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How to Identify Your Customers

When they say, what niches do you serve? We're going to be diving in pretty soon to some different kinds of niches, but I want you to think it's concrete lee she can, so if I'm a bookstore, I'm already having trouble but pharma books for this specializes in a certain topic, and if I'm the on ly bookstore that actually has online tips from some of your favorite authors or find the only bookstore that has you people come in and speak and then only speak about their expertise, but they recommend for their books that they love they may not have written a book themselves, but it gets you in the bookstore see those air always that you actually leveraging more value to different shaped the nits that you want to be in you also can help different shape um your partner in that niche so it's a two part process what are my niche is not. Let me give you an example in two thousand eight when things went bad for a lot of businesses, there's, an architectural firm that had done very well and lost eigh...

ty percent of its clients and I said, well, what kind of project did you work on? You really liked? We think it showed off your talents when you ask people about their talents, they tend to go to generalizations, but when you say a project you can get it concrete they said well actually in maine we did a public aquarium and I loved it because it was about people gathering in certain places in formally informally talking to each other on he said I use the story boarding method if you look up storyboarding plus my name is storyboarding the sequence of scenes of people experience so he said we involved a storyboarding in the way we built it so we could figure out the opening scene the climactic scene in the closing scene which is the most neglected scene and that's one of the ones its most valuable so I said but you really got turned on when you started talking about the aquarium I said you should specialize and being the builder of aquariums he says no they don't build many so that's not quite the point you've got a great ally client who could be a partner now what you can do next is say these are the five things we did that made that aquarium successful we learned out of storyboard the scenes we learned how to gathering places we norton had appoint people to the places where they go eat he said those would also work in and we came up with five other places where that would work from convention centers to anchor many malls so the same thing so you think what are the specific traits where I had a huge success with a customer or I can say that's my expertise and in it and I can talk about the expertise of my complimentary partners when I do it so see it's that thinking of those scenarios and thinking not only what nature niches do you serve or does someone else because you could enter their market or vice versa or expand each other's markets so we've actually got some interesting nations I think you know oh, cool haven't way so I mean like this here about something because we've gotten a sand we've got education we've got after photography yeah, what are the niches that you serve in your markets let's start with angela msu's closest to me uh, you know, I got I actually have sort of a unique niche because I actually got involved in neuro feedback through going through cancer treatments myself and kind of crashing into pieces is and was able to put myself back together if they're doing there are a few back training on dh so my oncologist said, what are you doing? Why aren't you on these antidepressants and anti and sleep meds and all of these things that I'm putting everybody else on? They said, well, I've done this because can you bring that here he has an integrative oncology center so it's become and mitch market I guess you have a firsthand story that I bet is really compelling yeah and that that's so credible and it's so it gives the face of your company so it's not on your partnership you bring, but that experiences firsthand knowledge and you've led yourself in tow a kind of partnership group and thinking of associations. By the way, whenever you think of a kind of person look up a american society of association executives, they've got a gateway to associations so can get your brain storming. Where mme or these kinds of people aggregate maybe I should be a speaker at the conference or panelists so there's some others. Yeah, who else has an idea for your net? Yes there one day and then shannon, um, I was an educator in ghana in ecuador, spencer essential asia and studying education systems everywhere. And so it's great to have this network of my past students, but also other teachers that I had worked with. And it's great. When I get stuck on a problem where I'm wondering is this going on ly cell to a u s market? Is this only gonna work for ah privileged few or an underprivileged? Many and I can take those questions and get really direct feedback that's very personal because of the relationships I've had, and it was really you need to be able t work in that niche and be able tio think about a really global audience that sounds inspiring there's something called dot sub, which does crowdsource translations you might look them up, is a partner so they can translate some of your content to the other languages. There's also a company called content rules. Val swisher has, and she works on how you're ruling out a training program or product so it's not only in the right language, it's, culturally relevant, you might have a mutual interest, her clients might be years and so on. So when you get so concrete, you know your mind comes alive. I saw your mind ticking, tio big. So how about did you have a niche to you want to see? Oh, my niche market is really high and homeowner who is still creative, that they're creative and if they don't necessarily want an interior designer, but they do want the guidance and the ideas, and they want a really unique shopping experience it's they can shop at malls and online and things like that kind of all day and every day, but they want something that the whole experience is interesting