Your Target Market is the Problem With Your Business

April 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I’ve never met a service entrepreneur who didn’t squirm when confronted by a marketing truism: you must target your market. You cannot serve “everyone.” I cannot tell you the stunts students and clients have pulled, trying desperately to defend their position not to choose a narrow-population market. They fear they’ll be confined, bored, and will lose money. If you relate to that and haven’t chosen a targeted group of people to market to, that is your problem.

You are shooting yourself in the foot and setting yourself up for a business of fits and starts; erratic client income…and invisibility. Furthermore, you won’t be recognized as an expert if you’re talking to “everyone.” Experts are experts because they help a particular group.

So, here are 6 reasons you MUST narrow your market to a slim population and why you’ll FAIL if you don’t:

  1. Your target market IS your business when you’re a service entrepreneur. Every program you offer and information product you develop must be directed and composed specifically for them. If you are targeting “everyone” or straddling a few markets, your program offerings can’t solve the very unique and specific needs and desires of that market and will fly under their radar; they’ll never even “see” what you have to offer because it’s too general.
  1. It’s the fastest (and, most likely only,) way to become an expert. When you have a solution for, say, teen-age girls at risk, you will be noticed and sought out because it is assumed that you have very specialized knowledge and experience with that group. When you stay broad, you will never, ever become an expert.
  1. It clarifies your thinking. Your brain cannot picture “everyone” and so your thinking stays unfocused and broad. When you can see a specific population in your mind’s eye, you are able to form the specific wording that gets noticed by your prospects’ brains—which are always looking for one thing: how does this apply to me, specifically? I always say, “You write only as well as you think.” That goes with anything you’re producing, really. It all starts with a clear image. If you cannot SEE the careers and lifestyles of your market, your thinking is fuzzy and so will be your business identity.
  1. Your promotions get heard and noticed. When you speak to the laser-focused specific needs of your market, you leave them feeling something that is priceless for a business: heard and understood. If you convey your value in vague and general language, it won’t hit your prospect’s heart. EVERYONE wants to feel that they are fully and completely understood. When you have a sliver-population-target-market, you will tailor your message to them; they will feel embraced and understood and valued by you—and compelled to work with you. It is the most powerful, psychological gift you give to people who haven’t worked with you: I know you. I get you. And I can help YOU, specifically.

When a business speaks to everyone, it gets heard by no one.

  1. Your excitement will increase. When your communication about your value is specific to a specific group’s needs, you get excited because suddenly you really know who you’re helping!  You are here to alleviate pain, solve problems—when you are doing that for a narrow population who needs you, the very best of you will spring forth and you will love sharing what you do! Trust me on this. If you are feeling flat about your business–it’s probably because you don’t really know who needs you most. If you’re uninspired, your business will fall away.
  1. Your marketing efforts explode in effectiveness because you know precisely where to put them. You find where your target population congregates, and your articles, website links, advertising, newsletters, etc. go directly to them. The time and effort you put into marketing drops dramatically—something every business owner must appreciate!

I’ve got a 24-page workbook for you that will help you determine your narrow market FAST–AND it also gets really deep into their heads. Part 2 takes you into the “inner psyche” of your market’s minds. You will know exactly what they need so you can build the most marketable programs and write the most compelling copy. And there’s a 2-hour workshop that goes along with it next Thursday, April 19th, when I will coach you to have your perfect buyer AND teach you how to use their psyche to sell. Jump on this asap!!!

Filed Under: Business Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Session 4 of 8 with 2 Financial Coaches: The Signature Program!

October 15, 2010 By

In the last session of this 8-session consultation where I
help two financial coaches Get Clients With a Signature
Program that Sells AND Transforms, I saw what M&M’s
“brand concept” could be—a teaching point that would
differentiate them from every other financial coach (and
everyone period, actually). It was a 3-phase ineffective
communication cycle that was the root cause of financial
trouble for couples who’d been married over eight years.

In this 4th session, we dive very deeply into their signature
seminar event. In fact, I create, point-by-point, M&M’s entire
90-minute portal seminar, using the “Transformation Arc,”
where the couples experience the “ick” they’ve been wading
through for years—an essential part of transformation. We
entitle the program, Feast or Famine: Breaking a Couple’s
Secret Cycle of Financial Breakdown.

In this session, I teach M&M the transformational coaching
tool I used to use with my clients when I was a personal
growth coach to shift them immediately from one fixed way
of thinking to a completely new, empowered one. This, of
course, is necessary for couples who have been cycling
through these 3 phases of ineffective communication: they
have been rooted in one way of thinking—for instance, the
thought that my spouse will kill me if tell him I just spent
$900 on the kids’ clothes—and must move into another one
that is just as true, but far healthier for the family and their
financial future.

