Target marketing - catch your zebra..

The more I contemplate niched marketing, the more clear it becomes that this is the only way forward for small business.

In fact my first experience of this (though I did not recognise it as such) was many years ago through a builder friend of mine. Based in a wealthy Surrey town the friend worked alone as a general builder - he did OK, but complained that he was constantly quoting blind and missing out on jobs, plus he had to do a lot of jobs that didn't suit his skills.

Apparently on a whim, he decided one day to become a specialist in Victorian property renovation  We all thought he was mad - why miss out on all those wonderful '70s avocado bathroom suites and huge aluminium windows that needed replacing?

He was right of course. Literally overnight he eliminated 70% of his competition. within a year he had stopped marketing because order book was full - without discounting his rates. If only I had recognised at the time the cunningness of that plan!

In my role as mentor & trainer I am constantly faced with starters who - quite understandably - see their market as 'everyone' and their range of services as limitless. It is very comforting to think of the universal market opening before you.

The best way I have discovered to explain why this is wrong is to use the analogy of the zebra & the Lion.

Zebras, you will probably appreciate, are covered in black stripes (or is it white stripes?). One reason given for this striping is that is confuses their natural predator - the lion.

What the lion sees is a feast a huge blob of moving stripes; what he fails to do is identify the meal - the single zebra that will actually feed his family.  The rest will wait for another day.

Often a weaker zebra will fall from the pack & the lion will get his meal - but often they will not and he will go hungry.

If you randomly market everyone, you too will pick up a few stragglers and you might well keep yourself fed - but you will never be certain of results and you will never be able to milk the formula of waiting for one to fall off.

It takes a lot of courage to turn away from the perceived feast and focus on what looks like a small meal but like the lion - unless you want to spend your career chasing a load of stripes - you really need to select your zebra...

DIY threat. Or not?

It is an established cliche in the world of sales that in every threat lies an opportunity. In fact it is so established that it has been rendered almost meaningless.

However this concept came to mind in a recent discussion with 2 web designer - both of whom shared the view that free websites were a major threat to their livelihoods.

the optimist in me immediately pitched in to point out the enormity of the market for people who were happy to pay - many 100s of thousands of potential clients - why worry 
about the ones you can't get when there are so many you can?

However following the discussion my mind turned to the nature of DIY - in any context, from wallpapering your hallway to building a website.

Start-up DIYers follow a simple process:

1. Read up about it
2. Do it
3. Pat yourself on the back
4. Compare (perhaps some time after the event).

From comparison you might either pat yourself on the back again, console yourself and put up with inferior quality or change things.

And so it is with DIY websites. For the sake of simplicity lets say that it is 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 between these categories.

On subsequent meeting I bounced this off one of the designers:

• Find (say) 1000 DIY business websites, focusing on businesses which are up and running (albeit only for a few months)
• Run a quick critique of the site and its value to the business
• Contact the business owner and engage them - asking for their thoughts on the site

Based on the above, you will find - very pessimistically 200 users who are not entirely happy with their DIY project. If 20% of these want to do something about it you have immediately 40 RED HOT PROSPECTS, who:

1. Have identified a need for your services.

2. Understand the value that your skills can add

3. Have a running business and -hopefully - the means to pay.

That is from day 1! More of your pot will become disgruntled with their attempts and the pot will get every bigger

Surely more of an opportunity than a threat?