Increasing Revenue & Profits Through Specializing

Increasing Revenue & Profits Through Specializing

We have all heard the saying, the riches are in the niches. Yet many businesses remain generalists, trying to appeal to everyone, and they end up competing on price because they lack differentiation from their competitors. In this this episode today, I am going to break down the various ways that you can niche or specialize so that you can start charging more and increase revenues.

Hi, I'm Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing, where we believe you must remove your revenue roadblocks if you want to accelerate revenue growth.

Thanks so much for taking the time to tune in today. I appreciate you. We're just going to dig right into this. Look, one of the many reasons that people specialize is that generalists make far less money. When we look at doctors as an example, a general practitioner makes far less money than a brain surgeon or a heart surgeon. It's just a reality. So if we want to charge more and increase our revenues, specializing or nicheing is a really, really important thing to consider. It's also a really important thing to consider because it helps differentiate you. And when you are seen as different, you will stop competing on price. Super important.

Here's what I'm going to talk about today. One, I'm going to talk about the ways to specialize. Two, I'm going to highlight some of the questions that I think you can ask yourself to help you start to hone in on how you want to niche or specialize. And then I want to talk about some things to keep in mind.

Ways to Specialize

So let's first break down the ways to specialize. The most common, and this is not an exhaustive list, but I've covered a lot here, the most common ways that we see are by audience and industry. This is what most people talk about. Oh, you need to niche by audience or industry. What do we mean by that? Industry could be construction or medical providers. Audience is getting much narrower there. Maybe I'm serving chiropractors or I'm only working with electricians or HVAC companies. Right? So audience and industry are the most common ways that people talk about nicheing or specializing, but it's not the only way, which means you don't have to necessarily do that. It's not the only way. What are some of the other ways? It could be by the level of the people that you're serving. I serve high school kids or CEOs or I work with HR directors. That, again, this is a slight variation on the audience. You can specialize by method. I offer two day retreats or I specifically sell, keynotes speaking. You could specialize by product or service type. See this all the time in marketing. We offer Google Ads. We specialize in Google Ads or paid ads or content marketing or social media marketing. Right. That's our specialty. That's what we do. We know it. We nail it. You could specialize by outcome or the desired result that people expect. It could be I sell a program that shows people how to lose 5 lbs in 30 days. Okay? That's an outcome. You could specialize by offering a program that helps people get that very specific outcome. You could specialize or niche based on the process, system, or framework that you use. Again, that's something that's unique to you, that could be a differentiator. We help businesses get this outcome or this result by walking them through this system or this framework. Notice how I just combined a couple of the various ways you can niche. You could also specialize by the type of problem that you solve. Hey, we solve this very specific problem for these type of people if you want, right? So you could use any combination of these things as a way to niche down even further. Okay? Oftentimes the biggest roadblock people have with niching or specializing is, guys, I'm going to cut off all these I'm just going to close off all these people that I could potentially do business with. But in reality, unless you need to work with thousands, tens of thousands of customers, niching is not going to close things off at all. It's going to make things much easier. And as long as that niche is big enough to get the number of customers or clients that you need, you're not closing it off at all. You're making your job much, much easier.

So those are the various ways you can niche. Again, audience, industry level, method, product or service type, the outcome or desire that you help people achieve, your specific process, system, framework that you use to get results, the type of problem you solve, or any combination of those.

So I hope that has made that a little bit easier for you to start to hone in on. Gosh, I'm not just pigeonholing myself to this one way of niche or specializing. There's a ton of different ways you can do it.

Questions to Ask Yourself When Specializing

So let's talk about some of the questions that you can ask yourself to help you start to hone in on this. First off, what are you interested in? Like, why niche or specialize in something that you have no interest in? You're going to hate what you do every day, which makes no sense at all. Who do you want to serve, right? Are there very specific types of people that you want to serve? If so, there you have it. That's a really simple way to start honing in on that audience or that industry that you want to work with. Who can you add value to? Just because you're interested in something and you want to serve people in a specific industry or specific type of audience, if you can't add value to those people, that's not going to be a really good niche, special, or way to specialize. And who is able to pay you? Whatever audience or industry or types of people that you want to serve? You want to work with, man if they don't have the money to pay you, that's not going to be a very good niche or specialization either.

So those four questions are a great place to start. It's not an exhaustive list, but they're a great place to start to help you start to hone in. What are you interested in? Who do you want to serve? Who can you add value to? And who has the money to pay you? Are they able to pay you? Those are great questions to ask to help you start to hone in on your niche or your specialty.

Things to Keep in Mind When Specializing

Last thing I want to touch on is things to keep in mind. Specializing is not set in stone. You can always change and adapt. Oftentimes people will specialize, they'll go very narrow, very deep, and as they nail that market, then they start to expand into complementary or similar specializations or niches. Okay? So just don't get hung up on, oh my gosh, I do this like everything is set in stone. It's not. And I think keeping that in mind will help make this decision much, much easier. Is the market you are Niching in too small? Okay, if you're focusing on a specific industry or a specific vertical or a specific audience type, check to see if there are events, trade shows, or associations for those people. If there are, it's big enough, because there would not be an event or a trade show or an association for a market that is so narrow that it's too small. So that's a great litmus test to kind of just double check, is my niche too small? Third thing to keep in mind, sometimes it's easier to start with who is not for you. Sometimes it's so hard for us to narrow in on gosh, who is for me? Ask yourself, who do I not want to work with? Eliminate those and then you can start to hone in on who you really do. So if you're having a hard time honing in on who you do want to service, ask yourself, who do I not want to service? And that may help you kind of push through that hurdle so that you can get to the other side. Find ways to diversify while retaining focus. OK? So being diversified, if we've learned anything from the last three years with the pandemic and everything that's been going on, finding ways to diversify will certainly add stability and consistency to your business. So as you look at niching, you don't have to have all these things in place at once, but you know, if you're offering specific services to a veteran. So, for example, let's say I'm going to specialize in serving veterinarians. Initially, I may start with one program or one offer to those veterinarians, but over time, I can start to add additional services to help those veterinarians. That's a way to diversify while still maintaining focus. There are a lot of different ways you can do this but if I'm in a service specific industry, I can start to diversify by offering different programs, different services, while still maintaining that focus. And the other thing to keep in mind with niche or specializing is that this is a journey and it can take time and experience. So in the beginning, if you're just getting started out, pick how you're going to specialize know that it's not set in stone and this is going to morph over time. Don't expect to get this right off the bat. Nobody gets this right right off the bat. So it's a journey. Just go with the process, go with the flow and learn as you go and make changes and adjustments and course corrections as you learn. Okay? But specializing and niching in one way, shape, or form is going to dramatically help and improve your business. You will be able to charge more and you will be able to increase revenues. And frankly, it makes your marketing much, much easier. OK?

Conclusion: Increasing Revenue & Profits Through Specializing

So I hope you found this helpful. If you've got questions, if you're struggling with niching or specializing, you need some outsiders, you can always head on over to our website at rialtomarketing.com and book a free GPS call. The other free tool I want to make available to you is over at revenueroadblockscorecard.com. At Revenueroadblockscorecard.com, in less than five minutes you will be able to discover and assess which revenue roadblocks are slowing down your business growth. There are nine that we help businesses remove so they can accelerate revenue growth. If you want to find out which ones are slowing down your growth, go over Revenueroblockscorecard.com today.

Thanks so much for taking the time to tune in. I appreciate you. Till next time. Take care.