image via flickr by aussiegall

Despite all the talk about having a niche, many businesses still operate without one. Your must have something that sets you apart from anyone else either in product, distribution or promotion at all times. Doing this type of regular activity, protects your business from competing on price.

Now do not over think this. It does not have to be a new invention. It can simply be a new feature added to one of your current offerings. This is strategy to the core!

So below are three methods of uncovering your niche:

1. Call your top 6 clients.

They know what they want and need. Take detailed notes during the conversations and follow up on a least one idea that comes out in the conversation within a month. Keep the client involved in the progress too!

2. Do a ‘documented’ competitive analysis.

In a 3 column table, the headings should read ‘Unique Differences’ /’Risk Low -1 High -5′/ ‘Action’. List your competitors unique differences, the level of risk to your business and the actions you will take to combat them. Do a separate table for each client and review for possible feature combinations and brainstorm.

3. Compare against leaders in other industries.

If you are an IT company compare your product offering to a business in the restaurant industry or any category killer for that matter. It sounds odd, but list out all of your product or services for both you and them next to each other. You will be surprised how quickly a new offering idea can come to you and how creatively satisfying this can be.

Do this every quarter or half year and also pop it in your business plan.

If this is the first time you have done this, it will be a much needed reality check. I get to do this for clients all the time and it is quite scary how long they operate without a niche and wonder why is always comes down to price.

It is also advisable to have somebody outside of your business do this on your behalf and provide a report back to you. Business ‘owners’ and ‘founders’ in particular make ill judgements about the products or services and they never know that they are doing it

This is a short and snappy post about setting goals for your business. My wonderful personal trainer Esther from Passion8 PTput me onto the RunKeeper App for the iPhone. It tracks the exact distance by GPS,  how far and how long you run. Now if you know me well, you know I HATE running. I will  power walk for kilometers, follow a black line in a pool for as long and ride my bike with joy – but running – YUCK!

That would be fine except if my goal for 2010 is to finally compete in a Triathlon. It has been a long time dream because I love combining swimming and riding. So my goal is to learn to love to run. I have tried many times before and have failed.

So I started using this App and things have changed. Suddenly I am single minded about achieving my goal.Comparing previous runs and setting small weekly targets. I also get the sweet satisfaction of hitting these smaller goals with the end game in sight.

When on a run this week, my words from a recent post I did about Strategy for Social Media  came back to me. Closely tracking myself against a long term goal means I am far less likely to give up and every move I make is deliberate.

Talk about motivation – I can’t wait to get back out there and beat myself. Previously I was running, but I didn’t really know where. I would easily tell myself that is far enough now.

Fluffy undefined goals are unachievable by their very nature. There is also a multitude of activities in your business you can waste time on and not  achieve success. Ultimately strategy means clarifying what you want and setting goals on how you are going to achieve it.

I was in a situation recently where I was seeking a web traffic analytics tool. In this particular instance, an over the counter product just wasn’t suitable for my client. In a meeting, I was asked various questions about what I needed it for and why. Later when it came time to present their offering to me, the gentleman had taken it well past the basic prescription I had asked for. I could see he was ardent about his craft and very intelligent. Nonetheless, to me it felt like he hadn’t listened to a word I had said. True – his solution was packed with loads of features that were no doubt remarkable and even groundbreaking, but many of them I hadn’t asked for and would not need.

Overselling can be a number of things.

1. Over promising – ie selling beyond what your goods and services are capable of delivering. A smart buyer will recognise this and you won’t get the sale. Others less astute may buy but will be disappointed and will either not come back to you or it will cause disputes. A good way to prevent this type of overselling is to understand the limits of your products and services and remember the adage “PROMISE GOOD AND DELIVER BETTER”.

 2. Not recognising when you have the sale – You must listen to and watch the customer’s body language and not keep giving them information when they have already decided to buy. If you recognise when to stop selling and take an order you can always offer more information and the time of delivery, this will help show the customer that you are truly interested in them beyond that first order. This is very common.

 3. Motor mouth – Again quite common. That is when a sales person just feels they have to tell you everything they can about everything they can. No cure for this but to get them out of sales and as far away from your potential or existing customers as you can. 

In essence sales is about what you as a sales person don’t know about your customer’s wants or needs and therefore your ability to question them carefully until you fully understand what they really need to satisfy their requirements. This is a very important skill and in my opinion requires a certain degree of selflessness (that is another post). The customer is very grateful at this stage and if you can offer goods or services that meet that need do so. If you can’t see if you can point them in the right direction, Selling goods or services to a customer that don’t fit that need/desire requirement is the worst form of OVERSELLING. Indeed it is very selfish.

In short, overselling is selling beyond a customer present or reasonable future need/want requirement, selling above what your product or service is capable of delivering or simply over stating everything and most of all the inability to listen. Selling is simple – give em’ what they want.