Searching for a niche

Since inception our business strategy here at Planning for Life has been one of differentiation. To that end we have used our life planning expertise as a way of positioning ourselves differently from the bulk of financial planners. This has manifested itself in our service, our brochures and our website amongst other things. To a degree it has been reasonably successful.

However I was forcibly reminded by David Scarlett the other day that whilst differentiation is certainly an acceptable strategy for small businesses such as Planning for Life working in a highly homogeneous market, niche marketing is a much more effective strategy. This is something I have always believed but had entirely forgotten over the last few years and probably explains why our client portfolio is so diverse.

The problem with the niche strategy though is trying to find a suitable niche and although we’ve done a lot of work on social and market trends using Richard Duvall and James Alexander’s concept of “free-formers” we have not yet been able to narrow this down to the point where it becomes a viable and workable niche.

After a recent conversation with Tina Weeks, a financial planner moving into life planning, I re-read much of Duvall's research, only to find the answer staring me in the face - so simple, so obvious but I just hadn't seen the wood for the trees. Thank you, Tina, for triggering a very important "Ah-Ha" moment.