Are You a Niche-Jumper Or Why IS Picking a Niche so Difficult?

I find this problem a consistent challenge for my clients. I often speak with a client and within a week or two, a new niche comes along that to distract their attention. While you’ll find a lot of reasons people do this, I’ve also found that there is a common, hidden theme to Niche-Jumping.

The concept of choosing a niche is so deeply engrained in the marketing culture that making this choice is considered synonymous with success. This instruction is so extensive that the practice has become a hyper-powered hyperbole.

Here are a couple of examples. You can now dial in your target market so closely that there is actually a practice/concept called “Micro Niche.” And you can purchase a variety of products to help you find one (I don’t endorse or market any of these products specifically and I know they exist). I’ve been wondering when we would hear about the nano-niche and of course, it’s already here.

You want to be aware of three important factors about choosing a niche. How you relate to these realities around Niche Marketing will determine how much you enjoy your business and how easy it is to succeed.

· Niche Marketing is at least 60 years old

· Niche as used in marketing is an out-dated concept

· Niche-jumping is not the problem; it’s a symptom

These factors are key to making sense out of where marketing is and where you want to take it for your personal success and well-being.

Niche Marketing is at least 60 years old. This fact alone is significant. You see, the longest economic waves that have been measured and predicted fall in the 60 year time frame. A 60-year cycle is considered extremely long-lived. A maximum 45 year cycle is much more common. Like any pattern that is experiencing change, hyper-acceleration happens from the building energy that then turns into the crashing crest of the wave.

You do want to be sure you’re solid on the lessons from Niche Marketing: Be ready, be clear, be specific. The second factor around niche marketing is the most meaningful for me.

Niche as used in marketing is an out-dated concept. The way this term is used comes from older models of biology and ecosystems. In truth, the scientists who pioneered this idea do not use it in this way. They have upgraded and updated their understanding based discoveries in how plants, animals and resources actually interact. As a result, the concept of Niche Marketing is embedded with many aspects of scarcity and competition for limited resources. These beliefs have much to do with the problems we deal with in the world. Just as scientists updated the idea of niches over the years as they’ve studied, you have the same opportunity to upgrade your perspective of how to market.

Your experience with the demand to pick a niche reflects these expiring and changing models. As a result, it’s time to meet marketing with a different perspective. In reality…

Niche-Jumping is a symptom, not the problem. Most people have trouble settling on a specific niche for appropriate and little-discussed reasons. Selecting your most appropriate, most favorite clients is NOT about marketing. It’s about heart and soul. While many people are starting to teach this concept, many established coaches and marketing experts don’t know how to make this connection in a meaningful way. This is a change in how business works and what customers want—some of us are ahead of the change, some in the middle and others are catching up.

If you find yourself constantly changing niches, it’s time to back up a few steps. Clarity on your purpose and your values makes “choosing” a niche virtually unnecessary. Your process for marketing, sales and business then becomes a reflection of you.

Experts sometimes say things like “Just pick any Niche and stick with it for a couple months, you can always change your mind.” Of course you can always change your mind, and aren’t you tired of feeling like you’re always starting over? I know I did, before I understood and used these principles.

That’s why I created the “Don’t Pick a Niche^TM” marketing workshop. Your most powerful marketing doesn’t come from putting you or your services in a niche. It comes from knowing how to present yourself and what you do in a way that is appealing and accessible to your clients. The next workshop is on Thursday, April 29 starting at 6:30. Are you ready to stop worrying about niche and get to the heart of the matter?

Most of all, remember, Niche-jumping is a symptom, not a problem. If this is where you are at, you’ve got the perfect cue that it’s time to take a new look at your business.

Wishing you Success & Heart,

Heidi Sue

© Copyright 2009-2010 Heidi Sue Roth. All Rights Reserved.

I’ve been Affiliate Slimed—and I’ve HAD ENOUGH!

I recently logged on in the morning and found my email box bloated with affiliate offers. In just minutes I saw every kind of song and dance anyone could do in an attempt to get me to spend money through their link and scoop up their bonuses.

Can you imagine being locked in a room with 26 televisions all tuned to a different pitch man? Each one seemed more desperate than the last. Every technique of verbal and emotional manipulation attempted to part me from my money. As you can tell, I did NOT enjoy the experience. Perhaps you had the same experience.

This insane process inspired a number of feelings and responses for me.

· First, I got off a bunch of lists—I’m on a couple hundred for research about headlines, offers, etc. Now, I’ve dropped the “also” run lists and I’m staying on just couple from the top folks.

· I didn’t buy from ANYONE. Again, there were lots of reasons, the strongest being a different purchase was a higher priority. But even beyond logic, emotionally I was fed up.

· I did NOT believe that everyone who sent me a link knew the product and loved in. It was clear lots of the players were only doing it for affiliate payments.

· I felt like something smelled fishy: what smart business person sells their best software when it’s still the best at what it does? I just couldn’t believe this was NOT a business move first and anything else last.