So, in this transformational seminar, not only do M&M teach
the couples what the 3-phase communication cycle is–
creating an awareness they will never be able to forget– but
also how to get out of it, by using this coaching tool to instantly
“boot” them into new beliefs about communicating with
their spouse.

Once the couple moves through this transformation tool,
they can never go back to the Feast or Famine Communi-
cation Cycle. They’ve been changed forever. Armed
now with tools for changing how they communicate, their
couples are ready to look at the next cause of their financial
struggles: budgeting and reducing debt.

Believe it or not, we accomplish the design of their program
quite quickly in this session (I’ve had tons of experience!)
and move on to some very practical issues, namely how to
“repurpose” the teaching concept in this portal
program. “This teaching should be in everything you do,”
I tell M&M. Breaking the Secret Cycle of Financial Breakdown
should be the topic of their opt-in report, what their YouTube
videos, ebook, articles, blog posts—all of their marketing and
promotional material—should focus on. This is why I call it a
“brand concept.” And we spend some time detailing what those
items will be.

So what about you? Do you have a single, powerful
teaching concept that could become your brand? Have you
given thought to your signature program—and what the root
cause of your market’s main problem is?

Remember, next Tuesday, October 19th, you can
eavesdrop-in on all of these sessions when I release
the 8-Session CD set. Hear every juicy detail!

Filed Under: Eavesdropping on Sessions, Sales and Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What’s Your Business’s “Brand Concept”?

October 5, 2010 By

The service entrepreneurs I work with—coaches, healers
nutritionists, consultants, therapists–love to perform their
services, but they also love to inform: so they speak
or give seminars. But often, what they’re speaking about
has no “through-line.” I just had coffee with a wonderful
new friend last week, who reminded me of this term.

 A “through-line” is a theater term that means, “the
theme that runs through the plot of a film or other
dramatic work.” I would say it’s fitting to consider
businesses “dramatic work,” and so we want a “theme
that runs through the plot of our businesses.” And when
we’re giving a seminar or even a single presentation,
we want to ensure that it is inside of the through-line,
promoting that theme, reinforcing it, growing it. But
again, too many presentations and seminars are “isolated
incidences” that have no roots to a larger theme.

I am one week into my intensive program, 12 Sentences:
Ultimate Business Creation and Articulation, and the
participants are soon going to be considering their
business’s theme, so that everything they do—from
the articles they write to the opt-in gifts they offer to
their blog content…to the presentations they give—
runs through the “spine” (another word for through-
line) of their business.

Next week, I’m going to be launching my first CD set!
SO excited about that! And as you will see in the videos
I’ll be releasing about it next Tuesday, one of the many
things I did with two financial coaches was help them
develop their “teaching concept” for the free seminar
they would be giving to attract more clients. By teaching
concept, I mean  the main premise of that signature
program. This teaching concept soon became their
“brand concept”—the premise or idea they were putting
forth not just in their free signature program, but the
premise or idea that supported their business and that
they would teach everywhere.

This teaching concept would be threaded through
the free report, ebook or video training for their opt-in;
it would be what they’d teach about in their articles,
and emphasize in their blog posts. It would be the subject
of radio interviews, local promotions and even a book,
should they choose to write one. I began referring to this
as their “brand concept.” The teaching concept “theme
running through the plot of their business.” It was created
as we developed the teaching premise of their signature
program, and then bloomed into the brand concept of their
entire business.

So, how do you know if you have a “brand concept”—or
even a teaching concept for your presentations? Well, let’s
start at the very beginning. Ask yourself this first, “Does
my presentation have a through-line, a theme that runs
through the plot of my business, or is it a tactical device,
a one-time talk I’m just ‘throwing together,’ with no strategic
roots”?

Next, “If I were to have a signature program—a free or
even paid event that people know me for—what is the
single concept I would teach in it?” (We won’t even consider
right now if it’s Brain-Sticky or not. Just consider the single
idea you would teach.)

And from there, ask yourself, “Could I teach this every-
where, in all of my marketing pieces, and feel that I was
teaching the most salient information out of everything
I could teach?” In other words, is this single idea the most
important and interesting I could put forth?

These are some ideas to get you started. But be sure to
register above in Blog Telecalls, for this week’s free
call at 1pm Thursday Oct. 7, where we’ll discuss this idea,
and I’ll share with you my signature program teaching concepts.

And stay tuned for the release of my 8-CD set next week,
the first in my Eavesdropping Series: How to Get Clients
with a Signature Program that Sells AND Transforms!

Filed Under: Business Articulation, public speaking, Sales and Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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