Small Business Marketing Strategies – Niche Marketing Starts with You!

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by Cindy Schulson, Founder of Attract Your Niche

Many entrepreneurs think that in developing their small business marketing strategies, they are best off selling to the widest possible market. They are afraid to pursue a niche because they fear they’ll lose business by turning away customers. The truth is that if you are not marketing to a distinct group of customers and offering them a unique solution, you will not be heard or found online.

Benefits of Niche Marketing

When you market to a specific niche, you can focus your marketing resources. You understand the needs and language of your niche, so you can communicate better with them and speak directly to their situation.

By focusing on a niche, you become an expert at providing your service or product. And as an expert, you command higher fees and leverage your efforts to create multiple streams of income.

Above all, when you target a niche, you can differentiate yourself. You significantly reduce your competition and create a distinctive personal brand.

Niche Definition

There are many definitions of niche and target market, and the two are often used interchangeably. But there is an important distinction.

A target market is the group of people most likely to buy your product or service. They are the people to whom your product is being marketed

A niche adds another dimension. A niche combines your target market (WHO) with the solution you are providing (WHAT). When you combine your “what” with your “who”, you have your niche.

Niche = target market (who) + the problem you are solving/need you are fulfilling (what)

The key to understanding niche marketing is realizing that people don’t buy a service or product, they buy a solution. That solution can help them solve a problem or achieve a goal. Being a solution provider is critical for good relationship marketing. When you become the solution provider for your target market, you are a winner.

Out with lectures, In with Engagement

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I taped an interview at WCHL radio today (Watch social media for the interview information). When I was in university I was a broadcast communication major and spent almost all of my time in the radio station.

This was before computers. I was using a board and dials to manage sound and reel-to-reel tapes for emergency announcements.

Things are different today! Computers have made things much easier. If you make a mistake you can just delete it out of the way.

In every area of our lives things have changed. That is true for the demands of public speaking. No longer is it enough to just stand in front of a group of people and lecture for 60 minutes. Your audience wants engagement.

Think about what you are doing when you go into a meeting- you text, you check your email on a smart phone, you check your social media- granted, not the best meeting etiquette and you know it happens.

Take a look around the next time you attend a speech or presentation. How many people have their smart phone out? How many of those folks are actively doing something other than listening to the speaker?

Individuals in the 20’s and 30’s have grown up multi-tasking on the smart phones, never far from the nearest video game or some kind of electronic entertainment. You need to break through all of that noise if you want your message to get through.

I’m sure you know the basics

  • Make sure your topic is of interest to your audience
  • Tell entertaining, emotional stories
  • Start your speech/presentation off with a bang that gets everyone’s attention

What else can you do to engage your audience on an even deeper level?

Instead of thinking of your speech as a ‘speech’ think of it as an opportunity to get to know 10, 50, 500 people and for them to get to know you.

If you shift your mindset you will look at your material and your audience in an entirely new way. To get to know someone you need to engage with him or her. That is the key to today’s audience- engagement.

Engagement pulls them away from their smart phone and helps them to know, like and trust you. All of the other elements of your speech must be there and adding engagement will shift you from just a speaker to a speaker that walks away from every engagement with clients and leverages their time.

When technology fails

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I love my cell phone – from the practicality of email and a calculator to the occasional game of Plants vs. Zombies between clients.

I love my laptop-from the ability to create complex spreadsheets to the ability to have information about the most random fact in just seconds.

I love my autoresponder, shopping cart, affiliate tool- from… Wait.. What?!

I just got a message on my cell phone that clients are not getting their dial in information for a free teleseminar! Technology is failing me!

Most of us have a love affair with technology. On a daily basis it makes our lives easier. It makes a virtual world possible. It is the reason I can work from a home office and focus my time on my clients instead of on things like finding the right office space.

Technology is the instrument that can turn an expert in Podunk Texas into a global sensation. It lets me live the life I want. And when it goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong.

Apparently, there was a failure of one technology to properly function with another technology over the last few days (the products will remain nameless to protect the guilty). For me, that means I lost a few dozen registrations for a free teleseminar. As I was scrambling to get my virtual assistant on the problem I started thinking about the big online marketers- the folks that lose thousands of registrations when a product is down for a 24 or 48-hour period.

