Some of you may have seen this cover photo before of me hiking through the mountains in Arizona. I thought that it was important to use this picture again because this moment changed the nature of my business. It was the end of 2019, and I went to Arizona to start writing my second book. During that time, I chose to go hiking daily and work out twice per day to unlock my writer's block and disconnect while everyone was enjoying the holidays.
Each day resort guests would pile up in a van, and the driver would take us to a different mountain to go hiking. During my hike, I had a diverse playlist going with everything from classical music to mid-nineties hip-hop. While many chose to engage with the group, I stayed to myself and focused on the hike/journey. One day, after mountaintop meditation, I decided to leave my headphones off. The tour guide and I sparked up a conversation and found that we had many things in common, one being a marketing background. After sharing successes and failures, we laughed and had a bit more small talk while traveling back down the mountain. As we reached the bottom of the mountain, she said something that always stuck with me, "The riches are in the niches." Having a sales and marketing background, niche marketing was something that I was familiar with but had not held myself accountable to as an agency owner. While growing the agency, we initially took on every client we could and were grateful for all of them. However, as the business began to grow, we identified our strength areas and focused on carving out our niche; we started to carve out the market that we wanted to serve. Every action that we took, from events to content, to speaking engagements, was aligned with our target audience in mind. We were no longer casting a net but instead fishing where the fish are. As a result, the business started to take off along with referrals. We realized that the referrals came faster because people connected us with people they engaged with regularly. The network began to get smaller, and it became easier for our clients to refer us because our offerings became a lot more clear.
Though the agency has a wide spectrum of clientele, we established key criteria that our clients fall under. We still get referrals outside of our core clients and are proud to serve. In summary, it is okay to niche down and get laser-focused in your business. The referrals will still come. Positioning yourself as a thought leader and niche authority holds significant value when you are being compared to those who "Do it All." The following is a checklist to help you establish your niche:
-Ask yourself what you like and don't like doing
-Who do you best connect with?
-Who would benefit most from what you have to share?
-What problem do you solve?
-Where can you find your audience on and offline?
-What is your audience saying?
-What are their pain points?
-How is your offering the solution?
-Does the client's business align with your profitability model?
-What does your existing capacity look like, and how will you scale?
-Are your offerings easy to understand?
Fun Fact: According to DialogTech: "58% of marketers are challenged with targeting or segmenting their audience. Many marketers are unable to tap into all the rich first-party sources at their fingertips — this leaves them unable to personalize consumer experiences."
I hope my key learnings from an adventure in the mountains help you reach new heights in your business. If you need help clarifying your audience and carving out your niche, book a call with me.
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