for them, so that could be someone coming into their home to present things to them. It could be going to a gallery type space, but finding more than just art or things that are collectible and interesting. So it's like a niche that's kind of tricky to find but I know who they are and they probably know each other too, right? So if I was this's wonderfully specific I just love it say there's two kinds of well to do people there's those that really don't want to take the time or have that the notion of the aesthetic that matters to them, and then there's that really are aware of the environment and aware of their tastes and they want someone who can cure rate like that it's like being a ghost writer for someone who's done something extraordinary and is a good writer on dh so I think what you have is an opportunity to cherry pick several ditches within it that also serve it as vendors. That's real clear queen do another one yeah, yes s o my niche came about sort of unwittingly I painter and I received some press and beast unlike most artists, I wrote a business plan, a marketing plan before I started, so apparently that was newsworthy and so is noted media magnet newsworthy unlikely traits and one person is a great magnet for the media. And so the niche I serve our artists who are just, you know, have have had some traction, but they are sick and tired of the art establishment they realize it's broken it's not sustainable and they're looking for more money and more creative opportunity so I really I really am on a mission to destroy the starving artist mythology so I'm looking for artists were ist is fed up is as I was when I started and it's a very specific psychographic profile because not all artists right yet some great quotes on there too all right and has to be people ready to buy that realize that they're going to survive his artists they need your kind of help and to take the course to do it and relatively speaking it's a great value to put it that way wait no that's that's quite that's interesting yes can I do another one? Yes so one of the niche markets that I have are first time parents and or relocating families so they need to find the right school for the right reasons for them right away before enrollment process is all past you. So a partner for you might be there's a group of experts that what they do is relocation for large companies and there's an association of them and there's it's consolidating industry but so you would be an asset that would differentiate them just like art kick might be that's a start up that you might look up they you might be mutual partners there it's about showing great art on your tv sets for high end of all where things but art kick um and as you're thinking out your own resource is for each other it's been fun to see you dive into wanting to help each other with your context because the best partnership in my mind is a third iteration with a partner you realize he really get along with because suddenly ideas come to you right and left and that the first grow but the third one's exponential and you may have context for each other wherever you're watching when you hear about people helping each other find their partners is probably one of the joys that helps spur yours um in a situational cell I'm gonna be talking about different ways that you can partner and I want to be very, very concrete about it so this is the first of the three you serve the same situation and you can do it better together it saves time or it saves money or generates more value. So when you think of things that are bundled together, I think there's a huge feature where you may not physically cell of them bundled together in each other's place but you might for example, have a picture of there being used on your physical site or your online site and a care a description or you might have short videos that show them being used together or you might have collective demos are collected talk about it but it's something where you're going to be able to do something that together they say that's, my situation that she'll help me or that could be my situation. I didn't thought about it, tara yeah, a concrete example, I sure can you walk into a hair salon like most stores they sell by product category, but we bye bye situational need. So for those of us that travel a bit frequently what I've always dreamed of as they had a picture in the store, the better they have frequent traveler kit, and so it shows not only it took me quite a while to find the right size bag that holds my ipad, that center that I carry on there's, a lot of variables to get picky, but after awhile frequent twelve there's, no there's, certain things they want and to get all your bundle of makeup that you can take on board and that there's certain travel clothes that if wrinkle free, I put together ah group in brazil, where that's what they're doing, those partners are sharing that package so it's both on image and their windows it's an image online it's a description of each and it's a very specific description about why these air good for travelers, so there's a chance to do text. But it's funny when you start thinking this way how you find a lot of ideas so I was just thinking of one driving in you think of existing groups and how you collectively add value you so for example and congregations because I was thinking about my methodist minister friend they usually have a youth minister in large congregations youth ministers have to come up with the exercises things to do and whatever so if a set of people that did music or their experts and and equipment for the age group they're serving, they could bundle together and say it's a science for subscription plussed equipment you need and we'll give you for a month if you want so together they got a built in audience that they own because of the first ones to do it. So you're thinking of situation if you think about those accounts I talked about there's, a very specific market and a situation they all have you think about nurses month nurses month happens to be may and there's a nurse is weak and any large hospital recognize and celebrates their nurse. So