How to Find Your Niche

As a financial professional, determining your practice's niche can elevate your business to the next level.

With such a wide range of directions to steer your practice, having a specialization will help deepen your expertise, narrow your scope and connect you with more relevant prospects.

If you're ready to establish your niche but unsure how to get started, leverage the following approach.

Set the foundation.

Rather than quickly choosing a random specialization, reflect back on your time providing general financial services.

Take the time to reflect regularly on what client solutions came easily, what may have been more difficult, what tasks you enjoyed most and what areas peak your curiosity.

By understanding what you do well and identifying the areas in which you'd like to continue deepening your industry knowledge, you'll be able to more clearly determine your niche.

Continue to ask questions.

After you have done some self-reflection, begin to think about the observations or growth you have started to see in your clients.

Ask yourself questions like: "Are there consistent situations in which clients show great appreciation for certain direction or advice?"

Or, "Do you see consistent growth in similar areas across multiple clients?"

Once you have identified possible patterns, you may find underlying passions or unique strengths.

Asking questions and learning from other financial professionals is another way you are able to continue to hone your focus area.

For example, professional organizations like Million Dollar Round Table are a great resource for uncovering your specialization, as there are thousands of peers ready to share stories about how they found theirs.

Being an MDRT member has allowed me to learn countless strategies and tactics for continuous growth in the profession.

Look deeper than what you're good at.

Realizing that you have a knack for something can be harder in this field than others.

While reviewing client testimonials to identify strengths is a good starting point, having the ability to do something well doesn't always mean it is your niche.

Someone could excel at selling life insurance, but their passion is helping clients with their long-term care and disability insurance policies.

Reflect on what interests or intrigues you — even outside of work — as a hobby could tie in with a specialization.

For example, I specialize in critical illness and I immediately knew this subject was perfect for me because I had a unique perspective on it before becoming an advisor. My family works in health hcare, so I witnessed firsthand patients' stress about being able to pay for the necessary services.

My goal for my practice was to help as many people get the medical attention they needed, so centering my practice around critical illness felt like a given.

When you care deeply about the services you offer, helping clients meet those needs is more rewarding.

Having clients with varying needs and preferences can be challenging when you have a large client pool.

Being able to trim down your clientele to match your expertise will not only increase your efficiency, but you'll be also more satisfied with the work you're doing.

By weaving in your passions with your career, you can help both you and your clients make the most out of the relationship.

Alphonso B. Franco, RHU, RCIS, is the CEO of Trenton Financial, with a focus on critical illness insurance. He has been a member of the Million Dollar Round Table for 29 years, and he has received MDRT Court of the Table and Top of the Table honors.