Customer Reviews

Riches in Niches: How to Make It Big in a Small Market

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is great book! At least that's what the author says about it. Funny thing is - I tend to agree with her. I liked this book a whole lot. I wish it had been written some 20 years ago when the author and I were both starting out in our careers. She says she was a public relations worker and I was a young CPA dabbling in the practice of law. What this book provides is a powerful marketing, PR, and self-promotion system for any wanta-be consultant, trainer, and/or coach to use to become the known expert in their field. Are you a CPA, attorney, CFP, PR consultant, life coach, executive coach, business coach, or whatever? If so, then this book is for you.

This book is not the first of its kind. Five others that I have read that predate this book are:

101 Ways to Promote Yourself (1997), ISBN: 0380785080
Million Dollar Consulting (2002), ISBN: 007138703X
Get Slightly Famous (2003), ISBN: 0972002111
How to Position Yourself as an Obvious Expert (2004), ISBN: 0972094164
From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur (2006), ISBN: 0470050866

All of these books are highly rated at Amazon, and the instant book is my favorite of them. I like the way Riches in Niches is outlined, written, and especially the numerous lists that are included. You will learn in this book that writing articles, Web pages, eBooklets, eBooks, booklets, and books is an important way to build your credibility and to get the word out about your specialty. You will learn that blogging and Web sites are important. And you will learn that public speaking, whether it be speeches, seminar presentations, workshops, or training sessions, is an important way to promote yourself. All of these things are ways to make money, too. Then there is also the organizations to join, and the networking to be done.

I recommend the reader get a copy of Aiming at Amazon (ISBN: 093849743X) to supplement the book's coverage on self publishing and Printondemand (POD). The advice on these subjects didn't seem to be the "latest and greatest" as I understand them to be. And it's not so hard to make your own audio CDs today if you get a USB microphone for your computer. Therefore the advice at page 178 in the book is not quite current today.

I would have liked the book more if the title had been different. I saw this book at the bookstore several months ago and didn't pull it from the shelf because it had the word "niche" in the title. In my humble opinion this book is not about "riches in niches." This book is not about focusing; it is about promoting. I think it would have been better titled if it had been named: (1) Get Slightly Famous, or (2) How to Position Yourself as an Obvious Expert. But then, those titles were already taken in 2007 when this book was published. Oh well. 5 stars!

Friedmann has several good articles posted in the Mindconnection online library, so I was interested in reading her book.

When I was quite young, I excitedly told a mentor about several new things I was doing. His advice to me was to pick one and do it well. Since then, I have seen the wisdom of that advice proven time and time again. It is better to do one thing well than to do many things poorly. That philosophy is the underpinning of this book.

But it's not a rah-rah book that spends a couple hundred pages making the same point over and over. You've probably read such books. Whenever I have finished such a book, I wonder if the author has ever really put the advice to use. There's no "how to get there from here." Riches In Niches lays out a 7-step plan anyone can follow, plus it provides a ton of useful references. Throughout the book, you'll find short case histories that each illustrate a point.

The first chapter introduces us to the author. We learn why Friedmann chose the path she did, and we get to learn from her mistakes. The next chapter provides a detailed explanation of why it's better to pick a specialty than to try to be all things.

Chapters Three and Four lay the foundation for understanding how niches work. The next seven chapters (Five through Eleven) provide Friedman's seven-step plan. Chapter Twelve ties it all together and provides some additional insights. In the back is an extensive "Recommended Resources" section that, in itself, justifies buying the book.

Friedmann writes in a style that reminds me of a transcript of a public speech. This should not be surprising, as she is an accomplished public speaker and is, in fact, a National Board Director of the National Speakers Association.

Grammarians will give her a few red marks here and there, but those little errors don't seem to slow the book down. I think they just serve to illustrate one of the points Friedmann made in her book. Don't let perfectionism stand in the way of excellence and accomplishment. For many entrepreneurs, this is a nearly insurmountable barrier. It's the number one reason small firms tend to stay small.

You'll find other pearls of wisdom, plus practical advice on how to implement them, in this book. If you're already a niche player, that's great. You may find you can improve your game after reading this book. The same goes for someone who's an employee in a corporation. Don't be a commodity. Command an image of high value, instead, and reap the rewards.

As both a writer and a businessman I found many good morsels of interest for myself in Susan Friedmann's new book, Riches in Niches: How to Make It BIG in a Small Market. I really wish that I had read this book long before now because with my current business I only just discovered in a practical way last year how going for niche markets can really turn a business around. Susan Friedmann is herself a practitioner of her own advice: Susan consults for companies needing trade show marketing experts; a very niche market.

For the small business owner, the book is chock full of real life case examples from people who have transformed their "general businesses" (my words, not Susan's) into niche businesses and prospered by utilizing what Susan Friedmann labels as Susan's Secret Success Strategies. These strategies all force you to take a new look at your own business and look at how you are running it. Are you busy developing your own niche and creating a new market or are you trying to compete with Joe Blogs and every other Tom, Dick and Harry down the street?

Many of Susan Friedmann's strategies are common sense ideas that many business owners never get on their own. They involve ways to develop your own name as an expert through use of the media, blogs, etc., as well as portraying yourself as a well designed niche company through such basic things as your company name and the way your business card it made up. Susan even gives hints on how to determine what your own niche really is or should be.

