“Focus” is one of those words that people say and feel like they did something constructive. I rarely see someone talking about its costs.
To start, focusing on your niche means investing in tools/training that cannot be easily re-used. It saps pricing flexibility, probably leading to some missing sales.
You would probably spend more time screening clients, and disappoint old clients by not “stretching” to meet all of their needs.
The greater risk of dependency on the good fortunes of a particular client or market segment is hard to ignore, along with a chance of being late to adapt to new trends.
Finally, a narrower client base limits networking opportunities during your normal workday, so good networking has to become a conscious effort.
That being said, I still think market focus is the lesser of the two evils compared to running after every wallet you see. What is gained by the flexibility of a “diversified approach” is usually lost to inefficiency and challenges of integrity.
When every client needs special treatment and payment terms, burnout is usually not far away.
Along with the design, the pricing policy is a clear window showing off your professionalism level. Because of that, all of the costs as mentioned above are worth it if you can get a head start on building the client’s trust just by clearly and confidently answering the question of “how much?”