Monday, April 21, 2008

Recession Marketing Discipline Number Two:

Focus your fame: The perception of scarcity leads to desperate behavior. If you believe there aren’t enough good clients to go around, you may market with unhealthy urgency. Over-anxious marketing breaks trust with prospects it doesn’t build it. Equally problematic, desperation marketing usually means unfocused marketing. We continuously goad professional service advisors to be famous for something. Generalists generally end up great at nothing. Clients hire experts and experts are specialists. Though it seems counterintuitive, it works. The more specific you are in your client targeting efforts the more opportunities you generate. That doesn’t mean that you EXCLUSIVELY do something for only one type of client but it does mean that you are ESPECIALLY good at doing something for one special type of client.

In a slowdown, you may be tempted to broaden your prospect list to include, for instance, “anyone who can pay their bill.” You may be lured into diluting your area of fame in favor of the fable that casting a wide net will catch more fish. But the reality is that if you feel desperate your competitors may feel worse. Let them dilute themselves. Let them attack the market like starving wolves. You go the other direction – hone your area of fame even sharper, drive it deeper into the market. It takes too much effort to claim your fame. Don’t dilute it out of fear. When the market rebounds you’ll have gained market share.

1 comment:

Dan Bowling said...

Well said Andrew

My consulting firm, which is in its infancy (Cardinal Consulting LLC) seeks to take advantage of my broad background in human resources and law. Not many takers with this broad of a net. I am working on publishing a paper on a very narrow topic within that space that all of a sudden prospective clients take interest in. Your note here seems to go right to that point.
Thanks, Dan Bowling