Thou Shall Find More With Less

The most com­mon mis­take new­com­ers to busi­ness make is to think that by expand­ing their port­fo­lio they will secure more busi­ness. Con­versely, they think that by nar­row­ing their mar­ket they will also nar­row their chances of get­ting more busi­ness. In either case, noth­ing can be fur­ther from the truth.

A man­age­ment con­sul­tant who I believe had a knack for human resources also offered book­keep­ing ser­vices, think­ing that hav­ing more to offer will keep her busier — she then won­dered why she wasn’t get­ting any work!

The truth of the mat­ter is the fact that spe­cial­iz­ing and nar­row­ing your focus as much as pos­si­ble will increase your like­li­hood of get­ting more business.

An accoun­tant spe­cial­iz­ing in car deal­er­ships will get more busi­ness than a gen­eral accoun­tant will. An adver­tis­ing con­sul­tant spe­cial­iz­ing in print media strictly for home fur­nish­ing stores will get more busi­ness than a typ­i­cal adver­tis­ing agent will. A pho­tog­ra­pher spe­cial­iz­ing in wed­dings will get more busi­ness than a reg­u­lar pho­tog­ra­pher will. And the list goes on and on.

Over the years, this has been referred to as “niche” mar­ket­ing. Today, niche mar­ket­ing is fast becom­ing increas­ingly nec­es­sary. Why? If we go back to the two major shifts I men­tioned ear­lier, you’ll remem­ber that the explo­sion in both com­pe­ti­tion and infor­ma­tion are chang­ing the entire busi­ness landscape.

As more and more busi­nesses get started and more and more peo­ple jump into home-​​based and self-​​employed oppor­tu­ni­ties, the less time, energy, and money peo­ple will have to spend in choos­ing those with whom they will do busi­ness. This is not only related to new and repeat busi­ness but also to refer­ral busi­ness. Brand loy­alty is harder to fathom than ever before.

Let’s say you have two friends who are both in car sales, and you’re think­ing of refer­ring clients to only one of them. One of your friends is just a typ­i­cal car sales­per­son. The other, how­ever, spe­cial­izes in first-​​time car buy­ers (e.g., stu­dents, young dri­vers, new­ly­weds, late bloomers, etc).

For exam­ple, she offers spe­cial cre­ative financ­ing meth­ods for those new to credit, addi­tional car-​​specific dri­ver train­ing infor­ma­tion for new dri­vers and copies of rate com­par­i­son charts that sug­gest insur­ance com­pa­nies with the low­est pre­mi­ums for new dri­vers. Now, let me ask you this question…

… To whom do you think you will refer more people?

This is the awe­some power of nar­row­ing one’s focus. Think of a laser, which is basi­cally a nar­row beam of highly con­cen­trated, ampli­fied light. You want to focus like a laser on your niche and, when you do, you will con­se­quently burn your­self into your prospects’ minds. Now that’s branding!

When you get down to it, as a con­sumer you will choose, when you have a choice pre­sented to you, to go to a busi­ness that spe­cial­izes in a unique area in which you have a spe­cific need. Spe­cial­iza­tion is in itself a fun­da­men­tal mar­ket­ing sys­tem, for it helps to project an aura of superiority.

When you deal with a spe­cial­ist, you will auto­mat­i­cally assume that he or she has greater exper­tise, has greater knowl­edge about the field and offers greater ser­vice since, by cater­ing to a unique mar­ket, it implies that he or she will have some­what of a bet­ter under­stand­ing of your sit­u­a­tion, needs and con­cerns. In short, spe­cial­iza­tion implies supe­ri­or­ity.

Niche mar­ket­ing is the wave of the future. And the greater the com­pe­ti­tion will become, the greater the need for more spe­cial­ists. Why do you think there is a trend in spe­cialty stores these days? There are stores sell­ing only dry foods in bulk. There are vit­a­min and food sup­ple­ment stores. There are elec­tron­ics and com­puter stores. There are toy stores. There are spe­cialty crafts stores. There are even mothers-​​to-​​be and baby-​​only cloth­ing stores!

The need to spe­cial­ize is obvi­ous. Here’s an exam­ple. Today, you can get a toaster from a depart­ment store, a home fur­nish­ings store, an appli­ance store, a kitchen­ware store, a gro­cery store and a drug­store. Even a bank!

With all these stores storm­ing you with infor­ma­tion, your very lim­ited time to be able to shop around for the best prod­uct at the best price will more than likely cause you to go the one that pops into your mind the moment you have a need for a toaster. I mean, all you want is a toaster!

But, if there were a store like “Toasters-​​R-​​Us,” you’d prob­a­bly go there first!

Nev­er­the­less, your goal is to find your niche, to nar­row it down as much as pos­si­ble, and then to hit it with all you’ve got. The nar­rower your mar­ket, the more busi­ness will come to you. In fact, the nar­rower your mar­ket, the broader your chances of suc­cess in an hyper­com­pet­i­tive, over­com­mu­ni­cated soci­ety. It’s the para­dox of “Thou shall find more with less.”

If you’re new to busi­ness or hes­i­tant about nar­row­ing your focus since you want the abil­ity to offer dif­fer­ent prod­ucts or ser­vices, focus on a spe­cific niche to start, or cre­ate one as a “divi­sion” of your main busi­ness or focus.

And then, as busi­ness cre­ates enough cash­flow and con­fi­dence for you, look at expand­ing at that point. How­ever, be care­ful. Expan­sion does not mean exten­sion. If you expand out­side of your area of exper­tise, you will fall down like a house of cards and will have to rebuild from the ground up.

We will deal with this fur­ther, but for now, focus on your niche. And as stated in Com­mand­ment #2, become the spe­cial­ist by appoint­ing your­self as one!

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

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