A Niche That is Large Enough

Pick a niche that is large enough!

You know all about your “secret sauce” – the things that make you and your products or services unique. Hopefully if you have been methodical in your approach, and you have matched your product/services features and benefits to appeal to a target segments(s) so you can create real value propositions that are appealing and will get you customers.

Many small businesses compete successfully against larger rivals by selecting and specializing in a niche market or segments. However, you need to be extremely careful and do your homework diligently, to ensure that the niche is large enough to support your business and that customers are not too expensive to find and serve.

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Marketing budgets can soon get swallowed if prospects for your products are hard to find. The more you spend and the less enquiries you get, then the cost per enquiry can reach a point where sales can be unprofitable!

You also may discover that niche markets can be just as fiercely competitive as the mass market. You need to figure out how fast your niche is growing and how much market share you can realistically expect to capture.

If your financial projections require you to hold more than a few percent of market share to remain profitable, be careful. Don't press ahead unless you can convincingly demonstrate to yourself how your competitive advantages will enable you to become the market leader.

However, on a positive note, if you find the right niches you can dominate them and provide barriers to entry by bigger players. Also your smaller size should make you more nimble and adaptable to market changes.

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Fast Goal Setting For Dummies

Fast Goal setting for dummies – Part 1

You know what – goal setting can be fun!

First of all you need to identify your personal values which will then enable you to set goals to reflect those values.  There is absolutely no point in having goals if you don’t identify what makes you tick. Everyone can say they want a big house, car, boat but you have to identify why!

Easier said than done? Sure it is – it’s easy!

To start all you need is a pen, paper and a willingness to be honest. This is to do with you, no-one else. You should allow at least 30 minutes to accomplish your task.

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 So, ready, steady,  go ……

1.       You need to be relaxed, nothing will be accomplished if you are tense. Make sure you are on your own in a quiet relaxed atmosphere. Maybe put some mood music on, even meditate for a few minutes, just to clear your mind.

2.       Ask yourself a question at a time and, no cheating, be honest.

(a)    First question – if you knew Doomsday was about to occur, what would you want to achieve.

(b)   Second question – describe the person that you believe you are when you are at your absolute peak. Use adjectives, colours whatever you like to describe yourself

(c)    Third question – who would you say was your role model and why?

(d)   At the end of your life, how do you want to be remembered?

Now if you have been honest, then you should have an idea of what matters to you i.e. your values!

3.       So now, lets start to identify your goals using your values

(a)     What do you love doing, what makes you happy?

(b)   What would your dream life be? Don’t hold back on this one.

(c)    What are you great at? What’s your USP?

(d)   What would you do if you were guaranteed to succeed

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 For Section 3 you may need to divide out your life into personal, career and helping others. In personal you should include relationships (family, friends and partner), health and fitness, hobbies and just sheer pleasure! For career incorporate your ideal worklife, money, colleagues, company, working for yourself? In the “helping others” include what you would like to give back to the world, ie. What charitable acts would you like to achieve?

So looking at all of these you should now be able to write down  at least 3 goals for each section (and hopefully more!). Look at them closely, are they really, really what YOU dream of – again be honest. There is absolutely no point in setting goals if they mean nothing to you and you have only included them because you think you should.

Check your goals against your values – do they match?

Part 2 will be how you bring these goals to fruition – watch this space.

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What happens when hit a bump in growth

What happens when hit a bump in growth?

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You know the situation, something is not right. Your business growth has plateaued. Your value proposition still works, but you lose old customers as fast as you gain new customers. You mistakenly attribute this loss to normal customer attrition.

You are trying to increase your marketing engine harder but sales remain flat. The economic climate does not really encourage you to spend more of your cash on marketing, with little hope of return.

You add new products. You target new customer audiences. You experience short-term increases in sales but it is not the breakthrough you hoped for. Sales fall, then rise and then fall again. You feel like you are on a treadmill. It is exhausting. You settle into your new normal. 

All of your time and energy is devoted to keeping your house of cards standing.

One of the obvious things you can do is look to your existing customer base. Can you sell more products and services to them, or are you just relying on a single sale, based purely on new customers and new business?

Can you put together an attractive offer that will make them either repurchase or buy an additional product or service?

Do you know if your customers are satisfied with what you sold them? If they are, what are you doing to increase their connection to your business so they are the road to becoming loyal customers and advocates? Moving on from this, are you in a position to seek active referrals and recommendations from existing customers and if you do that how are you going to reassure your existing customers that you are really going to look after their referrals? Are you going to recompense your own customers for those referrals?

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 The point I am trying to make is this – if you new business acquisition from new customers is slowing or becoming costly to attain, then look to cross selling to your existing customers and consider a referral or member get member program.

Customer retention and customer development are not just for large corporations.

Start as you mean to go on.

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Considerations for starting your Business

What makes a company great?

It is a vibe and an experience. You know that employees are connected to the company goals and they really connect with customers. They are knowledgeable, eager to please, deliver innovation and ideas.

So the big questions to ask yourself is your company great?

If not, what do you need to do to make it great?

Let’ start at the very beginning – have you created your company’s “secret sauce.”  This is the special distinction that makes you and your products/services stand out. They are the value propositions that will cut through the clutter to make customers be aware of you and want to buy from YOU, not your competitors. So what are the ingredients in your “secret sauce?”

Your time, energy and resources at this stage must be focused on doing everything you believe is essential to creating great products and driving customers to your door. Everything else is secondary until you have cracked this. Launching with mediocre products, service and attitude will not create a successful thriving business.

 This has to be your first big step.

We will continue from this theme throughout the next series of blogs.

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