Do It All, or Specialize?

In general, most small businesses don’t turn away work.  We have a can-do, whatever it takes, and “the customer is always right” kind of attitude.  Sure, there are parts of our business that we feel best at, but doing that alone doesn’t always seem to pay the bills, so we expand our offering and thus, our revenues.

Regardless of whether that is a good approach, the result of it is that we tend to market our businesses according to ALL the services we’re able to perform or products we provide.  We are your “one-stop shop”, your source of all things ________ (fill in your industry description).  Our marketing messages work to build the perception that we are unique because of our broad offering.

In my coaching practice, our overall marketing message has been similar.  Our clients, small business owners, wear a lot of hats.  So we need to wear all those hats, too, in order to relate to the challenges and opportunities they face.  But recently, I’ve found that the opposite approach can lead to even better results.

Prior to writing my book, Final Act Of Ownership, (www.amazon.com/author/jerrybaltus) I hesitated, because I felt that promoting a specific portion of our work (Exit Strategies) would limit our attraction for business owners who were not yet concerned about exit strategies.  What I found, however, was that by offering great content and education about the exit strategy portion of our business, we were actually drawing in clients to our entire business offering.  The laser focus of a part of our marketing effort on this specific business issue turns out to elevate the perception of our ability to deliver great service with our entire portfolio of knowledge.

What does this mean for your business?  I encourage you to think about a portion of your business that you are most interested in, most passionate about, and best at delivering.  Give some thought to how you could laser focus your marketing tactics and messages around this one thing.  If you can position yourself as the foremost expert on your “One Thing”, it is likely that the perception of your customers and prospects will be elevated for all the things your business does.  In doing so, you will more vividly set yourself apart from your competitors, and do a better job of competing on value instead of price.