If Riches in Niches had a draw back I think it would be related to how Susan sometimes goes into explaining the processes of business franchising, how to find attorneys, etc., which I feel are wholly different subjects. These are more than balanced though with other tips that I found invaluable, such as how to get more money as a trainer by developing CEU courses, how to get on the radio and television and how to publish a booklet on your expertise.

If your business could use a bit more refinement in the marketing arena I think you will find Susan Friedmann's Riches in Niches to be a quite interesting and compelling read. It also will make a very good reference for the future to return to again and again.

In the academic world there is the saying, "Publish or perish". I would take the same concept and apply to the world of the entrepreneur - "Find your niche or find a job."

If you cannot find a niche and dominate that niche, you better dust off your resume and find a job. Business is too competitive for the generalist to really make a mark anymore. If you truly want to reap the rewards that all entreperneurs dream of, you need to find a niche and become an expert in that niche.

Fortunately you don't need to go it alone. Susan Friedmann has given us a very readable, content rich, step by step manual to help us identify our strenghts and select a niche that is right for us. She also gives us guidance in how to position ourselves, how to effectively market ourselves and use the media to build our business.

Actually she covers everything you need to know to separate yourself from the crowd and build a business that will command premium compensation. The expert always gets paid more - even for the same advice.

The book is well written and easy to read. At the end of each chapter is a "nugget of wisdom" and a "Susan's Speedy Summary" which allows the reader to refer back to the lessons contained in the chapter.

The book is primarily written for the service professional, but the principles apply to any business.

If you truly want to build a successful business, you would to well to read and apply the lessons contained in Riches in Niches.

The more narrowly you define your niche the greater the chance you can:
* become one-of-a-kind in that market
* customize your product/service
* more efficiently reach prospective clients

Riches in Niches offers a practical approach to increasing sales while reducing overhead - vital anytime but especially when people hesitate to spend in this faltering economy.

A sign of a non-fiction book worth buying is how many pages you underline - and this book is one I marked up alot
Kare, author SmartPartnering and Walk Your Talk

Bought this hoping to learn about how to sell to niches. Didn't get that. Basically the book says over and over you should write a book so you can be considered an expert. Seemed to me that is what was going on here. Is more like just another book about infopreneuring. Author seems to think it is cuter to call it being a "nichepreneur" but same thing. This might be an ok book for starting an infopreneur path but not great if you were expecting something new and exciting about niche selling.

Reading Riches in Niches by Susan Friedmann was as eye opening as it was enjoyable. Friedmann offers a wonderful glance at the life of a successful businesswoman that identifies niches and makes the most out of them by creating what she terms Expert Status.

The book is intriguing on a number of levels. Offering the reader easy to digest tidbits of information was an outstanding way to hammer home vital points to not-so-fast learners like yours truly. I was given enough information by Friedmann to logically think of how niches can be identified and served without being overloaded with complex formulas and equations. The simple yet powerful information helped me to identify a niche driven expansion of my own business, leading to my new website BookMarketing.net. Yes, I literally created a new business based on the Riches in Niches book!

With a new business that is rapidly growing, and a new view on how to grow a small business, Susan Friedmann's Riches in Niches has my vote for essential reading for anyone interested in starting a successful business.

I highly recommend this book to anyone that has the ambition and will to start a new business and simply needs the blueprint to make it a profitable one.

Clark Covington
BookMarketing.Net

It gets right to the point and shows, step by step, how to find the right place to position yourself in your field and how to make yourself the expert in your field.

Every one who has, or plans on having, their own small business needs to have a copy in the office, next to the bed, in the small reading room. Never be without it in easy reach.

It will instruct and inspire you to make it big in your niche!!!!

Simply put, Susan Friedmann shows you how to make the absolute most of what you're good at. After only a little more than a month of following her advice, I'm making enough on the side that I anticipate quitting my corporate job within six months and focusing entirely on what I love to do and am best at. You can't ask for any more than that.

As the editor of a trade newsletter for professional resume writers, I'm always on the lookout for resources to recommend to my readers. Susan Friedmann's book, "Riches in Niches" will be added to my recommended reading list. When establishing (or re-establishing) yourself in a service industry, it's hard to attract the attention of clients if you can't stand out somehow. Friedmann outlines specific strategies to build a name for yourself (you can be the next Martha Stewart, Dr. Phil, or Oprah), get recognized as an expert, and even create revenue while you're doing it.

Throughout the book, she outlines her own personal story (becoming "The Tradeshow Coach") as well as spotlighting examples of other service professionals who have discovered and developed their niche, becoming an expert in their field. This book goes along quite well with other books on personal and professional differentiation, including "Career Distinction" by Kirsten Dixson and William Arruda, and "Me 2.0" by Dan Schawbel.

I filled up half a notebook with pages of ideas, notes, and resources -- there is plenty of actionable content to be found in the book. (Some of it is not *new* information, but a practical reminder of strategies to build your profile and business.) Don't overlook her "Resources" section in the book. Because the book was written in 2007, some of them are out of date (many are online links, and some of those have disappeared over time), but the ones that are still valid are really valuable.

If you are a coach or consultant looking for a book to help you build your business, this is definitely a book you should read!

- Bridget (Weide) Brooks
Editor, Resume Writers' Digest ([...])