Question #1: Are there particular places where your tribe hangs out or congregates?

If you cannot find a place where they hang out, you won't find a place for you to market your business, either.

This could be online or offline. It could be at networking events, associations, or social networks like Facebook or Meetup.com. It could be a mass of people searching for a particular solution on Google. It can even be on other people’s newsletters.

It’s also much easier if your tribe self-identifies itself easily. For example, women who want to find their soul mate.

If you’re looking for a tribe and you think your tribe is women age 25 to 50, that’s not a tribe. Now, if you’re talking about new mothers who are having trouble adjusting to life after the first baby is born, that’s definitely a tribe. You can find where they hang out online. You can tap into an already existing community of new mothers. Now, only if you have answer of yes to this first question, do you get to move on to question #2.

Question #2: Can you honestly say that you care, respect, and perhaps even love your tribe?

If you don’t have a genuine caring for your tribe – by that I mean not forced where you have to try to love them – you’ll lose your mojo for your business soon.

You’re going to spend a lot of time with these people, so it’s important to pick a tribe that you actually care about.

Sometimes we pick our niche, our tribe with our head rather than with our heart, so the heart has to be part of this equation. If you’ve got the answer to #1 and #2, you get to move onto question #3.

Question #3: Do you know what result your tribe is willing to invest into getting? (for example, what results does your tribe currently invest into now?)

Now this is a BIG one! You need to provide a highly desirable result that your tribe is ready to invest into.

Just because you picked a tribe doesn’t mean you have a niche!

It’s even more important to be able to identify what result your tribe urgently wants. And your tribe needs to want it enough to want to pay for getting that result.

Remember, it’s what your tribe WANTS (!), not what you think it needs. Until you get a yes to this question, you can't move on to #4. And if you’ve got the first three as “Yes”, you’re doing well.

Question #4: Are you passionate about delivering the result your tribe wants?

You need to be passionate about your tribe, but you also need to be passionate about the results that they want. Without this passion, you won’t have the energy to persevere in your business – you’ll be challenged to get out of bed every day to work on growing your business.

For me, any time someone signs up for one of my training programs, I am jumping up and down, because I'm excited that they are going to get result I care about. And I know that's the way that I can make a difference in the world. If you get all the clients that you want as a result of working with me, guess what happens? I get to make a big difference, because there’s a ripple effect of how many people I can positively impact with the work that I’m doing.

Question #5: Do you want to be known for delivering that result?

Can you see yourself being at a gathering of your tribe members where everyone is looking at you as the expert for delivering that result? You’re walking by and somebody says, “Oh yes, there’s so-an-so who does so-and-so.” Wow!

By the way, that also means that you need to let go of being known for any other result.

If you can say, “Yes, I want to be known for this,” then you get to move on to question #6.

Question #6: Do you currently have the expertise or the desire to commit to being the best at delivering this result?

At this point, if you have all yeses… and you have the expertise already (and/or you know you can commit to continued mastery in what you do), then you have probably picked a great niche for yourself.

Question #7: Can you identify other players who are creating successful businesses marketing to that same tribe? (i.e. there are other people making a good living solving the same problems you want to solve for your tribe?)

This is the last one. Think of this as a bonus, because this can really take you from a good business to a huge business. If you can find other people who have built a successful business marketing to the same tribe, then your chances of success are even higher because your niche has already proven itself. It has a proven record of success.

By the way, most people have an instinct to go in the opposite direction. “The more competition I have in an area or niche, the less likely I am to succeed.” But it’s actually the opposite. The more people that pave the way for you, the easier it will be for you to be successful. (One question you can ask yourself – is everyone who desires the result you offer being served? If not, there’s room for you too).