DISCOVER WHAT IS YOUR SPECIAL MAGIC AT BUSINESS

How to choose the niche of your passive income business?

When you decide you want to start running a small passive income business, you may have one important question in your mind: “which one is going to be my niche?”

If there is something I still haven’t quite figured out is whether having a niche is necessary or not. Some argue that without a specific niche, you’re talking to no one in a big crowd of people. Meanwhile others preach about not trying to fit inside a tiny box by choosing a niche.

I cannot say I completely disagree with any of the previous ideas, because they both have pros and cons attached to them. But I do believe that you need to find at least a general theme of topics you’re going to talk and teach about.

Maybe it is personal development, maybe it is design. Perhaps you want to talk about business, beauty, finances, etc. Those are general topics that I think can make things look clearer for you, even if you haven’t decided on a niche yet.

Yes, you’re still fitting in a box but at least it’s not a tiny one. And at the same time people will know what you’re going to help them do instead of wondering if you’re a business guru or a hair stylist instead.

If you feel like in order to create success you need to get specific on what you do, start by analyzing your work until now. If you’ve been working as an engineer, is there any topic or niche within this job that you can use to create a passive income business? 

Whatever job you’ve had in the past (or maybe in the present) that you have somehow enjoyed can give you a clue on a niche that you can serve.

If your previous job record is not something you’d like to pursue anymore, then you can think about your traits or hobbies. If you like writing and have written some novels in the past, maybe you can create a business that helps others write their first novel. 

If you know how to practice yoga and you’ve been a yoga practitioner for years or you even have a certificate, you can create a business around this.

Now, if you are still unsure about which niche to choose, you can try the Ikigai concept. This is a Japanese technique that helps you find your sweet spot or purpose careerwise. You need to reflect around the following things:

  • What is one thing you know how to do well?
  • What is something the world needs help with?
  • What can give you personal satisfaction?
  • What will give you money?

Following the image above, you need to brainstorm and write different ideas for each of the categories. When you find one thing that can get intertwined in the four circles, it is said that you found your ikigai.

For example: Let’s say that one thing that you know how to do well is dancing. One thing the world needs according to you is exercising in a fun way. Something that gives you satisfaction is to dance and move around. And something that can give you money is being a teacher. Then your sweet spot can be teaching people how to get in shape by dancing some days a week.

Maybe in your case your sweet spot or Ikigai won’t be so visible and you’ll have to think a little bit harder. The thing here is that you can find something that can answer the four questions above so that you feel your niche serves you a purpose, helps people and makes you earn money on the way.

👉 Read here my previous article about what a creative small passive income biz is and whether this would be a good fit for you.

In this case I think you have two options: 

Option number one is to simply don’t do it. Don’t niche down. Don’t try to get into one box and instead, talk to a target audience. This will make things easier for you because even if you go wide with a bunch of different topics you want to talk about, you’re going to feel like you’re creating things for a specific kind of person.

These are a couple of examples: 

  • Women in their twenties that are looking to create more savings.
  • Divorced ladies that are trying to get back on romantic dates.
  • Women that are having their first child.
  • Young adults who can’t seem to find a job after finishing university.
  • People in their thirties that want to have a career change after some years in the workforce.
  • Women who want to get a glow up and improve their makeup technique and style.

As you can see in the examples above, even if you define your target audience, the amount of topics you can cover and teach are not a few. Just take one of the examples above and try to think on five topics that the people in that audience can benefit from. Then, do a little exercise and write down your own target audience. If you are not sure yet, you can come up with three target audiences and then choose which one would align better with you.

If you feel the target audiences I showed as examples are still too specific, then for your own target audience try to think of something more general. Instead of “women in their twenties who want to get rid of acne” you can choose:

  •  “women who want to get rid of acne” (you are talking to women of any age here).
  • “People who want to get rid of acne” (you’re not talking to only one gender)
  • “Women in their twenties who want to have better skincare” (you’re not only helping those with acne-prone skin)

Just remember that you can make your target audience as specific or as general as you want it to be.

Now, option number two is a little different. If you still feel like choosing a target audience will make you feel trapped somehow, you can just let go of that pressure and don’t chose a niche nor a target audience. Feel free to talk about anything you want and create from your heart. People may see your content and feel related to you because of the things you talk about. 

For some people this is the easier route, while others struggle more to find an audience as their topics seem a little too over the place. But you will never know what your case will be if you don’t try it. Just create content you’d like to create and talk about the things that are important to you. Maybe, without even noticing it, little by little you’ll start reaching a specific target audience or covering a specific niche. If it happens naturally and you feel your business gets stronger because of it, that’s amazing! But if it doesn’t happen and you do feel great anyways, that’s also totally fine.

Whatever option you choose, know that you can totally change it with time because nothing is written on stone when you have a business.

For me choosing a niche always felt like something I needed to do. It was thanks to Michelle Rohr, the creator of 👉 Passive Income Planner Girl, that I discovered that you don’t need to be so strict on that matter. You can just create what you want and still attract an audience that loves what you do and wants to learn from you.

So if you ask me now, choosing a niche is not something I would recommend to everyone. If it feels necessary for you, then go for it. But if it takes away your freedom and creativity, you can always un-niche (does this word exist?) and do what you feel like at the moment.

Now, if there is something I do recommend according to my previous experience on this topic, is to find a common thing within your content; this will make it easier for people to come to you and stay for longer.

If you help others make their car look more expensive than it really is, it would be weird to start posting about having a healthy lifestyle all of a sudden. If you want to talk about two or more topics with no correlation between them, maybe having two separate businesses would be a better option for you. But once again, the decision you take will be totally up to you and won’t be written on stone.

I hope you have enjoyed this post a lot and that I could help ease your mind in relation to this topic. Let me know if you come up with a business idea you love!

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Have a beautiful day ahead,

Sofía xx

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