Just what is a Professional Niche?
While multiple definitions of the term “niche” market appear in the literature the general concept is that a niche market is a small enough segment of the market that the market share leaders in the marketplace consider it too small to pursue.
A niche can be identified by researching a marketplace to identify potential clients voluntarily seeking a product or a service to solve an unmet need specific to that niche of customers. This niche segment of the market must have enough potential business to attract your time and effort, but not be so large that it attracts all the market share leaders to pursue it.
The key to the long term success of your niche service is that niche services, in general, have unique characteristics as opposed to niche products. While niche products can be copied and “knocked off” by the market share leaders once they become aware of a profitable niche, niche service markets are much more difficult to duplicate.
Typically niche services are provided by individuals with highly specialized knowledge and skill. These specialized skills are integrated within the context of the pharmacist’s business model, personality, and rapport with her clients. Duplicating the service is difficult because relationships take time and effort to develop and large companies can not consistently guarantee that their pharmacists, in any one location, possess skills of the unique niche service provider. Essentially a key component of the effectiveness of the service is the trusting relationship established between the pharmacist and her patient.
The power of building your own niche market is you control your destiny and move yourself from a commodity business in to a high gross margin business.
