joe polish

Selecting a Niche Part IV

differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management

Joe Polish has this wonderful example of a kaleidoscope and telescope. If you look into a telescope you can zoom into a specific object and identify this out it.

On the other hand if you look through a kaleidoscope, you see a lot of beautiful patterns but you can’t find one specific thing to focus on. As you keep rotating the kaleidoscope the patterns keep changing and keep mesmerizing you, diverting your attention from good pattern to the next.

When you niche, you not only find what you need to focus on, but you also find what you don’t need to focus on.

As marketers we are always seeing opportunities like the patternsin a kaleidoscope. A marketer is fundamentally positive by nature and therefore see opportunities all the time. This however is the downside for us, it tends to distract us.

By creating a niche and sticking to it, you put the blinders on for everything else. Then your messaging to your audience improves, you are able to identify all the different nuances for the audience and therefore slowly start owning the space in the mind of the customer.

Once you can own the space that’s when the game starts and you make profits.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

When you polarize….you monetize

differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, Sales

I heard this statement from Dr. Sean Stephenson at the ilovemarketing mastery inaugural course.

The word polarize means to split into such that they seem so different like the north and south pole of the earth. The key terms in this statement are split and different. Like the red pawn and black pawn in the picture.

This is so closely related to what I have been talking about in the last few days on differentiation, perception and choosing a niche.

Apple polarizes is audiences, so does a Lamborghini. You don’t go into a Lamborghini showroom and ask for a discount…. they may tell you there’s a waiting list. They are angle to do that because they own that space in the minds of the customers. Similarly if you don’t value the positioning of Lamborghini you won’t even go into their showrooms

The job of good marketing is to attract your best prospects and repel all others. Once you do a good job there you can really make good profits.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Selecting a niche…. create a differentiation

differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management

Whenever you try to create a differentiation –  it is always with respect to a market.

The red egg differentiation will not matter to a person who does not eat eggs.

I talk multiple times about Joe Polish and Dean Jackson. The reason I am so impressed with them and their podcasts on ilovemarketing and morecheeselesswhiskers is because they explore this concept in so much depth.

You will hear a lot of marketing people talk about identifying a niche in the market, but fail to say the immediate statement after that. Is there a market in that niche

This is the most critical aspect when you decide to segment the market for a niche.

When I started my career in selling process control equipment, we had an amazing product which was also very expensive. Indian industry at that time was still new to the idea of micro processor based process control equipment.

Our product was very good good for controlling complex processes. However there were very few companies who really had the need for such a powerful equipment. And we didn’t have a range of products.

While there was a niche in the market for controlling complex processes, there was no market in the niche…. because there were very few companies with a need for such a product.

Eventually this product could not take leadership even though we came out with this amazing product much before anyone else.

So while finding a niche in the market is important, to be able to differentiate and stand out. You should always see if there’s a market for you in the niche.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Relentless

Marketing, Sales

It’s an adjective.

Synonyms – Persistent, Non-Stop, Continuous…

An adjective qualifies the noun – grade 5 English grammar course. In this case, the noun is going to be a person. A relentless person a persistent person is how this will be used.

So what is the significance of this English grammar lesson for today’s post.

The other day in one of the posts I mentioned about the I love marketing podcast episode with Chris Voss and I explained why I admired him because of his usage of of words.

With a background in hostage negotiation you have to be careful with your words and the words should have the the exact Nuance of what is being thought by the speaker. That is one of the reasons why his vocabulary is so good.

During the podcast, one of the questions asked to him was on the launch of his book, in 2017 I think, and how he went about promoting it.

One word that he mentioned which immediately stuck in my head was the fact that he was relentless in ensuring that he was on two interviews a week at the minimum, to promote his book which he is doing to this day.

While the book – Never Split the Difference – is very good, but if people don’t hear about it they will not go and buy it. So it’s a terrific lesson in marketing.

We may have a terrific product or a terrific service but if people do not come to know about it then people will not buy it.

In one word he had put out such a big strategy for marketing

Everyone knows about Coke. But they relentlessly advertise about their product so that when you visit the shop or restaurant and you are thirsty the first word which comes out of your mouth is a Coke.

Everyday in marketing and I am including sales as part of marketing only for the purpose of this blog, if you are not somehow reaching more and more customers everyday , by some mechanism , you will not be able to build a sustainable pipeline and a predictable business.

You need not be brilliant, you need not be teriffic , but if you want to succeed you have to be relentless, persistent et al.

Till next time

Carpe Diem!!!