Dear Friends & Colleagues:
On this day before our nation’s Thanksgiving holiday, I want to offer a sincere ‘thanks’ to all of my friends, colleagues, clients and readers for your support in 2021 during the publication of my new book, How To Win Client Business. I am grateful for your support and kindness during the book’s launch. This book’s successful launch would not be possible without the support of my agent (Sheree Bykofsky), my editor at Wiley (Mike Campbell) and of course all of you. I hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!
To celebrate the launch of How To Win Client Business, I’m sharing an excerpt from the book each week. This week’s peek is from Chapter 7: Choosing Your Specialty. In this chapter we take a deeper dive into how to define your distinctive personal brand – the first rainmaker skill that sets you up for success in winning client business.
Without further delay, here’s this week’s excerpt. I hope you enjoy it!
Doug
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Chapter 7: Choosing Your Specialty
Shrink the Pond Until You’re A Big Fish
Terry Pappy’s Success Story: Carve a Niche, Then Carve a Niche within a Niche
Trevor’s story from the previous chapter provided an example of what a brand
identity doesn’t look like: going to market doing anything for anyone. Unfortunately,
there’s no slot for that in the client’s mind. And, if there were, it would
be a poor slot to own. This reminds me of a character in John Steinbeck’s novel
East of Eden:
Alf Nichelson was a jack-of-all-trades, carpenter, tinsmith, blacksmith, electrician,
plasterer, scissors grinder, and cobbler. Alf could do anything, and as a result he
was a financial failure although he worked all the time.
Terry Pappy is a talented marketing consultant, brand strategist, and host of
the Simplify & Multiply podcast. She learned the ropes of her craft from many
years in her industry including experience at ad agencies, newspapers, printing
companies, and client-side companies.
If we stopped there, Terry wouldn’t be that different from the tens of thousands
of marketing specialists out there in the world: talented, capable, and totally
unmemorable. But Terry has mastered the art of shrinking the pond. She provides
marketing services to a very specific clientele: solopreneurs – one-person
professional firms.
I asked Terry, “How did you arrive at your personal brand identity of serving
solopreneurs?”
Terry lit up. “I didn’t start out with this focus. My initial response was
survival – having been laid off from my six-year span at Marriott a year after my
husband passed away. All I knew was to continue delivering creative and marketing
services for anyone who would hire me by the hour. Luckily, I had a few Marriott
connections that caused a chain reaction of referrals that led to a Chinese menu of
clients from ambulance companies, transportation companies, window installers,
interior designers, hospitals, and on and on.”
Because I could do any type of marketing and creative, I became a jack of all
trades taking on work simply to survive. I never looked at creating a niche.
As a result, I was 100% commoditized constantly being compared to every
other graphic designer, web designer, creative copywriter out there in the
marketplace.
It wasn’t until years later that I looked back and saw a pattern. There was one
type of client that I really enjoyed working with and got great results for:
solopreneurs – individuals who operated as a “company of one.” I realized I had
developed a depth of understanding about the world they operated in.
That’s when I decided to go all-in on serving these professionals. It was at this
point that I started developing products and systems specific to that audience,
which was a lot easier because I knew exactly who I was serving. And, as a result,
my business really began to gain traction and grow.
Let’s take a look at why Terry’s brand identity is so effective. Her positioning
fulfills a number of important milestones of the client’s buying decision journey.
For one, her identity is easy to understand and remember because it fills a unique
slot in people’s minds. Secondly, because of her deep experience and skill at serving
this specific target audience, her professional expertise is highly respected.
Terry owns the category. When Terry speaks to solopreneurs about her
marketing services, her credibility is immediately palpable. She understands the
unique challenges of solopreneurs who need to build a strong brand following.
Looking at Terry’s brand identity from the perspective of the top client pathways,
her positioning lends itself well to referrals and inquiries. Her expertise is easily
remembered and respected. When a solopreneur asks around for who’s the best at
marketing, it’s easy to see why Terry has significant top-of-mind awareness.
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Click here to order your copy of my new book, How To Win Client Business, today!
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