Creating a niche to grow your book of business isn’t a new idea, but independent insurance agents are often unsure where to start.

Tie these four components together to become an industry leader in a niche you love:

1) Passion

Passion for a specific industry or type of coverage is how most agents begin the process of discovering their niche. To discover what you’re passionate about, ask yourself a few questions:

• What industry (restaurant, computer service, dog groomers) do you personally enjoy?
• What types of businesses do you frequent or research most often?
• What industry most piques your curiosity?
• If you could go to a trade show event outside the insurance industry, which one would you choose?

Because you will be living and breathing this industry or segment, you need to have a burning desire to help those within this niche. This ensures you’ll be excited to serve and provide new insurance ideas and services to help their businesses succeed.

2) Expertise

Expertise takes various forms. You might be newer to the insurance industry, but spent 10 years running a restaurant. Although you may not be a restaurant insurance expert (yet), you’re already a high-level expert on restaurants.

With any agency niche, it’s even more important to understand the industry you are serving than it is to understand the insurance nuances that accompany that industry. Does this mean you can get away with being an insurance dunce? Of course not. You must learn the terms, coverages and policy language. But in a niche, you’ll find that businesses are more interested in hearing you talk about their business than yours.

Maybe you already write a few accounts within an industry segment, but haven’t really focused your time in this market. Or maybe you don’t have any initial expertise at all. If I hired a new producer with no business experience, I would consider finding a niche or two that correlates with their passion, available markets and opportunity. I would have that agent research the ins and outs of that the niche from both an insurance coverage and industry knowledge perspective. I would make them write blog posts or social media updates about that niche and how they can serve its clientele.

As a result, the new producer would not only learn a great deal about the specific coverages and insurance nuances, but also begin to develop credibility and deeper knowledge of that industry.

You don’t have to be an expert on day one, but you do have to start positioning yourself as the expert and push forward every day.

3) Markets

You can have all the passion and expertise in the world, but if you have no markets to utilize, you’ve just wasted a considerable amount of time. You need to partner with at least two or three quality insurance markets that can serve, support and help you market your niche business.

I’ve seen agents go gangbusters with one insurance carrier only to see that program disappear after some period of time. It’s not only sad, it’s disastrous. In addition to covering your bases, accessing multiple markets also allows you to serve your niche at a higher level. Not every insurance company program is the same. Options enable you to design insurance programs with the insurance market that best fits your customer’s specific needs. You don’t want to be a one-size-fits-all insurance agent.

This goes well beyond the typical marketing approach of independent agents, where the key value proposition is choice through access to multiple markets. As a niche market expert in your industry or segment, you’ve already built relationships and credibility. Now, you’ll also provide the absolute best insurance company and coverage options designed specifically for that niche.

This is when you can fully leverage the power of your niche. If your markets see your passion and expertise in one of their own specialty niches, you will earn their support.

4) Opportunity

Before you fully commit to your niche marketing strategy, you need to understand the opportunity. This requires asking yourself more important questions:

• How many potential customers are in this niche?
• What is my geographical reach?
• What is the average premium per client for these industries or segments?
• Who are the key competitors? How much market share do they have? Are they utilizing the same insurance markets?
• What is the best way to reach these businesses (locally, online, events)?
• What is the sales cycle for this industry or segment (attraction to sales to policy delivery and service)?

Finding your agency niche takes time and forethought, but this process can help ensure you target a niche that will excite and sustain your agency. Once you tackle these four steps, you’re ready to become a trusted expert, have fun and make some money.

Brent Kelly is the CEO of BizzGrizz, which helps insurance agencies implement marketing and sales systems to increase profit and productivity.