David A. Fields Consulting Group You’ve undoubtedly received plenty of advice to position your consulting firm in a narrow niche. Of course, you’ve also been advised to coat your daily diet with chocolate. (Maybe the latter advice was only from me, but it still counts.)
Niche, chocolate. Is either one really necessary?
Absolutely! Let’s look at some examples, a few benefits, and a very rough rule of thumb for consulting firm niches.
Examples of Niche vs. No Niche
Two small consulting firms I work with in Europe offer similar solutions to an operational problem. One firm proudly announces their experience across a wide range of industries. They consistently knock their heads against a $1.5m/year annual revenue ceiling.
The other firm serves a single industry. Their revenue is $15m/year.
10x revenue because of a niche? Yes.
Countless consulting firms run strategy projects. The vast majority of tiny and solo strategy consultants offer guidance to any prospect that meets their sole criteria: signing authority.
Most of those strategy consulting practices earn (well) under $500k per partner.
In contrast, one of my clients solves only one piece of the strategy puzzle for a single industry. Their revenues are skyrocketing and the two-partner firm will crest $3.0m this year.
In further contrast, another consulting firm I work with offers services only to a sub-segment of the healthcare industry, and their revenue is topping $100m this year.
The consulting firm I cut my teeth in served the narrow intersection of retailers and manufacturers, and regularly generated over $1m per consultant. (Much more per partner.)
One final example is my own firm. There are many advisors to “professional services” firms, and that may strike you as a narrow target.
However, my team works exclusively with consulting firms, and my personal experience is that our precise focus allows us to deliver superior value, win clients more easily, and enjoy greater financial performance compared to firms targeting professional services in general.
Benefits of a Narrow Niche
Memorability. Your consulting firm is easier to recall if you’re the one that serves Ecuadorian chocolate factories than if you’re one of a zillion consultants who “help companies with operations.”
Relevance. Your consulting firm’s work, IP, and marketing efforts all feel directly applicable to your target when they address your target’s problems precisely, illustrated with close-in examples.
Credibility. Prospective consulting clients trust you can help them, when they see you’ve helped others who look exactly like them in exactly the same situation. In most clients’ eyes, the closer your consulting firm’s experience is to their own situation, the higher your credibility.
Referrability. Because you’re memorable, relevant and credible, others will sell on your behalf. The consulting firms I work with who specialize in a narrow niche obtain far more referrals and inbound leads than those with diffuse targets.
Broad Opportunities: Ironically, a client who knows you focus in a certain area is more likely to ask, “Could you also…?” Once you’ve established trust with a client, expanding your work is natural and seamless.
Think of your market as a hollow wall. You need a sharp point to penetrate the resistance.
A Client’s View of Niches
As I sat in the sun-drenched Sonoma Valley this past weekend, a Silicon Valley tycoon (on his 7th company!) and I struck up a conversation. When I mentioned that I advise consulting firms, he said,
“I hope the very first piece of advice you give them is to focus in on a narrow market. Consulting firms approach me every day saying they can do everything, and I can’t remember one of them.”
A Rule of Thumb for Consulting Firm Niches
Divide your consulting firm’s total revenue by the total number of industries you market to and problems you represent yourself as solving.
Is your revenue per target under $3m? If so, you’ll benefit from narrowing your niche.
You could easily win much more business than that in the right combination of industry and problem. However, $3m per niche is a good yardstick for measuring your consulting firm’s performance.
What has your experience (or challenge) been in finding a niche for your consulting firm?
Text and images are © 2026 David A. Fields, all rights reserved.
Hey David,
Just came across your book on Amazon and onto your blog. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
I wonder how you’d advise a solo digital marketing consultant enter into the Industrial Companies niche. I envision my tagline to be “I help Industrial Companies increase their revenue with Digital Marketing”.
Is this narrow enough?
Welcome to this community, Naresh, and good on you for soliciting feedback!
It’s not immediately clear to me what an “industrial company” is. That could be a term that’s unfamiliar to me, but that people in the niche would recognize immediately–if so, then it may be narrow. The aspiration “increase revenue via digital marketing” is reasonable, and narrower will help.
One of my clients was, like you, a solo consultant promising growth through digital marketing. We narrowed his area of focus dramatically a couple of years ago and this year he has already topped $1 million.
Thanks for being willing to share your idea, Naresh.
Hey David, new here and really enjoyed this article. just to clarify in the example you gave regarding the consulting firm where you cut your teeth. When you say “the intersection of retailers and manufacturers” do you mean manufacturers that sell directly to consumers?
Thanks
Welcome to the community, Jordan, and thanks for taking the time to ask your question.
The firm I started in worked on “trade marketing” for manufacturers. We helped our clients achieve their goals with their direct, retail customers (such as Wal-Mart or CVS or Staples).
Thanks for getting back to me David. I wrestle with the idea of niching on a daily basis, a lot of people swear by niching and then you have people like Alan Weiss that are against it. I started my solo practice roughly 12 months ago and to be honest, so far have had a really slow start having sealed no clients yet. Australia has a small population in comparison to the likes of the US, we have only 2,171,544 actively trading businesses and only 1.5% of which have revenues over $15m. ( i am targeting businesses with revenues between $15m – $100m revenue)
This 1.5% contains every sector, my worry is niching down within this is reducing options way too much and won’t give me enough business opportunities to meet my goal of $1m per year income.
