Categories
Small Business Marketing

Setting Boundaries for Ultimate Business Success

Did you know that business ownership is one of the most stressful choices you can make in your career?

Did you also know that you can manage your stress even as a business owner? That feeling of being enslaved to the company you’ve created is not a requirement for success. 

Here’s a way to manage your stress while building a foundation for success: setting boundaries with appropriate positioning and targeted marketing and you’ll get to work with your ideal clients with less burnout.

The Benefits of Setting Business Boundaries

We know what you’re thinking: why should you limit your client opportunities by setting boundaries before you’ve even had the chance to talk to them? 

This is a fair question. However, you’re not setting rigid boundaries in that you won’t speak to many prospects. Setting business boundaries helps you laser focus on the perfect client for your business. Doing so will benefit you in the following ways:

  • Decrease your competition. The more clear you are with your boundaries in regards to who is a good fit for you and who is not, you’ll decrease your competition. To that end, you’ll have time and energy to focus on the clients that will help you build your business.
  • Gain better traction. Every business needs momentum to get started and continue growing. Crystal-clear business boundaries make it so much easier to gain traction and get going!
  • Easier marketability. “Jack of all trades, master of none” is not an effective marketing strategy and a one-way ticket to burnout. Clear service offerings to specific clients is the best way to make your business life infinitely easier.

Now that you’ve seen the benefits of setting those boundaries, it’s time to get started creating them!

3 Steps for Setting Boundaries

So what’s the best way to establish boundaries with people you’ve never met? 

  1. Know who you want to work with. From the kind of work you want to do most to the personality type of your ideal client, be clear with YOURSELF before you ever write a piece of marketing material for your clients.
  2. Seek to understand the pain points of that ideal client. Not how you can help them, but rather how they need to be helped. How will what you offer them impact their life? Their business? Their bottom line?
  3. Position yourself as a specialist or as an expert in your field. If the word “specialist” or “expert” is problematic, you can still use words like “focused” or “expertise” to outline the framework of what you do and for whom.

Believe it or not, specificity will actually increase your close rate. You may reach fewer people, but the number of people who choose to move forward will go up. It’s the very definition of work smarter, not harder. Added Bonus: No more burnout.

Need Help Nailing Down Your Target Audience?

GoBeyond SEO helps small businesses reach their ideal clients every day. Schedule a free discovery call with us to learn more about how we can help you narrow your focus so you can have the business you’ve always wanted.

Categories
Lead Generation Small Business Marketing

Discover Your Magic Micro-Niche

You’ve heard of the term niche, but have you heard of a micro-niche? Micro-niching will work wonders when you need to get more clients and make more money, quickly. Micro-niching will laser focus your attention on the best parts of your business.

We know you have questions, such as, what the heck is a micro-niche? Won’t a micro-niche make my market smaller and thereby yield fewer clients? Why would I want to do that?

Fact: You will make your reach smaller. 

Fact: Your market will be smaller. 

However, you will NOT yield fewer clients. In fact, it is just the opposite. Micro-niching makes your marketing efforts more customized, less expensive, and more effective.

Even if you already have a target market, you can still pick a micro-niche.

How to find your micro-niche

Here are 3 quick questions to ask yourself to find your micro-niche:

  • Who are your current favorite clients? Pick 3-5
  • Why are they your favorite clients? Do they share common characteristics?
  • What common problem do you solve for them?

Don’t look now, but you just found yourself a micro-niche. With the right game plan, you could book a few of your favorite clients over the course of a month. Book a free strategy session with our team to learn more!

Categories
Business Blogging Lead Generation sales

How To Narrow Your Target Market (And Why You Need To)

Narrowing your market is a scary prospect. Why? You probably already know who your customers are, and the more people you reach, the more you sell. Here lies the rub. The broader your audience, the broader your messaging becomes. Your bandwidth needs to be able to handle all sorts of clients from all walks of life and realms of expertise. Because of all this, your leads end up taking a little longer to come in and the experience you want to provide isn’t what you’d like it to be.

When you focus your energy on targeting a narrower audience, your message can be more customized. Customized messages are the ones that get the real engagement, and when that happens, there is a higher chance they will trust you understand their needs. They will know you are a good fit for them. 

As you consider who exactly that narrow audience is, consider:

  • Are they buying for themselves or someone else?
  • What are their biggest problems or desires as it relates to your business?
  • Where do they get their information as it relates to your business? Social media? Google search? Asking friends or colleagues?

After you’ve answered those, it’s time to refocus and zone in. Here are the top 3 areas of focus when determining how to narrow your target market.

How to Narrow Your Target Market in 3 Steps

1. Focus on Desired Outcomes

Your clients come to you for the benefits, not the features, you offer…so promote them. Instead of talking about what your business does, discuss the outcome or emotion your clients will get after working with you. Will they acquire more security in the financial realm? Feel more confident when preparing for mediation? Leave with lasting family memories? Whatever business you are in, reminding your audience what you can provide them with is what will get them interested, and get them at your proverbial doorstep.

2. Focus on Customer Experience

When you are pulled in multiple directions, it gets increasingly difficult to juggle all of the needs and desires of your clients. With a more specialized, narrower audience, you are able to customize your client experience. When you understand your client’s needs so well, which is far easier to do when you narrow your market, you make it easier for them to say yes. They are reassured you can do what they need with minimal effort. That in itself is a huge selling point. 

3. Focus on Acquiring Trust

When you keep your focus on a very specific market, the reviews your business receives will also be specific. Your narrow market will find comfort in seeing themselves in those reviews, increasing trustworthiness within a market. Prior to even contacting you, they will feel confident in your expertise.

Narrowing your target audience helps you create customized messages for the right audience. This, in turn, will shorten the sales cycle and lower the barriers they may have to get to you. They’ll benefit from your specialized knowledge of their area, and you’ll benefit from the lower cost of focusing on a smaller market.

Do you need help identifying how to narrow your target market in your specific industry? Contact our team for more insights!

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Kristy is an Assistant & Coordinator of Awesome. She has worked extensively in academic administration and brings a varied wealth of knowledge. As a self-starter, she is ready to take on news projects and see them through to completion. Always curious, Kristy is an avid researcher and delights in the challenge of learning new skills.

When Kristy isn’t organizing or researching something, you can find her listening to a true crime podcast, re-watching How I Met Your Mother or The Big Bang Theory and coming up with some crazy shenanigan for her family’s next adventure.

5 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT KRISTY

  1. Kristy prefers the Harry Potter books over the movies. Her favorite book is The Prisoner of Azkaban and her favorite character is Luna Lovegood. Ravenclaw house. She just started her 8-year-old son on listening to the books.
  2. Kristy has a nail technician license, esthetician license, medical assisting certification, associate degree, and bachelor’s degree. She didn’t get her full cosmetology license because she can barely do her own hair, she shouldn’t be trusted with someone else’s.
  3. She doesn’t know how to gamble but is originally from Las Vegas, Nevada. She moved to Colorado three months before her 21st birthday.
  4. Her high school graduating class consisted of only 20 people.
  5. Kristy loves gift giving. One of her great joys in life is finding the “perfect” gift.
Kristy Elias