Riches in the Niches
Episode 46: Riches in the Niches, with Henry DeVries
View this episode on:
Riches in the Niches — Unlock the potential of niche markets with our insights and strategies – discover riches in the niches!
Riches in the Niches — I’m excited for you to meet our special encore guest expert today — Henry DeVries.
If you’re meeting Henry for the first time — he’s the CEO of Indie Books International. He’s the former president of an award-winning “Ad Age 500” marketing agency — and — Henry is also a weekly columnist for Forbes.com.
Henry was my guest for Episode 15 of the podcast, where he shared his expertise around strategies and tactics for writing a book — and then — how to use the book as your primary marketing strategy — or, as Henry likes to say — “Marketing with a Book.”
We’ll be sure to add a link to Episode 15 to today’s show notes.
Riches in the niches? Okay — I invited Henry to join me for this encore interview so we could focus our time and attention on Chapter 5 of Henry’s latest book entitled, “Marketing with a Book for Agency Owners.”
He titled Chapter 5 — “Riches in Niches.”
If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while now — or if you’ve read our books — or attended any of our open-mic Q&As or live workshops — you know that here at Predictive ROI…we’re big fans of building a riches in niches strategy.
I’m going to quote Henry from Chapter 5 quickly…
Henry writes, “To attract high-paying clients, agency owners must be clear on their ideal prospects. But a target market with a problem is not enough. Agency owners also must find target clients that can afford to pay what you want to charge.”
Okay — it’s here at the intersection of these two points that Henry and I focused our riches in niche discussion.
How to find right-fit prospects who are willing to pay what you want to charge — and I would argue that when you do this work correctly and your content strategy is on point and generous — your right-fit prospects will be EAGER to pay your premium price.
To help us get there — I asked Henry to walk us through what he calls the “10 filter questions” that you and your team can use as you work through the process of niching down.
Riches in the niches? In my opinion — Henry’s 10 filter questions are critically important to the process of seeking riches in niches because if we don’t get it right at the beginning — HOLY BANANAS — it’s most likely not going to feel right 2-3 years into your “niche” strategy.
I promise you — if you take and apply Henry’s advice and build a strategy around riches in niches — and then — have the courage to build an authority position deep in the niche (instead of being sort of committed), you consistently create helpful cornerstone and cobblestone content that shares your smarts with your audience. If you do this work — you’ll not only be seen as the AUTHORITY in the niche, but your sales pipeline will go from being dry to being filled with a steady stream of right-fit clients from within the niche who are eager to work with you — AND — willing to pay your premium price to do it.
That’s the recipe for riches in niches.
What you’ll learn from this episode is about riches in the niches:
- Why your riches in niches strategy needs to include stories that matter and where you ought to share them
- Why it’s so important to share the right social proof with your prospective clients
- How to find prospects in niches who are willing to pay what you want to charge
- How to identify riches in the niches and then properly step into the right pond within the right niche
- How to work through the 10 filtering questions to do the right work up front to help ensure you tap into the riches in niches
- Utilizing riches in the niches is a powerful strategy to emotionally engage your audience, making your message memorable and compelling in a way that resonates with their needs and experiences.
Free Resources:
- Read this article by Henry to learn more about riches in niches: Discover The Rainmaker Secrets Of Riches in The Niches.
- Discover more about riches in the niches in this LinkedIn Post by Henry DeVries entitled The Secret To Make It Rain Like A Multi-Million-Dollar Agency
- Go here for Episode 15, when Henry and I discussed his strategies for Marketing with a Book.
- Order your free copy of our Sell with Authority book (Honest — it’s truly 100 percent free. No hoops to jump through).
- Download our “WHO Framework” so you can replace your dry sales pipeline by attracting a steady stream of well-prepared, right-fit clients who are eager to work with you.
Riches in the Niches: Full Episode Transcript
Welcome to the Sell with Authority podcast. I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI, and my team and I created this podcast specifically for you. So if you’re an agency owner, a business coach, or a strategic consultant, and you’re looking to grow a thriving, profitable business that can weather the constant change that seems to be our world’s reality, then you’re in the right place. You want proven strategies for attracting a steady stream of well-prepared, right-fit prospects into your sales pipeline. Yep. We’re gonna cover that. You wanna learn how to step away from the sea of competitors, so you actually stand out and own the ground you’re standing on. Yep. We’re gonna cover that too. You want to future-proof your business so you can navigate the next challenges that come your way. Well, I will absolutely help you there as well. I promise you each episode of this podcast will contain valuable insights and tangible examples of best practices, never theory, from thought leaders, experts, and owners who have done exactly what you’re working hard to do.
So, I want you to think practical and tactical. Never any fluff. Each of our guests has built a position of authority and then monetized that position by claiming their ground, growing their audience, nurturing leads, and, yes, converting sales. But all the while, they did it by being helpful. So every time someone from their audience turned around there, they were with a helpful answer to an important question, so their prospects never felt like they were a prospect. I also promise you every strategy we discuss and every tool we recommend will be shared in full transparency in each episode so you can plant your flag of authority, claim your ground, and fill your sales pipeline with a steady stream of right-fit clients. So, I am super excited for you to meet our very special encore guest expert today, Henry DeVries. If you’re meeting Henry for the first time, he’s the CEO of Indie Books International.
