Itch Your “Niche”

By Bruce Lund, NEXTPERT
Topic: Career Development, Marketing, Networking, Personal Branding, Success Strategies, Reputation Management, Social Media, Entrepreneurship, Gen Y, Job Searching

 www.nextpert.net

A “niche” is a specific area of expertise that you are known for being great at and concentrate the majority of your time and energy doing. Every serious professional needs to be known for a SPECIFIC AREA of EXPERTISE! A person who is known as a “jack-of-all-trades” is somebody who hasn’t found their niche yet. We can all be known as being versatile but eventually you want to be the “go to” person for a particular area. This will make your hard skills indispensible.

Understanding Your Niche

• Just because you become known for something doesn’t mean you are not skilled at other “important” positions or areas. It simply means you are an expert in/on one area. For the longest time I always thought having many different skills is invaluable but I soon found out I was never the “go to” person in any one particular area.
• A “niche” is very similar to a hard skill in the sense that you are known for extraordinary work in one particular area. All companies need people that can sell and this is a hard skill that will always be touted because nothing happens until something is sold. Your niche as a salesperson will be in high demand. But there are thousands of other niches such as web design, marketer, and public relations to name a few.
• The best way to figure out your niche is to figure out what you are passionate about, what you are naturally talented at, and where there is a need for this in the world (what you can make a living doing). Figure out how you can leverage your different networks to get a start in your niche. Begin researching it and don’t put it off tomorrow. Call up local businesses with niche experts in your area and ask them these two simple questions. What does your best day look like and what does your worst day look like? This will help you understand what you are potentially in for. Spend each day sharpening your niche until you’re ready to take the next step.

Don’t feel like you are pigeonholing yourself into one field. If you are still unsure of what you want to do, the only way to figure it out is to get around it and do it. You may be in the process of becoming a marketer and realize community work is your forte but either way the only way to find out is to do it.

Bruce Lund is the Founder & CEO of NEXTPERT, a training and consulting firm offering insight and strategies to help recruit, train, and retain the best of the Next Generation leaders. Bruce is a Next Generation Expert completing his Ph.D. on the leadership of this unique group. Bruce has worked in and through many top organizations and teaches the whole self (Mind, Body, Heart, Spirit) approach in leading. He is seeking to become THE Leadership Expert Generation Y can count on for guidance to take them from where they are right now and teach them the distinctive habits of successful people to live an extraordinary life.