When I first started my business, I kept reading that specializing in one kind of client would help my business grow. But how can turning down business help my business grow?
When you try to attract everyone, you really attract no one.
As a small creative business owner, you’re passionate about so many things. You want to appeal to as many people as you can with your products and services. But I’m here to show you why that’s not the best idea. I know it seems counter intuitive – focusing on attracting a smaller group of people will actually bring in more clients than when you’re trying to appeal to everyone – but it’s true!
When you focus on one thing, you get it done right!
Think about it. Have you every tried multi-tasking a long list of things to do and failed miserably? You’re making breakfast while watching the news, making a grocery list, checking email and adjusting your schedule for the week. Next thing you know, breakfast is burnt, you left 3 main items off your grocery list and you accidentally moved your Tuesday meeting to Thursday putting a big project in jeopardy.
Multi-tasking can pull your attention in too many directions making it difficult to do any one thing well. But when you focus on one thing at a time, you can do your best job with the task at hand. The same goes for your business and narrowing your focus. This gives you breathing room to really get to know, attract and woo your ideal client in your niche.
Getting to know and attracting your ideal client
Choosing a niche lets you spend all of your time and energy getting to know just your ideal client. Now it’s much easier to market and attract them instead of spinning your wheels trying to appeal to several different niches. You can get hyper focused with your website copy, your SEO on your blog posts and the language and images you post on social media to speak directly to your ideal client. And once they find you, you can really knock their socks off with an amazing experience.
Creating an amazing experience
Now that you’re attracting one ideal type of client, you can create a bigger and better specialized experience for them. You know their wants and needs, their fears and frustrations, their likes and dislikes. This makes it much easier to customize every move you make to them from the first email interaction to delivering their final product. Now, instead of seven different “just ok” experiences for the seven kinds of clients you were trying to attract and woo before, you’ve now created one out-of-this-world experience for your one perfect client for your niche.
How it all leads to increased profits
Here are the items that you need to consider when narrowing your business to target your ideal client:
- Rewrite your website copy to speak to and attract your ideal client.
- Focus your blog on a few SEO keywords like “Charlotte Newborn Photographer” to rank higher in Google local searches. You’ll find out quickly that your ideal client isn’t just typing “photographer” into their Google search. They know exactly what they are looking for, and you just need make it possible for them to find you.
- Create a featured video and inquiry experience just for your ideal client. The goal of this video is to show that you are providing a unique experience for your clients from the start of the relationship.
- Streamline your workflow to decrease the amount of time needed per client. Each client type undoubtedly has it’s on on-boarding and workflow process. When you eliminate the client types that don’t fit your ideal client you can streamline your processes only for that niche.
- By specializing, you will be able to create a more luxurious experience through custom products, attention to detail, client gifts and more. That translates to premium prices.
If you’re skeptical that narrowing your focus can increase your profits, I challenge you to write out all the different “ideal clients” you’re currently trying to attract. Are you able to dig deep to know all of them, to market to them so they can’t wait to work with you and creating an experience that they’re excited to tell their friends about? If not, it might be time to give choosing a niche a try! I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below – who is your ideal client?