I go give a talk about patient communication because patient satisfaction scores means hospitals are gonna lose money or make money it's always nice to have an outside threat because I'm sure nicer way to put that, but so they're going to really be nice to all the nurses so there's a celebration I go give a talk, I crossed from what was for other people, I think a great pictures speakers and we also have a kit a variety of four different kits that you can give the nurses that of mementos that the hospital khun brand with their own image. So I branded with people that have gifts I think are meaningful for nurses who I know really, really well, it's like the first hand experiences you really know what's going to resonate, so those are some situations and we're going to go through these with you too, so I consider that one of the hottest ways to stand out in a market by doing what you already have in conjunction with others. Um the next is somewhere kinds of customers now there's a merger sometimes it's both like if you think your customers are the errand runners when they're on an errand, they're trying to do these six things, they're usually boring things they have to do. Ah well, maybe not their favorite and you could be part of that erin runned so you see that's a situation but it's also similar there's certain people if there are working couple there's a saturday and sunday time that's really precious for them so it relates to the kinds of customers and it could be people that are true fitness nuts now when you're thinking about kinds of customers, you go to where the people are most fervent, right where they're just absolutely nuts about this kind of thing well guess what's one of the most fervent growing trends in our country, hence cute small wiggly, not a problem hyper energetic in other words, I want I want a pal, I want them to door me, and I want them to not mess up. I'm being only a little sarcastic, but this is true from a couple of studies, so if you do anything that relates to people's pits cats and dogs, especially there's, a huge, huge going market and none of them a bundle their services together yet so you think, ok, what's a fervent for us, and then this is the last one, which is the most odd and the biggest now I don't know you really well, but I had this wild perception that all of you sometime the last month have probably gone to the grocery store at some point have probably gone to a gas station, except for those who live in new york, not as many a gas station and I've gone to a bank, so I really believe in locally owned businesses that do well I'm a real fan of regional banks because there is good as my feelings are opposite about big banks so we have a regional bank called bank of iran regional banks all over the country imagine if you approached a bank because most of people go to a bank atm or at least they get their monthly slips from him suppose the bank turned all of its customers that ran businesses and said we're going to start delivering tips in the count's statement and we're going to have tips digitally on our site from our bank from our bank customers would you give me two to three specific tips and we'll list them plus your u r l so when they did that of course they built enormous bonds and they say by the way we mentioned we're going to mention you and two months would you mention the fact that you're going to be featured and all of our banks slips so you can you imagine the loyalty that built and the leverage in the value and then they said if you're really smart why don't a couple of you get together and co sponsor tips so be tips from two of you then you can appear twice so it's not impossible to think that out now going to gas stations um here's what I thought of for three gas stations regionally owned again is I said to them why don't you partner with local landscapers and people do plant installations and do something really unusual now this is a three part story but it's really brief partner with them and show off this usually neglected area and you're going to stand out and be a focal point so people say I'll go to that gas station it's the one with the many many gardens small small gardens or would have ah while garden or something but we're going to highlight who they are and we're going to sign each at that at the pumps and we're going to rotate because they want to be sure they had the right partner at first well within two months someone at night dug up all the plants and carefully carted them away and this is a place that's open for long hours and decide to go to twenty four hours but not for this reason but they were so upset they told several people the pumps and it turned into a story here's a smart partnership and someone had the audacity to steal so that then said, our next exhibit is going to be how you khun plantings that air sculptural interesting that make it more difficult for them to be stolen if they're in semipublic place this is so they got legs to their story because they really bring storm I will admit that a special tool the partners when they came up with this and it was a bottle of chardonnay they had a lot of ideas so I'm suggesting you whatever happens with the partnership you're very uniqueness of doing it it can take you places. So there you have those three areas, and it helps focus you as we go through the methods which will be doing later on. But we're gonna be doing exercise where I ask you about situations if there's one of those three circles. Oh, I like the temperature. Now, if there's one of those three circles situational, similar kinds, or I want to really go for broke and go after one of the big three again regional grocery stores, you go on a grocery store and you have all that wonderful produce. How many of you like produce since one of your reasons? You got nice that well, it's, all the all the stuff I like. But what if they partnered with other organizations like a medical clinic, like a masseuse and others about with signs sticking out? Say, get thes three together and it's your super foods or stuff, so they don't have to be experts, but they get a chance to stand out and to be a story.