He’s the former president of an award-winning ad, age 500 marketing agency, and Henry is a weekly columnist for forbes.com. Henry was also my guest for episode 15 of the podcast, where he shared his expertise around strategies and tactics for writing a book and how to use the book as your primary marketing strategy, or as Henry likes to say, marketing with a book. So, we’ll be sure to add a link to episode 15 to today’s show notes to make it super easy to find. It’s a great episode. Okay, so I invited Henry to join me for this encore so we could focus our time and attention on chapter five of Henry’s latest book, which is entitled Marketing with a Book for Agency Owners. He titled Chapter Five, riches in the Niches. And if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while now, or if you’ve read our books or attended any of our open mic Q and A’s or live workshops, you know that we’re big fans of itching here at Predictive ROI.
Riches in the Niches: Henry DeVries’s Introduction
So, I’m gonna quickly quote Henry here; from chapter five of the book, Henry writes that to attract high-paying clients, agency owners must be clear on their ideal prospects, and then he goes on to write. But a target market with a problem is not enough. Agency owners also must find target clients who can afford to pay what they want to charge. Okay? So it’s at the intersection of these two points that Henry and I will focus our discussion today on finding right-fit prospects willing to pay what you want to charge. And I would argue that when you do this work correctly, and your content strategy is on point and generous, your right-fit prospects will be eager to pay your premium price. To help us get there, I’m going to ask Henry to walk us through what he calls the 10 filter questions that you and your team can use as you work through the process of niching down.
In my opinion, Henry’s 10 filter questions are critically important to the process of seeking riches in the niches. Because if we don’t get it right at the beginning, well, holy bananas is most likely not gonna feel right two to three years down the road. I promise you, if you take and apply Henry’s advice and seek the riches in the niches, and then have the courage to actually build an authority position deep in the niche and not be kind of committed to the niche, you’re consistently creating helpful cornerstone and cobblestone content that shares your smarts with your prospective clients, clients in the niche, you’ll not only be seen as the authority in the niche, but you will fill your sales pipeline with a steady stream of RightFit clients who are eager to work with you and who are willing to pay your premium price to do it. So, without further ado, my friend, welcome back to the Sell with Authority podcast, Henry.
Thank you for inviting me to talk about riches and niches. You are very welcome. It’s April 2022, place in Oceanside, California. I’m celebrating the eighth anniversary of Indie books. Okay? We’ve published over 150 authors. Life is great. I’m not happy, Okay. I’m at a crossroads. Sounds like there’s a story there. You’re gonna start us off. There’s a story there. I’m at a crossroads, and I go; I teach these riches and niches, and I’ve helped so many people, and I don’t feel that we’ve really found ours, huh? Because I had focused on consultants and coaches, okay? And there was just something missing. And the ponds and the groups, the watering holes and Pamela Slim of the Whitest Nets language, you know, they just weren’t feeling totally right for me. Okay? So I did an exercise. I went on a retreat, just me in a car to a motel to think this through, okay?
Riches in the Niches: Attracting High-Paying Clients Through Precision in Targeting and Niche Authority
Riches in the Niches? Made a list of all our authors and divided them into groups, okay? And there was this one group that I liked to work with the most, Hmm. Agency owners, because I was an agency owner. As a matter of fact, indie Books International is an agency; it’s a marketing agency disguised as a publishing company, okay? We helped people speak, but part of it was this training aspect where we train you to give speeches, get on podcasts, and do these things to amplify your work. That’s my word for the years, Stephen. Amplify. We need to amplify our work. That’s a good word to talk about. So I went and the agency owners. I said, well, where could I meet agency owners? So I researched, and there were 10 places where they gathered that I found, and one was called the Baba, BAB Summit, build a Better Agency Summit.
And it costs over $2,000 to attend. little problem. I didn’t have an extra $2,000, but I do cover marketing for forbes.com. I’ve been a paid columnist for five years. So I contacted the Baba Summit people, and to my surprise, they said, yes, you can have a media credential cover us at the Western in Chicago. Mm-Hmm, . So meanwhile, I started to call some of these agency owners that I’d helped do their books. And I said, you know, whatever happened as a result of the book. And Tom Young, one of my authors, said, oh, you helped us get to the million-dollar level. And then we leveraged that book, and now we’re at 2 million a year. I talked to another person, and she said I didn’t have any Fortune 500 companies when we started. I’ve tripled my revenues, and now I’m working for one of the top five banks in America, one of the top five financial houses in America, and a billion-dollar Japanese technology company.
