Today’s consumers seek out businesses that understand them, and the more you specialize your business to address the needs of a core group of people by “speaking their language,” you can develop your very own “super niche” of fanatically loyal clients and customers. A super niche is when you strategically target a particular market segment; get to know its inhabitants inside and out, and your company the business of choice within your industry to members of that niche. You do this by specializing your products and services to the needs, wants and desires of the most qualified prospects in your niche. By developing inside knowledge of this group, and giving them exactly what they want, you will inspire the loyalty that people give those who understand them. Mari Gottdiener, one of my clients, is a former attorney who specializes in getting credit bureaus to address and correct credit-report errors. With a little research, we decided to refocus her credit and consumer advocacy business from general consumers, who were obviously hard to target, to the narrowly defined market of professional mortgage brokers. We discovered that mortgage brokers were ready-made prospects. They had an ongoing need for her services on behalf of their loan applicants. She began networking with brokers at trade association meetings, and gave presentations at several mortgage offices. We published articles about credit repair in mortgage broker trade publications. We even conducted a web seminar that reached a national mortgage broker audience. Mari’s decision to focus on the mortgage broker sector transformed her business. The more she focused on being the person who fixes credit problems for mortgage brokers, the easier it became for her to define what she could do for them. Now, her name gets passed around, and she’s developed a special reputation within that market that makes getting business easier than ever.
