This week on the SUCCESS Line I talk to Jake, an entrepreneur and coach I have watched with admiration for years.
For the last five years, Jake has been building a business that has experienced remarkable growth. However, he feels as though he is hitting his head against the ceiling in terms of scaling. He wants to grow and reach more people, but he has no idea how.
As entrepreneurs, we can get so caught up in the day to day of working in our business that we don’t take a step out to work on it. If you, like Jake, want to take your business to the next level, you have to step out and give yourself the quiet space to ask questions and re-evaluate your strategies.
When we first start out, we live in the entrepreneurial mindset. We are shaking hands and kissing babies and doing anything and everything to get our business started. However, the entrepreneurial mindset will only take you so far, and if you don’t change course, you will hit a ceiling just like Jake. We need to switch from an entrepreneurial mindset to a purposeful mindset.
So how do we do that? How do we take our offerings to more people in the world while maintaining what we currently have? It starts with looking inward. Read on for the top three questions I ask all entrepreneurs before they grow their business.
1. Why do you want to grow?
Whenever an entrepreneur comes to me with the goal to grow their business, I start with a simple question: Why?
If the only answer they can give me is simply to get more (money, fame, etc.), I know that we won’t get very far. The relentless desire for more leaves you hollow and empty; it won’t pull you through the inevitably tough days that come with entrepreneurship.
In order to grow, you need to go back to why you started your business in the first place. What is the heart behind it?
Before you even consider paying for more advertising, I want you to return to your why. Without a connection to your purpose, it will be hard to grow in any meaningful way. Your intent, your passion and your heart are what will carry you forward and across the finish line.
2. What is your micro-niche?
We all have a tendency to push back against niching down in marketing. We worry, “Will there really be enough people?”
I challenge you to not only niche down, but to actually go even deeper—identify your micro-niche. What is the sub-niche within your niche?
For example, Jake’s niche is real estate broker owners. But he doesn’t need every single brokerage in America; he needs the ones that are looking for exactly what he has to offer. Who are they? What is their biggest pain point? What are the thoughts that keep them awake at night? His messaging lies in the answer to these questions.
If you are able to identify our micro-niche, you will have taken an ambiguous number of targets and drilled it down to the point where you can almost predict what your target audience is thinking at night.
Marketing is nothing more than connecting the right message with the right person at the right time. Many entrepreneurs want to take the shotgun approach and blast their message to everyone under the sun. But without strategic, targeted messaging, your ads will fall on deaf ears. Identify your micro-niche and find the small fraction of people who truly resonate with your message.
3. How will you deliver your message?
All of the work you have done to micro-niche and find the right message won’t matter if you have no method to distribute it. Ask yourself, “Where does my sub-niche go online and where can they see my messaging?
For Jake, his target audience turns to brokerage Facebook groups. However, we identified that his micro-niche is independent broker owners. Jake needs to cultivate an online community that is specifically for independent broker owners, creating a space where they can have conversations around their unique set of challenges. By creating this community, and providing value within it, he has also created a space filled with those who need exactly what he has to offer.
It was once said that the riches are in the niches, but that is no longer true. The riches are now in the micro-niches. Craft a message for your micro-niche, create a method to distribute it, and watch your business soar to new heights.
The SUCCESS Line is no longer releasing new episodes on the SUCCESS Podcast Network, but you can still listen to the full conversation below.
