I’m almost certain that if you are a Virtual Assistant or have researched the industry at all, then you’ve probably heard one of the ‘experts’ suggest you need to find a ‘Niche’ in order to grow your business. In plain English, a niche means that you will focus on providing one specific skill (or set of skills) OR focus on one particular type of client, rather than trying to offer dozens of different services. I completely agree with this theory and have seen first-hand how having a niche can help you find clients, make more money and manage your business to become a very happy VA. Today I’ll share 3 of the ways that having a niche can make you more money (‘cuz we all like money, right?)

• A Niche allows you to charge higher rates. We are used to the idea that an ‘expert’ charges more than a ‘general practitioner’ in any field. Therefore, a Virtual Assistant who becomes an ‘expert’ in one particular skill, can charge more than a ‘generalist’. Clients will happily pay a little more for someone who is highly skilled rather than someone who dabbles in a little bit of everything.

• A niche makes it much easier to create passive income for your business. By that I mean you will have a much easier time creating ebooks or training courses or other information products you can sell on your website, if you specialize in a particular niche. For example if your niche is ‘WordPress’ you might be able to create a training course that teaches others WordPress skills, or write an ebook about WordPress tips. Selling an ebook from your website is an awesome way to bring in a little extra ‘moola’ – even while you sleep!

• Having a niche ensures you can easily determine rates and never ‘lose’ money on a job. Have you ever had a scenario where a client asks how long it will take you to do a particular task? For example – a client asks you how long it might take to create a sales page for them? If sales pages are just one of many, many services you offer…you might not be sure how long it will take. You might have to make a ‘guess-timate’ about how much time that will take you. Perhaps you quote the client 2 hours. Then you struggle through the page and end up taking 15 hours instead (hey- it’s happened to me!) So now you are faced with either making your client unhappy by telling them the truth about how long this took or you have to suck it up and bill 2 hours even though you worked for 15. Either way, you are probably going to lose money or lose the client! By having a niche (one particular task you do over and over again) you will know EXACTLY how long that particular task is going to take you, and have a much easier time managing your schedule better determining rates and packages that make you more money.

Are you a VA who specializes in a particular niche? Leave a comment to let us know what it is and how having a niche is working for you!