Find Your Niche

What’s your niche? Your specialty? Your “zone of genius”? What are your unique strengths, competencies, and attributes?  What creates a spark for you?  What satisfies your hunger for contribution and making a difference? How have you, or can you package these up, offer a specialized service/product, lend value to others, fill a gap and yield impact?

As I began my Spring 2023 quest for “what’s next” after nearly three decades in the non-profit sector, I tapped into my strengths, competencies, and attributes, all enhanced through my experiences, and landed with honoring my entrepreneurial spirit & starting my own business- Coaching, Consulting and Counseling.

While I’d not been laser-focused on offering Interim Executive/ Management/Operations Coverage as a niche/specialty of my Consulting, an opportunity presented itself in late 2023- a 4-month stent with an organization in which interim leadership coverage was needed during a maternity leave. Fortunate to be working with a fellow Consultant who’d been connected with that organization, she recognized and advocated that my Chief Operating Officer and Program Manager experience (my “Zone of Genius”) could fill the gap and bring value to the organization in the short-term.

It’s been two and a half months in this role- a role that fills a gap, a role that supports an organization moving steady in its direction, a role that creates a spark for me as I contribute to the mission, and a role that affords me the opportunity to share my “Zone of Genius” and make an impactful difference with the team I work with.   

Recognizing that change is constant, vacancies are constant, those amidst/impacted by the vacancies often operate with a short bandwidth, and high risk of turnover is probable when remaining team members feel stretched and strained to take on more, I’ve discovered my niche- a niche that I will proactively raise awareness about and begin to promote as a niche/specialty of my Consulting business.

How about you? What will you do with your niche?