As a result of this, I’m going like, well, those are some I said, would you, would you, you put that in writing? Could I put that in writing? Well, of course. Would you tell other people? You know, can I put you on video? Oh, yeah. Send anybody my way. I’m going to check. We, we’ve got something going here. Right? Also, they were the most willing to pay. Some of them told me, you know, you’re not charging enough. You need to charge. This is what the agency bad. This is what the agency owners were sharing. They were telling me that I wasn’t charging them enough for what they were getting from me. Okay? So, I go to the Baba Summit. I did not know you were involved, Stephen; I knew you from being in a couple of appearances on Onward Nation.
Riches in the Niches? I think I have written about a couple of your clients and Forbes. Yep. So that was our relationship. But I see you were one of the sponsors involved, which was great. Within an hour of being there, everything I’d been teaching for the last 15 years in writing about but unwilling to do as a service, you were preaching at Baba, the pe baba speakers were preaching, and they had people there to do it. You know, if you wanted podcasts, you could go to Predictive ROI; if you wanted a proprietary research study, you could go to audience audit. So it was like, these are my people. Mm-Hmm. This is so great. And I had decided then, okay, I’m going all in. Now. Let me tell you, fear never sleeps. To go all in on a target niche is a scary proposition.
Riches in the Niches: Overcoming Challenges and Embracing Opportunities
You’re worried that by declaring I work for these people, your referral sources are going to dry up. I can assure you they do not. Right? The other thing that happens is you’re afraid that somebody will read your website and go, oh, well, that’s not for me. I can assure you it’s not. I have people call me up and say, look, I know I’m not an agency owner, but I run this consulting company, and could I please convince you to work with me? Right. You know, go on. I’ll say, you know, and, and, some have and done wonderful projects. Meanwhile, I commit to this. This is May, and I think I’ve gotta write a book. I’ve gotta write a book about this, but I am very busy. When am I going to have time to write another book?
What are riches in the niches? So, we all have different faiths, and I respect that. And, in California, I have to say the universe or the universe will manifest when I’m out in the Midwest with you; I can say God helps those who help themselves. So, I prayed on it and prayed for time to finish this book. Be careful what you pray for. In August, I gave five workshops for CEOs on how to persuade with a story. Mm-Hmm. That’s what I’m paid to speak about. I’ve written books on that. On day five, I contract COVID-19. So I’m in Memphis, Tennessee, thousands of miles from home. Nobody there. I have to check into this cheap motel to quarantine for a week. Yep. And, my healthcare got right on. It got me into a doctor who prescribed the drug Paxlovid for me.
So, I’m on a five-day protocol of Paxlovid. Well, it knocked it down right away. And I thought, well, I don’t want to watch TV. I’ll start writing the book. Five days later, the book was written, you know, thank you. I’m grateful for that time. I wish it could have been a little more enjoyable, but I got the book done and started rolling. I know I needed refinements. So, we signed up with Predictive ROI, did the 90-day program, and refined it. Eric, on your team, I love Eric dearly because he challenged me on everything. he gave me pushback on everything. It wasn’t like, oh, great, this, like, no, this and that. What happens if this happens? And I’d go, oh man, that would’ve been a huge mistake if I’d gone that way.
So, very grateful to Predictive ROI. Then I saw workshops by you and Drew McClellan of AMI in Florida. didn’t have the money for that. I went to the board and said, we need to borrow money personally so that I can go to Disney World for a conference in December and January. and then when I explained it, my wife said, A hunch. Henry had a hunch. And we bet on the hunch. And the hunch worked. So, I’ve been picking up agency clients. You told me I needed to double my prices and hire better people. I went out and did that. Yep. And then when people would call me, I would give that higher price, and they didn’t blink. So it all came back to what we’re going to talk about today: these filter questions. Yep. Agency owners pass the filter questions test for me, and I hope the filter questions help the listeners today.
Riches in the Niches: Leveraging Workshops and Communities for Effective Market Penetration
Awesome. Well, so let’s, I want to tease out just one piece of what you just said about the workshop and not like promoting the workshop or advertising the workshop, but your recognition of the Baba Summit and how the workshop and how you participated in our community, how you participate in the Agency Management Institute community and, and so forth. And how you’ve been very strategic in aligning partnerships and friendships. Because those are efforts to get deeper into the niche, and, I’m not saying that those are not great relationships and personal relationships and turning into friendships and that kind of stuff. I’m not saying that those are like surfaces and are not genuine because I know they are. What I am saying is that they are, excuse me, that they’re also indicative of when you go deep into the niche, it’s about really understanding the people in the niche, really understanding the pond, really understanding who is in the pond, swimming around and all of that, and developing those relationships. That’s part of getting deep into the niche. Would you agree?
Oh, absolutely. I also have to shout out to Susan Byer, a Community of Audience Audit member. I heard you and Susan speak at the Baba Summit, and I shook her hand, gave her my card, and said I’d like to interview her for forbes.com. And she’s the world’s busiest woman who’s going at Mach five with their hair on fire. So that wasn’t happening, but I was called by you, and there were other people. You, you had me, I think, on a Q and A talk about the book. Mm-Hmm. Yep. Susan was there, and she called me up afterward and said we had to talk. She says I was where you were a few years ago. I know who you are. and I know where you’re at, and I get deep into this.