How do you come back from that? It’s not the end of the world, although until the issue is fixed it feels pretty rough. Most of the time if you let people know what is happening they will help you. Tell the truth- I had a technology issue, please reregister and I appreciate you willingness to take an extra step.

You can’t do anything about the root cause of the problem. You are at the mercy of the tool owner.

All you can do is recover. Most folks today understand that there really are some technology issues that just cannot be helped. We no longer have control over every aspect of what we use to run our businesses. I can’t fix my computer or my cell phone. I can control how I react to technology failures.

There are so many reasons to get stressed out- why worry about what might happen? I really do hear clients say- ‘Well, I don’t want to do X because it might…’. An asteroid might hit the world tomorrow but I’m not losing sleep over it tonight! Don’t worry about what you cannot directly control.

Do your best to set things up in a smart, forward thinking manner then adjust to what happens. You will find that people are forgiving and understanding of technology issues. Everyone has been there.

What happens if you fail?

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“I love it when a plan comes together.” (Now I’m showing my age!)

Everyone once in a while the stars align and everything seems to work out just fine- or maybe better than fine.  An opportunity came my way- only 1 thing was missing. I had the key! I just had to get him (they key) on the phone.  The guy never picks up the phone, never responds to messages.

Well… he picked up on the second ring. And he can solve the issue. Beautiful!

Perfect things happen if you just let them. Often that is where the issue lies. We don’t let them. We try to force things that just don’t want to work. You see it in relationships (personal and work) and with target markets.

The key is to know when to ‘cut the cord’ and when to move forward. For some folks moving forward is just as difficult as cutting the cord. What if I make a mistake? What if I am wrong? What if this is a colossal failure that blows up in my face?

What if it is? You pick up and you start again. Thomas Edison tried thousands of times to develop a commercially acceptable incandescent light bulb. I wonder where we would be today if he had given up?

There is much that can be learned in failure. Often, if you examine a failure you will find the beginnings of a much bigger success.

I once had a manager tell me “Fail so big you can see it from space!” She would rather have me fail that big than not do anything at all. Very little is gained without risk, even less if you never do anything.

Courage is the difference between an idea and a great idea. It doesn’t mean you have to take a huge leap at one time, it can mean small steps one at a time until you reach the goal.

It means picking up the phone to talk to the one guy that might be able to help you out- and hoping he picks up!

You can Learn a lot just Practicing Your Speech

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I have been having information chats with folks about workshops- if they had never done a workshop and could ask an expert anything what would they ask? A friend had in interesting comment, she wouldn’t ask anything. She would want someone to tell her that when she practices she needs to stand up.

She (let’s call her D) knew she should practice what she was going to say- KUDOS! And D did practice. But she practiced while sitting at a conference table. D learned when delivering the information that standing is a completely different energy.

It is. Standing changes the way you project, changes your confidence, and forces you to concentrate more fully on what you are supposed to be saying. Try it sometime. Sit at your desk and read something out loud from the Internet.

Now, stand up, read the same information. Unless you are practiced at speaking dramatically over the phone, I am willing to bet the standing version sounds a whole lot more exciting. You may find yourself gesturing or even moving.

Just standing up to practice takes more energy than sitting. If I am feeling really lazy I will sometimes practices presentations sitting at my desk.  And to really get the feel of what I am saying – to ferret out the gestures and dramatic moments, to find the pieces that cry out for audience interaction, clarification or a whole rewrite- standing allows me to feel every aspect of what I am saying.  It is no longer only a cerebral activity. It becomes visceral.

Shouldn’t speaking be a visceral experience for your audience (or participants)? The more emotionally involved they are the more they will remember, the more engaged they are, and they have an experience instead of just a moment listening to some guy at the front of the room.

How do you practice? (Share in comments)

What do you do when your speech time is cut in half?

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My time wasn’t cut in half- 60 minutes turned into 40.  What do you do?

Here’s what you don’t do

  • Don’t keep everyone late simply because your content is sooooo fantastic they simply must hear it- that is a sure fire way to annoy folks and help them forget all of the positive thoughts they had about you and your content
  • Don’t  *itch, and grip and moan to the audience about how you have to rethink things- they don’t care, nor should they. In a perfect world they wouldn’t even know your time was cut short.
  • Don’t talk really fast just so you can get through it all.
  •  Don’t cut a question(s) short during the Q&A simply because you want to hurry up and get to the fantastic close you’ve been working on for 2 weeks.

