In the early days of career development, it is okay to pursue being a generalist; broad range of competencies within your industry, and relatively shallow depth of excellence in each area. However, over time, it has been shown that professionals narrow towards a specific niche; a smaller range of competencies, but deeper depth of excellence. This is called the niche strategy.

Sustaining a long-term career is not a walk in the park. There are many reasons to drop off or lose focus, and many times it stems from a poor strategy. For instance, in the Banking industry, it is okay within the first five years to have a wide range of experiences; credit analysis, operations, sales, marketing, relationship management, people management, and so on. But in later years, you should be able to introduce yourself by your niche— “Hi, I’m Obinna, I am a Credit Expert with ABC Bank”.

In his widely acclaimed book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell shared a principle which can be seen throughout human history: 10,000 Hours Rule. He argued that it takes approximately 10,000 hours doing one thing to become an expert in that thing, and he showed numerous examples of people whose story make the rule true. Agree with him or not, Gladwell is right, becoming an expert requires time. In other words, you need time to master your niche.

Friend, it may be very naïve to think that you can jump from profession to profession a lot over time and still make mastery of a niche. It will serve you well to identify a niche early on, because it will take time to become a master in that space.

Think of a laser beam. The full power of that machine is simply its ability to converge light to a single point, yet it burns even the strongest metal. You will make more impact if you build towards a single focal point, and this is the basis of the niche strategy.

In marketing, Niche Strategy is used to describe how a broad market is segmented and a small, underserved customer base is identified and targeted. This is exactly what I want you to take away from this today. You cannot be everything; you cannot do everything. But you can be the best in one area if you give it your condensed time and energy. And if you are already in your niche, well, keep building mastery. Let the goal be to be massively knowledgeable in that space, and be a name that is called when that niche is mentioned.

I will keep rooting for you, my friend. You will win! Cheers.