Narrow Your Focus To Get In The Door

Marketing your brand is a tough game isn't it? Most times you just seem to be spinning around and around and it's just not sticking. You may even ask yourself, "Why can't they see the value in what I do?"

One of the reasons may be a common belief that when you sell yourself, it's wise to lay out on the table everything that you offer. For instance if you were dentist, you might say we do:

• extractions

• fillings

• root canals

• cleaning

• caps

• retainers etc.

While on the surface this seems the right thing to do - do you realize that if you leave one thing out, your public will think that you don't do that item. Seem's dumb, but I've seen it and experienced it myself. I once asked a client why they went elsewhere for a service that I perform and they stated that "I didn't know you did that." So you really can't win by laying all your cards out on the table. Plus it's an awful lost to digest.

A better way I believe is to narrow your focus and go to market focused on one thing that absolutely resonates with them. Out of everything you do, where can you focus? I recently asked a mortgage broker to consider this during a conversation. The person I was speaking with happened to mention that his background was in farming, and that he still dabbled in it. As a mortgage broker he told me all that he offered and his pitch was not unlike any other mortgage broker. When I pointed out this sameness, he shrugged and showed his frustration with the problem.

"what", I said, "if you were to focus entirely on the agri business, could you still do handsomely?" "Definitely," he replied. So I told him that he should consider becoming the expert in agri mortgages and focus his message to that effort. That way could separate himself from the herd, reduce his competitive environment and concentrate on an area he was passionate about. It would be less frustrating and more fun. Over time he would be the go-to person for that industry.

The beauty of it is that once they're in the door and they see and benefit from your value - you are golden to them. They want to discover what other services you can offer them. Your focus gives them a reason to look at you differently.