Your audience still needs to feel like the most important person in the world while you are speaking to them.  (I said person on purpose- you are having a conversation with each individual audience member.)

This scenario is why it is so important to really know your content. The better you know it the easier it is to think on the fly- remove pieces that don’t impact the overall content while including the most impactful points.

Because you don’t want to overwhelm your audience you should remember to eliminate some points altogether. Instead of putting too much information in to 40 minutes, include fewer points with a clear explanation for each.

Approach each point like you only had 40 minutes to begin with- decide to keep it or jettison it. Maybe you only include 1 story or 1 example instead of the 3 you had planned.

Watch your audience, they will tell you if you are providing too much information too quickly. We have all seen that glazed look (of course, not during a speech WE gave!).  Stop and breathe- maybe you didn’t realize how fast you were going.

The bottom line is even if there is no extension cord for the PowerPoint, the room is 20 degrees too hot and you only have 20 minutes instead of 60 you can still pull off a speech that is valuable to the audience. That really is the goal- providing value. Practice and preparation are the keys to pulling off that great speech in the worst of circumstances.

How much is too much? (Information to share)

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Information experts are constantly cranking out, well.. information.

Between free products, blogs, social media updates, free teleseminars, interviews and speeches we share a ton of information. There is a limit to how much information you can share before you start to impact your revenue.

The line is based on providing informational content vs. implementation content. Implementation content is the content that really helps you take whatever it is you just learned and easily put it into practice. For instance- if you are sharing information about holding VIP days the templates you provide assist with implementation so you have moved into implementation content. Another example- if you are an organizer and provide clients with workbooks to develop a schedule for spring-cleaning the workbook is implementation content. The information content is why you need to have a spring-cleaning schedule, when to start basic spring-cleaning, some of the areas to clean etc.

Think of information content as who and what; implementation content is how.

Sharing information content freely is good business. That content helps your target market get a sense for who you are, how you view information, what your specialties are and why they might work with you. There is a tremendous amount of value to your market just in your informational content.

Implementation is what separates the casual reader from the client. Clients want implementation assistance. They want you to make the information you shared with them fast and easy to put into practice. Clients will pay big bucks for implementation assistance.

The interesting thing about sharing content is that you can share a process with your readers without sharing implementation information. A quick example: simple guidelines for choosing a great speech topic:

  • Choose a topic that draws people in.
  • What does your target market want that they don’t have?
  • Address people’s pain
  • Address Maslow’s hierarchy of human need

That might be enough information for some to move forward and develop a fantastic topic. (Admittedly it kind of vague.) Most will want implementation assistance. That is where your revenue stream begins.

The whole point is to not give away the farm. Give away the information. The farm (implementation specifics) can be shared with the people who really want the help and to work with you.

Is there always something to learn? Even for the expert?

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I did it. I got a coach. Why? Cause I don’t know what I don’t know.

I do know that if I want to continue to provide high value to my clients and to grow the business I need to have someone in my corner pushing me just like I do with my clients.

I know that for most of us a coach is a big commitment – you need to invest time and money to get the most out of your experience. Commitment by investment. I see it with my clients all of the time. You hear big time coaches and consultants talk about it. The more you pay the more committed you are to doing the work and reaching your goals.

Think about how many FREE teleseminars, articles, ebooks… you have gotten in the last year. How many have you actually used or even opened up!  Now think about the $3,000 program you purchased last fall. I bet you did everything that program suggested and got really great results. Commitment by investment.

Everyone has their investment threshold. Some folks need to spend $100 and others $10,000 before they feel like the program/coach/consultant is valuable enough that they will actually do the work.

It doesn’t matter how much it costs- no one is going to do the work for you. At the end of the day it all comes down to personal responsibility and how much you want to make the changes or reach the goals you are talking about.

I sometimes hear people say “Well, I don’t need to learn anymore about X or Y. I’ve been doing it for years, I’m good at it.” I’m sure you are. I’ve never met anyone that could not learn something. Even masters will tell you there is always something t o learn.