So this is what you need to do. Yep. And I said thank you. I appreciate that. what is the best piece of advice you have for me right now? Okay. She said, go to the workshops in December and January, you know, beg, borrow steel, do whatever you have to. She says I went from having eight clients to 40 when I went into this niche, which is really strong. And so go there. And she says you are gonna learn things. Mm-Hmm. From the content that Drew and Stephen teach. You’re gonna learn more about your target audience because you’re going to listen to them. You’re gonna hear them, you’re gonna have a drink with them, you know, breakfast with them, and you’re gonna be this listening machine at one of the agencies where I cut my teeth, I was the head of research too. Okay. I was the head of creative services and research. That’s a schizophrenic kind of person, right? Like, that’s a bit of a juxtaposition, but okay.
Riches in the Niches: 10 Filter Questions for Targeting the Right Audience
Yeah. Right. Sounds awesome. Creative and research. So I know about in-depth interviews and research and, you know, listening. And that was so true because you’re amongst them, and you can relate to them. And I understand that when they tell a story, you can go. Yeah. You know, I’ve been there, done that. So that’s important; you’ve gotta go where your target-rich audience is. not so much that, oh, I’m gonna find clients. I did, and I will, but I wanna understand their worries, frustrations, and doubts. I need the fear, uncertainty, and doubt, the FUD factor. You need to know their FUD factor. And that’s the number one thing they want to know. Do you understand my pain?
Yeah. Not only do you speak my language, but you also speak my dialect. And when we talk through the niche deep dive like in our Q and A’s and in the WHO framework and so forth, that part of that starts with the first two ingredients in that are what are the problems, hence the FUD factor that you just mentioned. Then what are the stories? How can you speak to those problems within a story? Because we’re just DNA-wired to receive stories, right? How can we talk about the FUD factor in the form of a story? And then to your earlier point, how can we step into the right ponds to tell the stories, right? Because they feel appropriate and they land correctly. It feels weird to step into a non-agency owner pond, if you will, and start talking about agency owner stories.
Riches in the Niches — There’s incongruency when that happens. So, like, all of this is part of the great recipe. You’ve done a great job of stepping into the pond and finding the rich in the niche or the riches in the niches. And I know that they’re, you’re, you’re actively mining that. Let’s start going through the 10 filter questions because I think they’re, not only do I think that they’re smart, I, but I also think that there’s smartness, if you will, in the layers, suitable. So, some of the questions are multi-layered. Some of the questions are deeper than maybe what somebody might think as they’re quickly going through them, and I don’t have to answer that one. I could bypass that one. Or I’ll focus on questions two, six, and 10. And that should be good.
And it’s not good. The 10 filtering questions are 10 filtering questions on purpose. So, let’s go through them first. I’m, I’m just gonna go through them, quickly and then, and then we’ll go back and slice them apart. So, question one: are you interested in solving the problems this group has? Question two: have you worked with any already? Three, can they afford to pay you four? Are they willing to pay more for better service? Five, do they already know they need an agency like you? Six? Are they numerous? Seven, do you have only a few real competitors? Eight. Can you find them easily enough through listing associations? nine, can you find a target-rich environment where they gather? And then 10, will you or will some make marquee clients advocates and references? Okay. So, let’s slice all of these apart and go through them in depth. So walk us through, number one, are you interested in solving this group’s problems, and why do you put that first?
Riches in the Niches: The Importance of Genuine Interest in Problem-Solving for Effective Business Development
Okay. So first, let me grab my 17th book. Amazing. And Stephen, my books are my children. Hmm. And like my children, I expect them to take care of me in my old age. Okay. So let’s go to chapter five and that first one: are you interested in solving the problems if solving their problems doesn’t energize you? It’s a non-starter. When I looked at the different groups, I saw that I’d done a lot with technology services companies. Okay.
And I thought, do I wanna spend all my time with technology services companies? I once had a chance to buy the agency I’d started at and worked my way up to president. And I didn’t know this strategy. It was just instinctive, and I followed it. We were the leader in real estate, community marketing, new home communities, and master plan communities throughout Southern California. Okay. We had all the top people, and you eat on that whale for years, and you catch a whale, like a master plan community. That’s an eight, seven, seven, eight-year project. You bet. but I didn’t buy it, and one of the reasons was I didn’t wanna spend the rest of my life talking about cathedral ceilings and low-flow toilets. You know, it was just like, it didn’t excite me. Yeah. So, I went out on my own, formed my own lemonade stand, and looked for the right niche. So, agency owners, I love the problems they have. Oh, by the way, research, yep. The number one problem for two outta three agency owners is, and you know it, Stephen, the dry sales pipeline, not enough qualified prospects in that pipeline. Yep. And business development is their heartburn. It’s their pain. The second problem for 50% of agency owners is not having enough time to do business development. should we move to two? Have you worked with them already? 1 more piece to number one.Okay.
