The most important work I do all year happens out in the quiet, away from…
How to Find Your Consulting Niche (It’s Already in Your History)
You’ve been solving a problem other people are still stuck in. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a business.
My son Nolan is deep in graduation month. Parties, photos, and a steady stream of congratulatory messages about the coveted entrepreneurial scholarship he just won. (The kid is not having a bad June.)
In the middle of it all, I can’t stop thinking about a conversation we had the other day.
He’d been showing me the carousels he makes for TikTok. Then he mentioned all the apps he’d tried to build them. None of them quite worked the way he wanted. The ones that came close were too expensive for what they actually were.
So he built his own. Cheaper. Simpler. Did exactly what he needed. (This might be why he won that coveted entrepreneurial scholarship, lol.)
I asked him if he thought other people might want the same thing. He shrugged. Hadn’t really thought about it.
That shrug nearly killed me.
Nolan didn’t set out to spot a gap. He just had a problem, solved it, and moved on. He was too close to see what he’d actually built.
And here’s what I know about senior professionals: we do the same thing. We dismiss the things that come naturally to us. If it feels simple, it must not be worth much. If we figured it out, surely everyone else already has too. But that logic is backwards. The things that feel obvious to you are obvious because you earned them, through years of hard work, pattern recognition, and lived experience. Your ideal client hasn’t earned them yet. What feels prosaic to you is often exactly what they need.
If you’re going to build something in your next chapter, here are three ways to find the gap in the market that only you can see.
Mine 1
Mine the questions people keep asking you
Think about the last five times someone asked you for advice. The “can I pick your brain” coffee. The message that starts with “I don’t know who else to ask.”
What were they asking about?
Those questions are data. They point directly at the gap you fill without even trying. When someone keeps coming to you for the same thing, it’s not a coincidence. It’s a signal. They’re not finding what they need anywhere else, and somehow they know you have it.
Start keeping a list. The pattern usually becomes obvious.
Mine 2
Mine the problem you solved the hard way
Think back to the moment in your career when you hit a wall. The challenge nobody warned you about. The situation where you looked around for guidance and came up empty. The thing you had to figure out yourself, the long way, because no one had mapped it yet.
That experience is a gap in the market. It existed when you needed help, and it likely still exists for the people coming up behind you.
The fact that you made it through doesn’t make the problem disappear. It makes you the person who can help others through it faster.
Mine 3
Mine the framework you built without knowing it
Here’s the one that surprises people most. You probably already have a repeatable process. You’ve just never written it down or given it a name.
It’s the sequence you run through instinctively before you give advice. The three questions you always ask first. The way you see a problem differently than everyone else in the room. You do it automatically, so it feels invisible. It isn’t.
That instinctive process is a signature framework waiting to be named. And a named framework is the difference between “I offer consulting” and “I have a method.” One is forgettable. The other is a business.
Nolan spotted his gap before he even knew to call it one. You’ve likely been standing next to yours for longer than you think. The difference is you get to do this on purpose.
What’s the gap only you can see? The thing you figured out the hard way that you keep watching other people struggle with?
Cheers,
Leanne
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