Niches.

Niches.

The phrase, The Riches Are in the Niches, is a common one for good reason. 

Here are 5 reasons to develop your niche now, if you haven't already. 

1.) A niche allows you to better communicate to a singular individual how you are best able to help them with their life challenge or pain. 

When it comes to marketing and business, a niche simply means you have strategically honed down what is you offer. This ensures you stand out from others offering a similar service. 

It is the process of deeply understanding the unique needs of the population you serve. This will allow you to design a suite of services to address those needs in a way that others in the marketplace are not. In VFTS 2023.1, Patricia Jauchler, shares exactly how she has done this by creating a specialized suite of services for individuals at the end stages of life and their families. 

2.) A niche allows you to invest and refine skills in a singular area which helps you to be more effective and competent in your services. Competence helps boosts confidence. 

3.) Specializing can help reduce fatigue and burnout. 

We will never be able to know everything about serving every population or treatment issue.

But, we CAN INVEST in learning as much as a possible about a particular condition, leading edge research and treatment approaches that when implemented produce consistent results for our clients. This can significantly reduce provider stress. 

It also empowers us to say NO to clients that fall outside of this specialization so we can focus our energy where it is best aligned. 

4.) When you niche, you convert competition into collaboration. 

If you have a general practice that serves everyone, you set yourself up to be in competition with EVERYONE. Viewing all other practices as competition can be an energetic drain and isn't productive, but that is a topic for another blog altogether. 

When you have a unique offer and approach to how you help a specific population, you position yourself to receive referrals from others in your community who don't do what you do or offer the services in the way you do. 

I don't know about you, but Collaboration is a better feeling place to be in than Competition. 

5.) A niche can create a more consistent path to sustainability of client base within your practice. 

When you know your niche, you can create messaging that speaks directly to their needs.

It also helps you to become "KNOWN" in your market as the expert in that area. That can translate to YOUR PRACTICE being the ONLY PRACTICE that is top of mind to your referral base. 

Think about who stands out in your community and why. What is it that keeps their practice in high states of awareness?

An example that comes to my mind is about pediatric dentistry. There are multiple pediatric dental practices in my area, but only one that I refer my special needs clients and their families. Why? Because they understand their unique needs  AND provide dental services in ways that reduce anxiety which provides a more successful experience for everyone. 

When I first began, I thought being an art therapist was enough of a niche. In a way our experiential approach may serve as a place to begin, but without more dialed in messaging people might have a hard time knowing ours is the right service for their unique needs. The art therapy is only one layer of the niche. 

It becomes really hard to connect with clients that will be a good fit without a clear understanding of who we serve and how we serve them. 

Here are some examples of really strong niches - take note how many unique defining characteristics are used. 

• I provide art therapy for twenty-something year old single women with a history of failed romantic relationships so that they can heal and find loving lasting relationships. 
• Our practice offers a suite of expressive and interactive therapy services for children on the autism spectrum and their families. In addition to offering individual therapy, we offer parent training and support groups to manage challenging behaviors, Individualized Education Plan Support services to accompany parents during the meetings and translate the jargon, arts based sibling support group to process feelings of having a sibling with special needs, applied behavior analysis services to reduce challenging behaviors, and art, music and drama therapy groups to increase social communication. In this example, the niche is the ability to provide wrap-around services that meet the complex and varied needs of this particular population. 
• I offer narrative expressive therapy for couples on the verge of divorce due to fear of intimacy and communication avoidance so that they can reconnect and reignite the sparks that brought them together.
• I offer EMDR and art therapies for adult children who grew up in the foster-care system and institutions struggling with feelings of self-loathing, self-harming behaviors and self-sabotage so that they can eviscerate them and step into their most full and empowered selves.

Have I convinced you to start a niche yet? I am confident that doing so will level up your practice, your personal energy, and financial stability in your practice. 

Happy Creative Practice Building!