Make Your Message Compelling and Clients Will Flock to YOU!
I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
Bill Cosby
To attract clients consistently and with little effort, your marketing message must be clear and it must stand out. There’s no way around it. Because if what you say about your business doesn’t sound irresistible to your prospects when they read it, then they’ll move on to the next person. Guaranteed.
So your task is to stand out from the pack and to make prospects really sit up and listen to what you have to offer. Standing out from the pack is easier when you have an expertise or a niche. (But you knew that already) So, what’s stopping you? Well, I’ve come up with 2 reasons why most people don’t niche. They are:
- They believe they’ll turn away opportunities if they go too narrow.
- They wouldn’t even know where to start (and most are going about it the wrong way).
Let’s start with the first point. Believing that you will turn away clients and opportunities if you niche is actually completely and totally invalid. This one is based on fear, when the exact opposite is true. When you niche properly, you get more clients and client attraction becomes so much easier because:
- Your marketing message becomes crystal clear
- Your marketing plan is so much easier and less costly
- People perceive you as an expert and prospective clients seek out experts
- You get a lot more referrals than generalists get
- Strategic alliances seek YOU out
- You can charge more because you know more and we all love that
- The media seek you out because the media loves experts
Once you get clarity on the many benefits of niching, then it’s your job to do just that. And that’s usually the hardest part. There are many ways of creating a niche. Solo-entrepreneurs often don’t know where to start, or they go about it the wrong way or they find it so frustrating they’ve even stopped trying to niche.
Most people look on the outside for a niche, when they should be looking on the inside. Instead of trying to find a demographic that is more affluent, or more likely to work with you and forcing yourself into a particular niche, just because the numbers look good, look for a situation or type of person you have an AFFINITY with, who can recognise that working with you is essential.
An idea is your niche is usually someone like you, who is in the ‘before’ stage of your own ‘before-and-after’ story. This is really important. When someone is looking to hire someone in your industry, they are looking for a SOLUTION to their biggest problem. You niche is looking for reassurance that it will work and their money will be well spent.
Basically, many will come to you and pay you well to have you show them how to get to the ‘after’ part of the story. That’s when using your ‘compelling story’ in your marketing really begins to make a difference in you getting clients. When you can tell your story, show your struggles, what you did to get over those, and what your situation is like now and that you can help them do the exact same thing, then they are sold. Right there, on the spot, they will choose to be your client. And you haven’t even opened your mouth yet!
Your marketing message and materials did all the work for you… how cool is that?
Posted by Deborah Jackson on June 29, 2011
