Niche Down: Why Going Narrow Goes Further

Excellence requires a certain laser-like focus and dedication to a core set of actions.

In the past I have not always been great at honing in on a core set of skills. I have been pretty good at a lot of things, and as an entrepreneur trying to make ends meet, that has typically meant that if someone needed a problem solved and had a budget, I would usually jump on board.

It seemed smart at the time. Money is money, right?

But I was paying a hidden cost I couldn’t see.

The Cost of Everything

Many of those projects have proven to be successful in the long run, but they required a lot of extra energy on the front end to bring myself, my team, and the project up to the right level of understanding and quality of work.

These days I am attempting to niche down and focus on only a few finite deliverables that I know I and my team can consistently deliver above and beyond on.

The shift wasn’t easy. Saying no to money feels wrong when you’re used to chasing every opportunity. But I’ve learned that some opportunities cost more than they pay.

The Power of Constraints

Having this focus has given me the ability to start getting really good at a handful of strategies and gives me more mental and emotional resources to explore new creative ideas within a framework that is manageable and has clear guidelines.

It is much easier to express a concept when you have a canvas of a specific size and a medium through which you know you will use for the expression.

Constraints don’t limit creativity. They channel it. When everything is possible, nothing gets done. When you know exactly what you’re working with, you can go deep instead of wide.

Less Choice Is More

Too many options are not usually a good thing. In blind tests, consumers want less choices, not more. Because the cognitive efficiency of two choices versus infinite is more resourceful.

When I was willing to take on any project regardless of scope, all my other projects suffered. The new projects would just take up too much of my mental capacity.

I was spreading myself so thin that nothing got my full attention. Everything suffered a little so that I could do everything poorly instead of a few things well.

Becoming the Best at Something

Now getting really great at a handful of things feels right. When you niche down, it allows you to provide better results and start to differentiate yourself from all the competition.

Clients do not want to hire a jack-of-all-trades anymore. They want the person who is the best at one specific thing.

I am doing my best to meet and exceed those demands by doubling down on what is working, while always leaving space to play jazz.

The niche isn’t a cage. It’s a foundation. Once you’ve built something solid, you can improvise from a place of strength instead of scrambling from a place of desperation.

Go narrow. Go deep. That’s where the real growth happens.