Why Going Narrow is Gold

Last week we went high-level on the Three Essentials of Becoming an Authority. Over the next several weeks, we’ll break down each of the essentials — and today — we’re starting with NICHE!

The first essential in creating an authority position is recognizing that the narrower your audience, the better. It allows you to be quickly discovered and identified as someone your target audience needs to pay attention to, all because you speak their language.

Why do you need to nail down your niche? So you can plant your flag of authority & be the go-to expert in that niche to fill your sales pipeline with right-fit clients. We use four main ingredients to define a niche. (Drew and I cover them all in our “Sell With Authority” book, which you can order a free paperback copy here – no shipping cost, completely free to you!)

We understand the idea of minimizing waste and only targeting the people who are potential customers when it comes to our clients. But when it comes to our agency’s bank accounts, it’s tough to ignore any dollar. This idea that every dollar is a worthwhile pursuit is one of the misconceptions that often derail our business development efforts. By going a mile wide and an inch deep, we deplete our resources before we can have any impact.

Instead of going wide and attempting to attract a broad audience by writing generic content suitable for everyone, true authorities do the reverse. They confidently niche down and go narrow, which allows them to go deep. There’s nothing superficial about the substance of their content, its relevance, or its helpfulness because their cornerstone content is micro-targeted to that particular audience—it’s gold!

Here are the four ingredients that make up a niche – can you go super deep into one ingredient? Absolutely – but there is strength in finding a way to intertwine several ingredients? Let’s take a look:

Ingredient #1:  Industry – when you think of industry, what space do you love? What area of work does your team mesh well with? You can narrow this ingredient as much as you’d like to nail down the industry you are great at serving.

Ingredient #2: Super Power – get super clear around what you understand better than anyone else. Maybe you conduct annual research focusing on your prospect’s audience, which may give you some insights your clients and prospects would find helpful. That’s powerful.

Ingredient #3: Problem Solved – what challenges do you & your team solve for your prospects/clients better than anyone else? 

Ingredient #4: Geography – Maybe your prospects are in a particular geography, or they are trying to dial into a specific location; if you’re in that area or have a lot of knowledge about that region, you can knit geography into your niche.

Here’s what I want to leave you with. Niche isn’t restrictive – niche helps you step into abundance, not scarcity.

And as Erik said during yesterday’s open-mic Q&A – “People are less uncertain about specialists.” 

So when you niche down — you’re sales process gets easier.

Next week we will go deep into “Point of View” and then “Be More Than a One-Trick Pony” to round out the Three Essentials to Becoming an Authority!

Until next week – onward with gusto!