Because if we don’t get right what you just said, you know, that, that we’re interested in solving the problems that are gonna come through also in the content. When, when, when you know that Drew and I teach the point of view piece, right? So, Predictive ROI, we believe, like in our core, that most agencies, business coaches, and strategic consultants go about business development in the least effective, most painful way possible. There’s a better way. We call it sell with authority methodology. That is our belief system. It is our truth. So if you’re just kind of like, Nah, on point number one here, which is why it’s an important filter that’s gonna show through in your content, that’s gonna show through how you show up in the pond, right?
Riches in the Niches: The Essential Ingredients for Effective Niche Engagement and Business Development
Right. We have an energy meter. Yeah. Everybody has it, and they can tell whether you have energy around this topic. Are you just there? Because you’re trying to serve that, it’s like if you’re not genuinely energetic about it, it was a famous author about, you know, the power of enthusiasm. You know? So, if you don’t have confidence, right? it comes across Yep. And you can’t fake it. No. You can’t fake sincerity.
No. Because then you look like you’re trying to get rich in the niche, which feels a lot yucky to everyone in the pond. So, okay. So, by the way, you just said that Yeah. The riches are not just money. Yeah. There are 12 different riches that you can get from it. money finishes 12 on the list. when you’re, one of the riches is you love to work. You love to work because you love solving their problems. you love these people. So that comes through 100%. Yeah. When somebody goes to the Baba Summit, the builder Better Agency Summit, this May, as the previous two summits, when Drew McClellan gets on stage to do his keynote, like he has the previous two, there will be, there will be tears, there will be shouts of joy, there will be, it’s an emotional delivery of a keynote. Why? Everyone, all 300 and more, whatever number of people who are going to be there this year, will know that he is there for them. He also said that he speaks their language and his stories align with that. His passion is all about helping them. It is clear through his words and actions that he is their guy. And, and, and that rings through. If he were there just to play niches in the, or riches in the niches, it, it, it, it, I mean, it would fall flat, right? It would be easy to check out and see the difference. They were yelling, we love you, drew. It was like a rock concert. I was thinking like, what’s going on here? Right? And that does not happen by accident, right? No.
It comes across as Drew being an agency owner. Yep. And AMI, is this another thing he’s doing to help other agency owners? From Predictive ROI, Eric stepped on my toes and said, you don’t talk in any of your materials that you’re an agency owner right now. And that you know this, and you know, when you get up in the morning, you have to worry about your pipeline. And you have to worry about the clients and the billing. And I say you don’t tell ’em that you’re walking the same journey. So that’s important. It is important. Okay. So now, let’s move to number two.
Riches in the Niches: The Importance of Prior Experience, Credibility, and Financial Viability
Well, have you worked with them already? And, and I’ve coached a thousand people on this, and we’ll come up to this and they say, well, I’d like to work with, you know, maybe hospitals, healthcare. I heard there’s a lot of money there. or I could work with financial advisors. I said, well, how many hospitals have you worked with? None. How many financial advisors have you worked with? Dozens and dozens. I said, okay, here’s our answer. You know, it’s like, yes, you could pick a niche you’ve never been in and worked to get in there, but you’re swimming upstream. There’s a German proverb I would like to quote, and I’ll translate it like this. It doesn’t matter how fast you’re going if you’re on the wrong road. Amen.
In fact, it’s actually worse because you’re getting farther away from where you need to be. so you need to get on the right road. And the right road is people who you’ve already helped you have some credibility with. There needs to be a story there that, as you said, the stories you tell. Yeah. They need to be your stories. Your stories matter. Human brains are hardwired for stories. So you need to be telling stories for that target group. Amazing. Okay. Perfect. how about three, can they afford you?
Can they afford you? I always say money isn’t everything. The author Zig Ziglar said money is not the most important thing, you know, oxygen, but it’s next to oxygen. So we need money to keep going. It’s the fuel that keeps the rocket ship going here. And some people don’t have the money, right? For you to have abundance, the abundance you need for your team members, for causes you wanna support, all the things you need to do requires filthy lucre. Now, it requires money.
Well, that ties into number four. Are they willing to pay more for better service so that you’re not having a race to the bottom right and can actually afford to invest in delighting your clients? Am I on the same page with you?
Riches in the Niches: Targeting Prospects Already Familiar with Agency Value Propositions
You, you’re absolutely right. So, they have to see the value in the investment. Okay. So when we were in the real estate niche, they saw the value, and they’ll pay more. There was a quick story. One client wanted to talk to us about this. And I have to say he was a little shady. They were big, burly people outside his office and, you know, so let’s say shady. And so I made a mistake as, as agency president, I said, double the amount that we normally charge, and that way he’ll kick us out is too expensive, you know? And he said, but what happened was he said, okay, you charge twice as much as anybody else. Must Be good.