It becomes a question of how willing are you to learn;? To admit there might be just one more thing, one more bit that can make you even better at what you do.  Additional coaching doesn’t take anything away from the expert. I have found that people look up to others who continue to grow- if nothing else it makes the expert seem human, which builds rapport with their audience.

Let me know how you are growing by adding your comments.

7 Tips for Starting 2012 with a Bang

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My plate is full and it is wonderful! After a few days off I am again trying to prioritize too many deadlines all at once. I am usually pretty good with deadlines but…. One of my projects is causing lots of frustration and taking huge amounts of time that I had planned on spending on other projects with deadlines.

Enough of my kvetching- what do I do about this?! Well, I have outsourced some of the work. Work I normally do on my own I am outsourcing to others who can do it just as well (and faster).

I am bringing on an intern to handle some administrative work. Interns are the hidden gems out there. They can provide a few hours of assistance every week, learn about your business and all you have to do is write a letter of recommendation.

I have reassessed how I prioritize my workflow. It seems to be paying off. Tasks are getting done quickly, I am able to brush off the frustration of one project when I shift gears to another project.

If you find yourself a little overwhelmed with everything you need to do to start this year right follow these steps:

  1. Prioritize revenue generating items first- including your client work- If some of them have a long lead time to completion set time aside to work on low hanging fruit- revenue generators that happen quickly so the revenue is flowing- while you are working on the long lead time items
  2. Make sure you are building revenue generators into your speeches- if you are not certain how work with a public speaking coach that can help you
  3. Take advantage of your affiliate partnerships and joint ventures to create passive income
  4. Work on building your list- an active list combined with targeted products will pump up your passive income- Stay in touch with your list regularly- even if it is only 2 times a month, it doesn’t have to be a long newsletter, a short ‘Hello here’s what I’m up to’ with 2 or 3 tips and a call to action will do the trick
  5. Keep growing- with all of the other demands mastering your topic can seem like it is not important. Continuing education will keep your mind sharp, ensure you are always adding new information to your work and keep you energized. Set a little bit of time aside each week- even 30 minutes on a weekend is valuable.
  6. Take care of yourself- get sleep, exercise, eat right…..
  7. Now do everything else.

I know- looks impossible but it’s not. A little bit of time every day and things will be completed. If you see progress you will keep moving.

Share what you are doing to start your 2012 in the comments.

What to do when your presentation imitates life

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I tell a story about how I first realized that I loved public speaking. It’s not one of those feel good everything went perfectly stories. It is an everything went horribly wrong and yet, I felt exhilarated stories.

In my story the PowerPoint I am using suddenly goes black- no projection at all. Yesterday while presenting to a group of business folks my PowerPoint did exactly that. Stopped working completely. My back was to the screen so I had no idea until someone pointed out that my life was imitating my story.

I had to fall back on the training I received when I first started speaking to successful navigate through the rest of my speech. Too often we ‘forget’ or discount that training because we are ‘seasoned’ or (let’s face it) lazy.

Here are the keys that saved that presentation:

  • Practice, practice, practice – few people like to hear it but practice does get you through the rough stuff, I knew what I wanted to say, when I wanted to say it, and how I wanted to do it, I didn’t need the slides to remind or guide me (Thank you! to the first person that ever helped me put together a presentation!)
  • Know your topic- it is not the same thing as practice. When you practice you include delivery cues, pauses for effect, gestures. Knowing your topic means you know which stories pertain to which point and how, exactly what content you are sharing about a point and what is best left for another day. When you know your topic and your timing you don’t need the event planner to tell you there are only 5 minutes left, you already have that internal clock running.
  • Always bring your notes to the stage with you- written out in long hand, bullet point, whatever works for you. In this case I was moving around the room when I learned the slides were down, but I knew my notes were there. If I needed a reference to continue I had it and there is comfort just knowing you have a backup.
  • Collateral (handouts for the audience)- I always provide the audience with a handout. Generally something they can take notes on. My audience was not left staring at a blank screen with no visual guidance and, in a worst-case scenario, I had something I could use as a reference. Handouts are well worth the extra 10 minutes to create them and the time to print them. They are a great tool for visual and kinesthetic learners.

None of this is rocket science and for those of us that always want to ‘be prepared’ it just makes sense. But when I was early in the process of learning the art of public speaking… I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I am grateful to the mentors that pointed out these simple and relevant strategies.