How do you choose a profitable niche?

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

In todayʼs market, I believe you look for a niche where others are making
money, and go from there. Start teaching in a topic where there is proven
revenue, then as you get to know the needs of the niche, you can begin to
specialize based on what people in your niche tell you they need more of that
others are not providing.
At one time on the internet, the recommended way to find a niche was to find
something that a lot of people were looking for information about, but
relatively few, if any, people were teaching that information. But I believe that
people have been doing that for so long now that almost every profitable area
of information is being monetized. And although there may be a few scenarios
where you can make money where no one else is now, they are so few and
far between that trying to choose one is a real gamble. And I donʼt believe
you want to start a coaching business to take a gamble. I believe you want to
start a business that will make real money, and where you can help real
people, the first time around, without trying a whole bunch of different ideas
and topics. So start where people are already making money (perhaps in a
related niche to the one you think might make money but no one else is) and
when you are firmly entrenched, have a following of prospects and clients
who trust you, then begin to create training in the area where there is no
training. Your clients and prospects can help you determine exactly what they
would want to learn in that new niche. That will be much easier than you
trying to guess what people want, and likely making the wrong guess.
So how do you find a competitive niche?
I hesitate to give you a precise formula that works today, because just about
every formula offered in the past is no longer valid, and likely a formula that
works today wonʼt work in a few years. So although I will give you a few
places to go to find the relevant information, what is going to be most effective
is understanding the concept I share next, and then you can find your own
sources of information for what is competitive and has buyers.
But the idea is to find out where people are spending their money. My
experience is that if people are paying for information in one medium online,
that means that people are willing to pay for information in that niche. It
doesnʼt matter the price point, as long as people are willing to pay for
information. If people are willing to pay for information, they are generally
willing to pay for help implementing the information. Meaning that there are
usually more people selling information without coaching or step by step take
you by the hand help than are offering coaching and other help. And if people
are purchasing information, a percentage of them will likely need help
implementing it.
So the idea here is to find out if people are spending money in a certain
niche. And to do that, you have to go to where people might spend money in
a niche, and do some sleuthing and attempt to deduce if they are spending
money there.
A few places that work really well for this are online bookstores, magazine
subscriptions, best seller lists, buyers lists, etc. How many more can you think
of in your niche?