Well, obviously, you’re good. So okay, you’re hired. And then, he gave us some secret information and said, if it ever gets out, you’re going to have to look over your shoulder all the time. Do you understand what I’m saying? And I said, I understand. I walked out, and my account executive, a young, sweet woman, said that threat. Do you really think he could cause us to lose other clients? I said, Linda, he was threatening to kill us. He would have us murdered if this got out. She was like, oh, like, thankfully, the campaign went well. And we moved on.
Well, well, so I, here, here’s one of the reasons why I feel like number five is multi-layered. so do they already know they need an agency like you? When I read it now, it could be just my lens and my bias that when I read it, I think, oh, okay. It’s because, you know, we’ve planted a flag of authority. We’ve, you know, become the authority in the space, in the niche and, and all of that. And you say you must educate the prospects that need an agency like yours. so, tell us all about five because when I read five, I’m like, that’s pretty meaty. Number five.
Five is meaning. So you’re looking for clients who hire agencies. They’ve worked with an agency before. They know the value proposition of the agency. They’re not the people who go like, eh, I could hire somebody in-house or an agency. Yeah. You don’t want those people because they’re asking the wrong questions. You know, an agency buys time by the year, sells it back by the hour, and gives you top talent. Yep. You’re competing for the bottom talent who’s willing to work for you. It’s like the old joke about you being an astronaut. Are you comforted by the fact that your rocket was built by the lowest bidder? You know? And, and, so so you don’t want that. So if you want something, they hire agencies. Yeah. And I landed a million-dollar account when I was president of someone else’s agency.
Riches in the Niches: Prioritizing Expertise and Skill Over Industry Specifics for Client Acquisition
Okay. And I got it from teaching. And somebody took the course and brought me in, and they talked about their business for 45 minutes. I understood nothing about their business or what they did. Hmm. And then they said, our current agency is Manning, salvage, and Lee, but we’ve had a little falling out, so we need a new agency. Well, that was the first thing I understood because I knew that agency wouldn’t touch an account for under a million dollars. I thought, oh, I said, give me a week, and I’ll come back with a proposal. So, I educated myself in this industry. Nobody was a specialist in it. And won the account. Another time, I was brought in by a Fortune 500 company, and they had this project, and you’d say, this wasn’t in my niche; it was about energy and gas and electric and new things like this.
And I talked to him, and I said, I really don’t think we’re the agency for you because I have no background in this area. And they called me a week later and said, you had the account. And I went in and said it was a great account. I said, why, why did you hire me? But I don’t know this area. He said, well, actually, nobody knows this area. We were looking for something else. We were looking for somebody who could come in and completely dissect a problem and then explain to our people how to implement it. Hmm. And we talked around, and people said, oh, these are the four magic words in the English language, by the way. They said I know a guy, Henry Devrees. Mm-Hmm. And that’s how he got it. So sometimes you’ll be brought in for a certain skill you have that people recognize, and that can work for you, too. I give you permission to work for anybody. I want to stress that you should market to one target niche, a niche in Canada or a niche in America, as in, you know, there are riches and niches, witches. So, we don’t even know how to pronounce the word, but we know that it works.
Well, it is funny. You’ve mentioned Eric a couple of times, and he says he pronounces it as niche. But when you said, I know a guy that, that reminded me of something that I thought about mentioning, but then just forgot how that is actually an ingredient of how Drew and I define the niche. And so, if anyone listening has heard that Eric and I taught niche before, yes, it could certainly be an industry that’s one of the ingredients in the recipe. Two, it could be your superpower, as you just described, skill, right? It could absolutely be a superpower. three, maybe it’s a business issue or challenge that you solve better than anybody else. And your certain skill example was teetering into that. So you’re putting a couple of ingredients together, which is awesome, in the fourth. It could be an audience, maybe, you know, an audience better, maybe you know, an audience better than the client or your prospective client. So, when we knit all of those ingredients together, it becomes a pretty, pretty strong recipe. So, let’s move to number six: are they numerous?
Riches in the Niches: Finding the Right-Sized Fishing Pond for Your Niche
And I’m a big fan of David C. Baker. I’ve written about them for years. The business. Let’s see, the business of expertise. And in the business of expertise, he says, you need to have 2000 to 10,000 prospects in the area to really consider it. Less than that, it’s too small of a fishing pond. Too much you’re trying to drain the ocean. so you find that for me, there are 7,800 small to medium-sized agencies in America. That’s a pond I can fish in for the rest of my life. Yep. And still have prospects I couldn’t get to. so that’s what you’re looking for. Okay. Along the way, some other people chose pest control companies, and they became the pest control agency for America. And when people say, oh, I need an expert in pest control and, and marketing and all this is, I know a guy this works for our female listeners, I asked some of them, and they said, yeah, we, we get called guys too. So it’s okay. So I know a guy, if you need a research study for an agency, I know a guy named Susan Byer from Arizona audience audit. So it works that same way.
