copy home. It was that night, when I read that issue of Pizza World, that my whole outlook on work and business changed. Here was a magazine I never saw on any newsstand — indeed, I had never heard of it. Yet it had a circulation of about 30,000. Inside, it was filled with articles and stories about running a pizza place, and more importantly, it was filled with advertisers, many of whom made their living selling products and services exclusively to little independent pizza places.

I was almost in shock as I realized that this was a little self-contained universe, right under my nose. There were pizza trade shows, there were pizza marketing newsletters, there were advertising agencies that only wrote ads for pizza places. There were even ads for custom pizza boxes (because, let’s face it — it would be pretty silly for every pizza place in town to have the same “You’ve tried the rest, now try the best” slogan).

I was stunned that this magazine even existed, and I was stunned that people actually made a living selling things to pizza places.

I started to think. Almost every neighborhood or town has a pizza place — some have three or four. I then looked at my road atlas and was overwhelmed at how many towns there were just within 50 miles of me. Hundreds of little pizza places right in my area. Imagine how many there are in the country? Imagine if you had a product or service that could really be used by pizza places? And you could reach most of them with an ad in Pizza World with very little competition? What if you could sell it to just one pizza place per county?

My mind raced.

Well, I’ll admit I never came up with a pizza product. I never worked in a pizza place, so I didn’t know much about the business. But that magazine taught me a valuable lesson: There are thousands of these little universes out there. All you have to do is open your eyes. Opportunity is everywhere you look. It’s just sort of “hiding.”

Just based on the above example, there’s a separate universe for auto parts stores, car washes, framing stores, karate schools, daycare facilities, septic tank cleaning, painting, plumbing, etc. Every one of them is a little niche.

There are enough little universes and niches out there that almost everyone has a skill or an idea that can be useful in one of these little universes. And with tools like the Internet, there is no reason why someone — anyone — with a little bit of smarts and some guts can’t make a good living working from home, offering something to the niche he or she knows a little bit about.

Working for yourself (or successfully running your business) begins with seeing an opportunity where most people do not. Most people would see a magazine called Pizza World and give it less pause than what’s on TV tonight.

But not you. Not anymore. Hey, even if you already have a business, I’ll bet you can think of a niche you can specialize in. It could be the start of something really big.

Think of all the things you’ve done in your life. The different jobs you’ve had. The different experiences you’ve had. I’ll bet for each job you’ve had, there’s something you know about that industry that the general public does not. Is there a service you can provide to that industry?

Perhaps you worked at a pizza place in your teens and early twenties, and maybe even became the night manager. You know all about pizza places — and about their customers. In fact, while you were working there, you probably said things like, “Man, the owner doesn’t know what he’s doing. If I ran this place, I’d …”

And, now as an adult, you’ve traded in your pizza apron for a college degree and a job in marketing. So you know pizza places, and you know marketing. Hmmm … maybe you can place an ad in Pizza World offering to assist pizza places with their marketing and advertising. Remember, all you need is a few clients — imagine if just two or three per state paid you $500 per year for your monthly “pizza place only” marketing newsletter and creative ads. (To make it desirable, tell them that you only allow one per county to sign up.)

Some pizza place owners will tell you to take a hike. In fact, most will. But there are a few who, if your newsletter is good enough, would happily pay, even if just to keep their competition shut out.

The beauty of something like this (which happens in more industries than you think) is that you write 12 newsletters and 12 packs of monthly ads. You can play golf the rest of the month if you want to (you won’t — you’ll be trying to get into other niches — but you could).

You need to find these niche market nuggets and mine them. How do you find them? OPEN YOUR EYES and notice things like odd little magazines called Pizza World.

Tip: Go to a big bookstore (such as Barnes & Noble, Borders, or Chapters, and look at their magazines. You will find all sorts of “odd” magazines. Buy a few and look at the ads. That should give you plenty of inspiration.

Other Types of Niches

I’m a big fan of horror, and while looking on the Internet for scary stuff for my basement, I came across the website of an artist who specializes in spooky paintings. Here’s a guy who’s an artist who has carved himself a niche selling his prints to the world. I bought several. I buy many products from small, home-based entrepreneurs: owl figurines (I like owls, too); sea otter shirts for my wife; old, out-of-print books.

Back when I was making custom golf clubs, I began by selling them on eBay. This is a great way to test the market for a product. (There are entire books about the inner workings of eBay, so I won’t go into detail here. Suffice it to say, listing a product is surprisingly easy: go online, sign up, and follow the instructions.)

My eBay experience let me know there was a market for my product, so I built a website. I eventually shut the business down, but the fact is, I found a little niche (custom golf clubs) and comfortably fit a product into it.

Niche markets are everywhere. It’s up to you to fit yourself into one (or create one). Perhaps you have a talent that is perfect for a niche, or you can make a product, or you have some professional knowledge or skill that a niche could find useful. It’s a big world out there — find your niche and carve your place.

A Small Numbers Game

A few years ago I wrote the following on an online business forum. It puts starting a home-based business into perspective:

… here’s one of the key things that keeps me going in my entrepreneurial endeavors: It’s a HUGE world out there with an untold number of different flavors, varieties, tastes, wants, and needs. Knowing that, I’ve always felt that there HAS to be something I can offer or do that will result in just 30 people or companies paying me two to three thousand dollars each per year.

I wasn’t looking to make a million bucks or break through with a best-selling product. I didn’t want to be Wal-Mart, or even Dan-Mart. All I wanted was 30 companies or people in the entire world to pay me two to three thousand dollars a year for my services. That’s $60,000 to $90,000 per year. Heck, if I looked hard enough, I could probably find 30 local companies to pay me two grand annually just to clean their offices or something.

When you look at it in numbers like that, all of a sudden succeeding in a home-based business doesn’t seem so daunting, does it?