You Can’t Please Everyone So Stop Trying

To make money you have to have a product that works and people who want to buy it. If your product is right then who is your target customer?

I shudder when businesses say ‘our product is for everyone’. You see it so many times on Dragons’ Den. ‘The market is massive’ the pitcher says; the Dragons raise an eyebrow and shake their head. If you want to dominate the world with your product you’ll need a massive marketing budget backed up by a brilliant design and execution team. You’ll have to spend millions of pounds to get a coherent consistent message out to the largest audience you can. The world has changed and that strategy is reserved for the big boys.

Most businesses struggle with their sales and marketing messages. You only have to ask, ‘so what do you do?’ to find out just how bad it is. Even the boss struggles to articulate their USP, their passion, their raison d'etre. They certainly don’t inspire, enthuse or encourage you to engage with their brand! That's why 90% of companies struggle; never achieving their full potential; they just can’t get the message across. They dilute the power of the message but trying to add in absolutely everything they can. Less is more.

If you’re trying to be all things to all people then STOP. That’s a recipe for disaster.

You need to niche – you’ve heard this before but never really taken any notice. After all why would you reduce the size of your potential audience? The answer is to get more sales, easier and hence more profit.

Think inch wide, mile deep.

Let me explain. A bookkeeper can supply services to virtually every business.

There are over 4 million businesses in the UK.

Reduce it to just Kent then it’s around 62,000.

But that’s still a big area so let’s go for Maidstone where there are say 4000 companies – still lots for a bookkeeper.

Now look at your current clients. The bookkeeper realises they already have 3 or 4 dentists on their books. There are 42 dentists in and around Maidstone. That’s a niche. They understand the industry and the quirky nature of NHS payments. Now they can craft their marketing messages specifically to the practice managers and build their ‘expert’ position. It doesn’t stop them working for other industries, it’s just that the bookkeeper becomes the ‘go to’ person for dentists.

You make more sales, money and profit by defining your niche, learning all you can about it and then marketing to your niche, will all help to make you the ‘go to’ expert.