Now, I have nothing to say about the specific product or person who sent this out to hundreds of affiliates. I don’t have personal experience with it, so any opinion I might have is completely invalid. And that’s actually my point.

If you’ve been paying attention at all to marketing and sales information, you realize it’s actually emotions that move forward your potential clients. Dan Ariely spends a over 240 pages demonstration the studies and reality that consumers are NOT rational, despite what many economists and other experts have wanted to believe. I’m very clear that the emotional reactions I experienced to my bloated email account were in no way reasonable. And they were still how I felt—and continue to feel a few days later.

What can you and I learn from this? Here’s what I learned and what I’ve decided as a result of this experience:

1. I had conversations with my own affiliates and learned, the “conversion” rate (sales) per 100 is pretty darn low in this model. If nothing else, it’s because of how people have been treated, and that most individuals don’t want to receive random, pointless emails. “Canned” endorsements are obvious.

2. I really have dropped off almost all those lists. Of the literally hundreds of affiliate offers I received, I clicked 4 because of the headline. I’m staying on those lists and loosing the others.

3. I have completely commited myself and my business model to creating REAL affiliates and partners. If you ever see someone promoting me or something I offer, it will be as a result of first hand experience with the product or program. I am unwilling to accept any “cold” affiliates.

4. I’ve closed down my affiliate relationship with anyone where I lack the same experience. I’m actually a new affiliate for a person who’s services I’ve been using for over a year. Needless to say, I can completely, whole-heartedly recommend her and what she offers.

Folks, it really is time to notice that business HAS changed and continues to change. It is about connection, service, and heart. Instead, many people are still functioning from the hungry wolf-pack model and getting others to circle your wallet in relentless fashion.

You still need the buyer-beware model. If everyone IS doing it, it’s time to ask why and be sure you’re clear on your own WIFM (what’s in it for me) because the odds are high that you may not get quite what you wanted from something that everyone is promoting. They want your money. You want results. If everyone uses the exact same recipe, pretty soon all the results are boring.

Soon, I’ll give you my real recommendation to my new affiliate. And I honestly can’t wait. After my personal debacle being overrun with offers for the same blasted thing, I look forward to making my personal, really-using-it perspective. What I want are partnerships NOT promotions. And if I don't know the product or the person, I may as well be Wal-Mart shoveling over the cheapest stuff from where is the cheapest source. Let's look for marketing opportunities that are being real, being heartfelt and about connection instead of promotion.

Maybe you disagree…great! Let’s hear it! This is reporting my experience, my lessons and decisions.

Agree or disagree, I hope I've given you something to think about. Have a super day! Your alliances say as much about you the other things you do. Choose with care, choose with heart, and always keep the highest good for all in mind.

Blessings,

Heidi Sue

Don’t get “Stuck” with Niche Marketing

Everywhere you turn, you hear the rule about niche marketing making you rich repeated. This ranges from pick a niche so you can have a logo designed to the idea that you’re not really in business until you have a niche market. What if the pressure and approach doesn't improve your relationship with your business and your clients?

I’m here to challenge that wisdom, as you probably already know. Niche Marketing includes some serious sticking points that may indicate it’s NOT your best option. I want to take a quick look at those points today.

Niche Marketing is presented to entrepreneurs and business owners as the fix-all, do-all solution. While I agree we can learn some important lessons from Niche Marketing, it’s a direct reflection of some of things that are seriously wrong with the business and economic model that has failed so gloriously (and mysteriously if you listen to the experts).

This approach to doing business is a direct out-growth of the drive to specialization. From tinkering with genetics to higher education focused on less and less content, business, life, and talent has been driven to focus on increasingly narrow ways. The drive to know more and more about less and less is now THE embedded way for you to also do business. To sustain this model, business must take over and limit access to information, resources, rights, and property.

Another impact of focusing all your efforts exclusively on Niche Marketing is you can miss opportunities. Creative application of skills and services is one of the hallmarks of small business. The drive to niche can make it more expensive to offer your services through multiple channels. You can end up confused by the drive to serve all the customers who move you. Your efforts can get way-laid by the "rabbit chasing syndrome" aka chasing multiple objectives.

Yes, the niche-driven perspective is not a business model I’m willing to enlist wholesale in order to finance my passion and drive. Are there other options?

Yes! There are other ways to work with your business the incorporate the lessons of niche marketing while not being held hostage to the over-specialization of virtually everything in our world.

Surviving the changes that have arrived and continue to present takes something other than what we already have. From Einstein to other great thinkers, we already know that the thought and behaviors patterns creating the problem are not what is needed to solve the problem.

What do the other ways look like? They are personal, customized, connected and flexible. Niche Marketing has become one-size-fits-all. What is really needed is creating a business structure, approach and methodology that specifically matches your heart. The planet, your customers and your well-being can no longer sustain this single-answer, knee-jerk methodology.