But if I was to give niching a go I’d say something like this ” Direct to consumer manufacturing companies work with me to massively increase revenues with fewer clints and lower costs” is this still to wishy-washy?
Sorry for the length of this!
The case for focusing on a niche as a small consulting practice is based on research among buyers and the preponderance of evidence. The case for generalizing is based primarily on ego, exceptions, and a desire to appear contrarian.
Based on your statistics, there are 32.5k businesses in your target size. Since you only need a target population of around 300 to build a thriving practice, you can define your niche down to about 1% of the total Australian market.
Also, who says you’re confined to Australia? I work with consultants and consulting firms all over the world. At a minimum, you can help clients across the Asia-Pacific region.
You’re thinking of your business upside down.
No one hires your consulting firm because you’re trying to hit $1m. They hire you because you’re relevant to them.
Your Fishing Line appears to have a good target (gtc manufacturers); you haven’t defined the problem or aspiration well, yet.
Thanks for providing the case study by sharing your own situation, Jordan.
David-
I appreciate your insight on the niche market of consulting. I am considering beginning my own practice in niche consulting. I have worked in an extremely niche industry for almost 10 years. Its an $80 billion market that virtually almost no one knows yet so many companies already have the systems in place to engage in it, but again are oblivious that it exists. That being the case over the years I have excelled at it due to extremely low competition and the experience I have gained over the years. I recently began my own outfit within this industry and have seen massive success, but I knew before I began this outfit I would see massive success because I completely understand the market.
I know you touched on pricing above. I’ve read countless articles on consulting pricing, but still am having a difficult time pricing myself. Let me explain why. As mentioned above I have an invaluable amount of knowledge in an extremely profitable industry. I know one might think why don’t I just franchise my existing company if it is so successful. Well I could and be successful at it but the amount of prospects for new franchisees pales in comparison to amount of existing businesses in a similar industry that have the systems already in place to readily take part in my industry.
What I have been thinking about doing is reaching out to these existing companies and proposing to allow me to educate upper management and spearhead this department for them for a flat rate of about a 1/3 of what I would charge for an initial franchise fee and excluding things like royalties or profit shares. I believe this model would allow me to get in front of much more candidates quicker and allow me to scale faster, instead of seeking out people interested in beginning their own company through my franchise.
I guess my question is (I apologize for the length) am I offering a consulting service or an I don’t know a different kind of service? I know it may sound strange for there to be a market worth close to $80 billion a year that not many know about, but it does exist. These companies I seek out could very much attempt to engage in it after I have given my elevator speech, but that doesn’t worry me. The reason being is unless they know someone like myself they will not be profitable for about 2 years, and during that time they will make an unforeseen amount of financial mistakes that could potentially compromise their company as they know it. However, if they are armed with the knowledge of the industry I provide they could begin to see very large profits very quickly, with no mistakes.
I have been in business for 9 months with my own company. At this end of this year I will have grossed a little north of $1,250,000 in sales and will net $500,000. I am my only employee..
Congratulations on your spectacular start, Andrew. That’s very impressive. Your question is mixing together fee structure, firm structure, pricing and offering. Those are separate, related topics. Obviously, your question requires a more in-depth exploration than fits neatly into a comment. Please reach out to my team at support@davidafields.com and we can have a more in-depth discussion.
Mr Fields,
Very useful post – thank you.
Two related points:
At this point, we are understood in our industry as experts in digital (online) higher education. And this is a great place to be at the moment – given market trends. But in order to improve the bottom line and to have more of the work done by employees that are not necessarily experts, we’d like to shift to offering specific services, as much as possible.
When I think about how to ensure that our niche is sufficiently narrow, I find that it also leads me to define the consultancy less in terms of the “areas” in which I work or our “expertise” and more in terms of what we “do”. Taken to the extreme, the consultancy becomes a program or process of sorts that I can implement for a variety of clients. Does this sound right?
By way of context . . . at this point, we are understood in our industry as experts in digital (online) higher education. And this is a great place to be at the moment – given market trends. But in order to improve the bottom line and to have more of the work done by employees that are not necessarily experts, we’d like to shift to offering specific services, as much as possible.
Keith
If I’m understanding your question, Keith, you’re asking if shifting your firm’s delivery approach to a high-leverage, low-seniority model means defining your business by the activity you do (i.e., the process).
The answer is No. Or, at least, not exactly. Think about a clothing manufacturer such as Armani. Armani’s delivery approach consists of a lot of low-paid workers sewing pieces together. Does that mean Armani should define themselves as a sewing firm? No. Armani is a provider of fashion, prestige, etc. They offer their customers confidence or some other soft benefits.
Similarly, your consulting firm offers a solution to your clients’ problem or the achievement of their aspiration. That’s the definition of your firm. How you deliver that value is important for scaling profitability; however, it doesn’t define your firm.
Once you wed yourself to your delivery approach rather than to your market, you’re consigning yourself to eventually becoming out of touch and irrelevant. (Granted, that could take years or even decades.)
Thank you for posting the thoughtful inquiry, Keith.