Okay. So, let’s go to seven. do you have only a few real competitors? Yeah. So if somebody says I have no competition, I’m really worried. Yeah. As far as I’ve researched, we keep mentioning Eric Jensen, who helped me with this. There are no agency books. Guys other than me are the people who are, like, their whole thing is doing agency books. Yeah. Now, there are other ghostwriters, there are other publishers. Sure. Those are still viable choices. Somebody will look at them as they look at me. I might have an edge that I specialize in the niche, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have competition. Hmm. So, but I don’t have tons of people who can do the soup to nuts for planning a book or preparing. You know, I’m a ghostwriter. I’m a developmental editor publishing the book. And then what happens? Our motto at Indie Books is publishing the book is not the finish line. It’s the starting line. Right? It’s about the journey that happens after that.
And it’s a marathon. because no author gets discovered. I, that’s a myth out there. I’m gonna write this book, and people discover me. You don’t get discovered. I love the actress Margot Robbie. If you know her, I do. She was being interviewed, and somebody asked what would’ve happened if she had moved from Australia to America and not been discovered. And she said, I’m sorry, what’s the question? She says, well, what would you have done if they didn’t, if you weren’t discovered? She says you thought I was discovered. I knocked on every door in Hollywood, every agent, every producer. And I kept knocking until somebody let me in and finally gave an audition; I was not discovered. So, as an author, you’re not gonna be discovered either. You need to slice and dice that content. You need to go on podcasts. You, I have seven magnificent things you have to do. There’s a great book, 1,001 Ways to Market Your Book. That’s the problem. There are a thousand in One Way to Market your book. I’ll give you the seven most pragmatic things to do that are gonna get results.
So, is that something that we can either link in the show notes or share with our audience or maybe point them to a blog post? I know you teach on the seventh, but is there I can teach on the seventh? I’ve had articles on it in Forbes, okay. Great com and, and we could link to it. Okay. Perfect. So, I will link to one of your forbes.com articles for some additional insight. Thank you for that. The discovery thing is really great. People think that, who don’t know the backstory of Sylvester Stallone, he did the same thing in New York and went to every agent, and, you know, did it multiple times, until finally, he wrote the script. And it’s a really interesting story, but it’s all about perseverance. So eight.
Riches in the Niches: Navigating Industry Gatherings and Connecting with the Right Audience
However, Rocky’s story is interesting because he also doesn’t know what he is worth. In one of his first meetings, when they asked him how much the screenplay was for, and he gave a number, the meeting was over because they thought he was an amateur. Yeah. I’m sorry, we’re going to eight, right? Alright. This speaks to your builder better agency example you mentioned last year. Can you find them easily enough through Listen associations?
Right? You’re looking for places where they go to get smarter. So, at the Baba Summit, they go to get smarter. David C. Baker has a mind-your-own business conference where they go to get smarter. There’s TAA, and agencies get together, and they go there to get smarter. So where are these places? Pamela Slim and the whitest net call them the watering holes or the ponds. So can you find them? Sometimes people come to me, there’s this group they want, they’re describing this psychographic, and there’s, I go like, yeah, we can’t buy a list of those people. They don’t have any meetings where this psychographic group gathers. Hmm. This is a dry hole, as they say. And they all business down in Texas. You got a dry hole here. and no amount of fracking is gonna help you get anything out of that hole. So, gee, that was probably politically incorrect. So, what we need to do is find where they gather, and there’s this amazing tool I have. If I could share it, Stephen, can I share it? Of Course, you can.
It’s called Google. You Google, where do, you know, agency owners gather? Where do agency owners meet? Where do agency owners, you know, what do agency owners read? Yeah. And the Google machine, as one old timer called it to me. So yeah, the Google machine will spit out your answers there.
Well, here’s what I love about eight and nine. So, nine, can you find rich target environments where they gathered? And you mentioned Baba; you mentioned some of the other agency-centric associations when, when I think of eight and nine, I see some real cool interdependency between eight and nine. Eight. Can we buy a list of the 7,800 that you mentioned before? Yes. Can we then use that list to do some strategic prospecting, maybe? I wonder if this person’s gonna be at the Baba Summit this year. I wonder if that person’s going to be a sponsor of the Baba Summit. Then you can start sort of pre-planning so that you can take your list, head to nine the pond, and then make sure you’re meeting the right people while in the pond. Right.
Riches in the Niches: Building Trust and Social Proof by Leveraging Client Advocacy
Right. And there are all kinds of strategies, and you’ve used them, that there might be some pre-event, you know, cocktail party. Or, I know, we’re kicking around some kind of donut party, morning donut ex. But no running, Carly Cunningham. Carly Cunningham, if you’re listening to this right now, donuts, yes. Long-distance running through the streets of Chicago.
No. Have you seen Henry and Stephen? Do we look like marathon runners or donut eaters? I Have two tight hips for pizza. I’m not running. Come on.
