Finding your niche

Category: Editorial

Richard Winfield - editor I have had an interesting couple of months, with quite a lot if international travel. I have inter-leaved a couple of intensive trainings with Roger Hamilton of XL Results Foundation in Bali and London with a couple of faciliations in Ghana and the UK. They have been quite illuminating for me.

One of the most useful things I have done for many years was to take a Wealth Dynamics profile. This analyses and individual's personaility under eight headings and indicates the best contribution that he/she can make to building a business. I come out as a 'mechanic' with supporting profiles of 'creator' and 'lord'. This absolutely supports my current activities in developing new Internet businesses. However, the interest to me over the recent period has been how this relates to what I do as a coach/consultant.

I have come to realise that what I most enjoy and am best at is facilitating teams of senior managers and company boards. Similarly coaching clients in this field. It is one thing - and a very useful thing - to recognise what you are best at; but quite another to discover how that compares with others. After all, the sort of work I do is normally delivered alone and any competition is in my ability to wind work - rather than to deliver it.

I must say that I found much of the XL Results training very frustrating - but out of that has come illumination! On both occasions we had to work in large teams in a noisy environment and under pressure. Thee was a lot of energy and, to my taste, too much hype. This was very much the environment of the 'supporter' roles, who are much more people and relationship orientated, compared with my preference for systems. But too much 'relationship' does not necessarily mean productivity - and we were being pushed for very high performance. I felt frustrated, and yet I recognised that it had been my 'mechanic' questions and structure that had enabled us to make what limited progress we had achieved.

Compare this with the facilitation experiences, which were very successful. In Ghana I had the chief executive of the group - a real alpha Male - who appeared not to be participating; a bad sign. However, at the end he came up and told me that he was most grateful for my contribution; employing an external facilitator had been a great personal risk. He had deliberately taken a low profile so that his team members would not be inhibited. He could not have done this if he had been running the meeting.

After the UK facilitation I was given some most useful feedback - relative benchmarking! He said that they had had facilitator before who had lost control in the face of is strong personailities team but that my light and gentle approach had managed to keep the process on track. The key here is 'process'.

So how do I reconcile the two sets of experiences? My conclusion is that many people in my field are more likely to be 'people' people than 'systems' people and that my contribution is in being distinct and briinging structure and clarity to a situation. As a result, I have now rebranded myself as a structure and clarity coach.

So this week's question is "Are you sufficiently aware of what your unique niche is?

Do you know what you are best at - in terms of what you enjoy and find easy?

Do you know what you are best at - in terms of what your clients most value?

Do you know why - how you bring a distinctive contribution that differentiates you from other providers?

And if you know all that, are you incuding it in your marketing? Not only might this bring you some better work, but it will help potential clients choose the most approrpriate supplier.

We have an extra section in this week's newsletter. I have asked Damien Deighan, who attended Dr John Martini's last London Breakthrough Experience, to review his experience.

Richard Winfield is founder of Brefi Group.

An international facilitator, he coaches and

facilitates directors and boards in transition:

helping them to make progress by

bringing structure and clarity

to their thinking.