Your values and the value you offer is the beginning point. Just like the new Pepsi ad campaign about One Tribe and funding entrepreneurs reeks of marketing ploy cloaked in warm-fuzzies, so is a Heart-Based message driven primarily by Niche Marketing becomes an unclear representation of who you are and why you serve. What if instead of chasing any rabbits you were by the home-base where rabbits would return when they were tired of running!

When it comes to the methods you choose for marketing you and your business, other choices might just be something that serves you better. You and your clients deserve more!

Wishing you Success & Heart!

Heidi Sue

Coffee, Confusion & Coherent Values

Well, we don't do it very often, but today's errands included a Starbucks stop. It's close to the house, it was only 1 block out of the way on our route...on and on.

And I noticed a funny thing about the cups the coffee came in . Both had printed on them stories about how buying Starbucks coffee was a way to support the Conservation International organization, with the 'Buck buying 66% of coffee beans from sustainably grown sources, specially selected farmers, etc.

I do believe that's a good thing. Unfortunately, Starbucks is still doing stuff that demonstrates responsibility is likely a marketing move--it's primarily a ploy to keep me spending money at their dwindling (yeah!!! ubiquity is NOT a recommendation for quality) outlets. I don't believe any market has actually needed the number of 'Bucks installed--and obviously so as many are now being closed.

Just below this moving story of how important it is that I spend my money on coffee out instead of making it at home (which we typically do at least 6 days a week), is the imprint about how the paper cup was made.

And that imprint is sad. Anyone wanting to be responsible with resources should be embarrassed by it: Made with 10% post-consumer recycled fiber.

What I found so odd is that 30% post-consumer fiber is such a normal, everyday occurance now. Then, add in that how the little insulator sleeve was labeled 60% post-consumer fiber, and it becomes even more confusing.

Here's my confusion: the mis-matched messages from a cup that isn't really helping to save the world, but coffee beans that supposedly are and a brown cardboard sleeve that is saving ghe planet...and my just up feeling it's all about marketing and whatever consciousness is involved focuses on separating me from my pennies and Washingtons.

If you're going to choose that a particular value be part of your business, be consistent. Make sure everything you communicate about that value is as coherent and consistent as you possibly can. Otherwise something as simple as a tall vanilla latte could end up strengthing someone's intention to drink more coffee at home.

Wishing you Success & Heart,

Heidi Sue Roth

Starbucks’ miss-firing in lots of places

Between Saturday and Monday and I visited 4 different Starbucks® stores. The first two just happened to be on my way for the regular things I was doing over the weekend. And the experience piqued my curiosity so I went out of my way to visit 2 more.

In what appears a desperate attempt to grab-back some market share in the slowing commercial coffee shop business, Starbucks launched Via® their new instant coffee brand this weekend. And they launched it with a huge presence and an equally large challenge: come taste-compare brewed coffee with our instant because we bet you can’t tell the difference. AND you can have a free cup of coffee just for taking the challenge.

Around Sonoma County, CA, I found the Starbucks’ engine frequently miss-firing. I visited the first store for one of the tea/lemonade drinks. I didn’t want coffee but was curious about the promotion. The displays were in place—and no tasting opportunity. I was surprised, the employees didn’t even offer the option when I placed my order. Huh. Maybe it was just that store.

Next morning, David and I specifically stopped at another store because we actually wanted to take the taste challenge. Hanging with a wine guy (www.winetopics.blogspot.com) usually means tasting and trying things gets done. Well, once again, big obvious display (it’s VERY orange!) and no offer or opportunity to compare tastes. I was now beyond curious, I felt a little annoyed: lots of hype, and nothing happening at the “ground” level.

So this morning on the way into the office, I stopped at two different locations about 20 minutes apart. (All the stores I visited were standalone operations and not in another retailer location.) The first one actually HAD the tasting station open and operating. (Sidebar—I did pick the brewed coffee for what it was. HA!) The second one however, did not. And we’re talking prime Monday morning coffee traffic time.

What do I want us all to learn from this? Friends, if you’re going to make an offer, make it happen! Don’t cook up some offer, program, or scheme and drop it. Not only will people be confused, they’ll be so annoyed they just might write about on a blog you’ll never even see! One of the mistakes people make in small business or practice is “ad libbing” things when talking to someone who seems interested and not actually following through on their words.

This Starbucks challenge was an expensive marketing campaign with a lot of visibility. My predominant experience of this massive exposure: carelessness and a lackadaisical implementation of a strategy smelling of desperation. I’d much rather go to my local coffee shop, Golden Bean in Rohnert Park, and after this little experiment, my commitment to support this fun, hip, funky local store with fabulous coffee has gotten even stronger. Big corporate made public promises and did not deliver. Whatever tiny pip of loyalty I had to a brand primarily built on ubiquity is down to nil or less. Please don’t make the same mistakes with your precious clients! Deliver what you promise!

Wishing you Success & Heart,

Heidi Sue