My doctor said that I’d already eaten my lifetime supply of donuts and that I should let other people have the donuts now. But, for Carly, I might consent to have one in Chicago. The point of that is you can get together. I do Q and As modeled after your campfire Q and As for authors and agency owners, and I encourage people to be part of the community, come there, ask questions, and get to know other members. I call the 150 authors the family. Yep. My word is I want the family to amplify each other’s work. It’s not a quid pro quo or anything like that, but it is the law of reciprocation that the more people you help, the more you will get helped to amplify your work and share it with others. And as we said, you can do extra things where these gatherings are. David Maister, Dr. David Maister, I recommend him. Former professor at the Harvard Business School. he let me take one page from one of his books 20 years ago and make a career out of it. And, he always said, this is what you need to do, and you need to gather, and you just don’t come in and out. you need to be part of the community and contribute to that community anyway. You can 100%. I know that we’re quickly running out of time. So, bring us home with the number 10. Will some make Marques’ clients advocates and references?
Well, right. If you have some group where they say, what would be your client, but here’s the condition: you can never mention that you worked with us. this is not a good place because prospects want social proof. They want several things. They want, they wanna know that you have a proprietary problem-solving process, that you’re not winging it. They want to know that you have experience with this. they wanna know some marquee clients. They wanna be able to talk to some people that you’ve worked with. they need all these social proofs because they can’t really judge how good of a service our agency provides. and everybody says the same thing. Oh, I’ve done focus groups with people who hire agencies. Don’t say these things. Don’t say how long you’ve been in business. they laugh at you for that. I’ve been golfing longer than Tiger Woods.
It doesn’t make me a better golfer. Okay? The other thing is, don’t say we’re just the right size, big enough to get the job done, or small enough for personal attention. They laugh at us for that. They say firms with five people say that firms with 500 people say that. What they wanna hear is research about their peers. Not you naming peers. But, you know, we’ve worked with, you know, this many people or we’ve done a study, and our research shows, like I shared, that two outta three agency owners, the number one pain is a dry sales pipeline. Not enough qualified prospects. Yep. I surveyed over a thousand people to learn that. So they wanna learn about themselves. They wanna know that you know about them. They want to be able to tell somebody, oh, well, we hired the agency that worked for A, B, and C, and they go, oh, they’re good. so that’s why this is important.
Riches in the Niches: The Power of Quality Upfront Planning
A hundred percent love that, and it is a great way to bring us home and, and emphasizes, when, when we kicked off going through that list, or actually in the introduction, I, I mentioned the, the, the, the piece that you use as your bottom line to close out this chapter. You, you, you say, so I’m going to quote Henry again here, what he wrote; bottom line, the more quality thinking you do upfront, meaning through these 10 questions, the easier business development will be 100%. Well, well said, Henry. So, before we go, before we close out and say goodbye, any final advice, anything you think we might have missed? And then please do tell our audience the best way to connect with you.
Thank you for asking. Sure. If anybody asks you a good question like that, you’re to pause three seconds for dignity and say, thank you for asking. The main message is to stay on the journey. And then, when you do a book, it is the number one marketing tool. Talking about the book is the number one fill-your-pipeline strategy. Yeah. So you get on podcasts, give speeches, talk about the book, and the book opens the doors to do that. Also, as you taught me in Sell with Authority, you can’t spell authority without the word author. An author is an authority, and people get their best thoughts from the book. So share that with them. So, if anybody in the predictive ROI world wants a no-cost, no-selling zone strategy, call me about this. I’m happy to do it.
So you can contact me at [email protected]. Stephen will put it in the show notes, and we’ll have what I call a book chat. I’ll help you get clear on the goals for doing a book and what hidden assets you have to get a book done. A lot of people don’t realize they already have these assets. three, what are the roadblocks? roadblocks. Don’t stop agency owners; you have to figure a way around them, over them, and through them. And then, four, I’ll tell you how others have gotten from where you are right now to where you want to go because the path and the plan of others leave the clues you need for your journey and your quest to sell with authority.
Riches in the Niches: Applying Strategic Wisdom for Lasting Results
Yeah. A good friend of mine and one of my accountability partners, Don Yeager, often says this: this quote is not his. I can’t remember the person who originally said it. But anyway, Dawn often says, success leaves clues. And I think that that’s a hundred percent correct. And Henry, thank you very much for saying yes to come back to the show for this encore. And everyone, no matter how many notes you took or how often you re-listen to Henry’s words of wisdom, which I sure hope you do. The key is you have to take what he so generously shared with you, the 10 filtering questions, and all of the story and stories in each of those. 10, take them and apply them. Again, the bottom line is how much work you put into this front end, which will determine the success. Success leaves clues, and he just gave you a bunch of them. Take it and apply it. Because when you do that through application, that’s where the results will come. And again, Henry, thank you for saying yes. We all have the same 86,400 seconds in a day. And I’m grateful you came onto the show to be our mentor and guide again. Thank you so much, my friend. As they say at Chick-fil-A, My pleasure.
Fill Your Sales Pipeline Q&A
LIVE Wednesdays at 1:00 pm Eastern / 12 Noon Central
The Sell with Authority Podcast is for agency owners, business coaches, and strategic consultants who are looking to grow a thriving, profitable business that can weather the constant change that seems to be our world’s reality.