What To Do When Your Slice Of The Market Gets Popular

There’s a thing that happens when you are the trailblazer, the one who capitalizes on the early stages of your market demand.

For a long time—years perhaps—you can be wildly successful with nothing more than minor tweaks to your business model, your positioning and your messaging. Life is good.

Until it’s not.

Because when you’re first through the wall, it’s only a matter of time before the next clump of competitors begins carving out increasingly tighter niches in your space.

Staying with your original positioning only works if it’s tight enough to withstand the onslaught (new competitors, new messaging, new pricing and delivery models) as your marketplace becomes more saturated.

The longer you wait, the more turf you concede.

The solution: keep watching your niche as new players enter. Are the new entrants winning a big chunk of assignments? Are they attracting a specific subset of the market that you thought was yours? Are prices softening—and if so, where and why?

It’s not uncommon for your positioning—that worked so well in the early days—to become too broad once your niche has become popular (and populated).

Since the best time to make a move is from strength, be ready to pivot when you start seeing the signs that you’re no longer the obvious choice.