Nine Weird but Lucrative Niches

Then after you are done torturing yourselves when you couldn’t beat out the pharmaceutical rep at 7AM for a sales call, you throw up your arms and declare, “This Mickey Mouse marketing stuff is hogwash!“

Honey, please.

I’m not a fan of the business-owner niche either:

• “Business owner” is way too broad to be a niche. I, who never intends to have a single employee, and Bill Gates are business owners.

• Don’t have any liquidity until the big day and almost none of you are patient enough to pay them any attention until that point.

• Inevitably you wind up having to compete with Goldman Sachs or whoever else is providing them with a credit facility once the sale is announced. It’s like high-stakes gambling.

Sheesh, people.

How hard could you possibly make this?

The same thing happens when your client comes to you and says, “Hey, my buddy from the country club today was saying I should buy bitcoin because you can make a ton.”

You’d say, “No, let’s talk about large cap value stocks that have paid a dividend consistently for the last 30 years.”

See, it’s the same thing.

Why make things hard?

Go for the non-descript, non-glamorous niches that nobody talks about – and work the blazes out of it! You don’t get any more points for having to pickax the door down.

Niche marketing, as it is typically done, is a dumpster fire because most of you pick the wrong niches.

Do you really have to go for the richest of the rich?

Gimme a break.

Don’t pick a profession just because it’s the highest earning careers in the United States, according to the BLS. You can build a very nice practice from the second – or even third – tier.

“Oh, that’s baby money,” you say?

Don’t pshaw the gainfully employed married couple where each person is earning $150,000 a year, composts and drives a 2014 Toyota Corolla, is accessible to you, who wants nothing more than to quietly go to work every day, pay the babysitter, and put their kids to bed. You really want to change that up for the multi-millionaires with the yachts, the models, and the cocaine? Some of these ultrawealthy situations are the Twilight Zone.

And here’s what else you miss – the odds of you being effective decreases the broader the niche is.

• No, millennials are not a niche!
• No, business owners are not a niche!
• No, women are not a niche!

Why do you need a gazillion possible clients who may have zero in common from one to the next? Many of you don’t need more than 70 clients anyways to have a good business. Why not increase the likelihood of closing sales with a smaller base – and spend the extra time improving service delivery to those select few with the deep knowledge you’ve cultivated through extensive study of that niche?

Instead of: I work with business owners (whiny voice).

Try this: I work with people who own IT businesses in Central Oregon with between 20-30 employees and annual earnings of $1 to $5 million.

I’ll show you some weirdly high-earning professions.

1. Plane repossession agents

According to Job Monkey, these are people hired by a bank to “legally steal” aircrafts whose owners aren’t paying their bills, earning them up to $900,000 per plane.

That’s…insane money.

2. Google Cloud field sales representatives

The highest paid sales job in the United States is being a field sales rep for Google Cloud, paygrade L6 or L7, says CompGauge. These folks rake in an average of $448,202 a year.

And if that’s not a “whoo hoo,” I don’t know what is!

3. Clinical ethicists

These are highly credentialed medical professionals who help doctors and families work together to make difficult decisions, usually regarding genetics, cloning, and stem cells. According to the BLS, these jobs pay around $113,230 a year (BLS, as cited in Indeed, 2022)

Since all fiduciaries claim to be so ethical, this target market would be a match made in heaven!

4. Federal court judges

Federal court judges make, on average, $137,311 according to Comparably; however, the pay does vary quite a bit by location, with San Francisco coming in at #1 with average pay of $207,376.

Imagine, you can have quarterly portfolio review meetings with Judge Judy!

5. Professional referee

An NBA official, on average, makes $375,000, according to the Bleacher Report. And the NFL, NHL, and MLB aren’t anything to sneeze at.

Game on, folks!

6. Landfill operator

A landfill operator earns, on average, $100,000 a year, says Wisestep. Their primary task is to remove the methane gas created by waste.

Tell the prospect you’re an expert at cleaning up messy portfolios.

7. Master sommelier

There are a little over 200 of these professional wine tasters in the world, and they earn about $150,000 a year (Guild of Sommeliers, as cited in Business Insider, 2015).

Cheers to that!

8. Ethical hacker

Not all hackers are malevolent. Certified ethical hackers are tasked with detecting security vulnerabilities for corporations, and for this they make an average of $182,214 a year, says Comparably.

Before giving them your email address, though, makes sure your SSL certificates are up to date.

9. Video game designers and testers

Did you know that you can make an average yearly salary of $130,000 for designing video games, and $100,140 for testing them? (Career Karma, 2022)

What can I say, in America we love our video games!

How to call on a niche

Was that weird or what?

None of these niches may appeal to you. But I hope you’ve at least taken away the point that it can be way easier if you go off the beaten path. Unlike what is believed, there are a ton of professionals making good money, who would be suitable clients for you.

My partner, Antonio, had three teeth pulled today (because he eats too much Nutella), so I have to go. But first let me leave you with three niche marketing tips.

Optimize your website using a short key phrase such as “financial advisor for referees.” SEO tips from Neil Patel are great for this.

Do a Google search for centers of influence who serve the same niche, just type in “accountant for professional referees” and see what comes up. Don’t expect the magic to happen overnight; it take time to develop these relationships.

This is a chance to show that you are “the person.” This is an opportunity to become the most knowledgeable and valuable advisor on earth to a group of people who need help. Do this, and you will murder the competition over time

Sara’s upshot

LinkedIn can be a way to find prospects in your target market. To learn how to reach folks over social media, join my membership or read my ebook about LinkedIn messaging.

If you are looking for marketing advice, here is how I can help.

Sara Grillo, CFA, is a marketing consultant who helps investment management, financial planning, and RIA firms fight the tendency to scatter meaningless clichés on their prospects and bore them as a result. Prior to launching her own firm, she was a financial advisor.

Sources

Gonzalez, Maria Elena. (July 2022) Career Karma. https://careerkarma.com/blog/best-jobs-for-gamers/

Comparably. Federal Court Judge Salary. https://www.comparably.com/salaries/salaries-for-federal-court-judge

Comparably. Certified Ethical Hacker Salary. https://www.comparably.com/salaries/salaries-for-certified-ethical-hacker

CompGauge. Top 10 Highest Paying Sales Jobs 2022. https://compgauge.com/career-advice/the-top-10-highest-paying-sales-jobs/

Indeed. (10 June, 2022) 15 odd jobs that pay well. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/odd-jobs-that-pay-well

Job Monkey. Unique Jobs Section. https://www.jobmonkey.com/uniquejobs/airplane-repossession/

Moton, Maurice. (23rd August, 2017). Bleacher Report. How Much Are NFL Referees Paid? https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2727710-how-much-are-nfl-referees-paid

Patel, Neil. 27 SEO Essentials for Every Long-Form Blog Post. https://neilpatel.com/blog/seo-essentials/

Reddy, Chitra. Top 14 Dirty Jobs That Pay Well But Nobody Wants to Do. Wisestep. https://content.wisestep.com/dirty-jobs-pay-well/

Smith, Jacquelyn. (25th June, 2015). Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/what-it-takes-to-become-a-master-sommelier-2015-6

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