How to stay being a generalist but test the waters to specialize your business?

Yesterday I gave you a dose of reality.

Harsh? Maybe. Blunt? Somewhat. But if you are still a skeptic in this whole niching down thing. I want to give you a bit of a game plan so that you can test the waters and see if specializing your business has an positive impact on your business.

In business, you need to experiment sometimes. I’m a HUGE fan of making some assumptions and building an experiment.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD EXPERIMENT

A good experiment has an assumption, a set time around the experiment, and a measurable goal.

Parameters for testing the waters of niching down:

• Assumption: niching down has a positive impact on your business
• Time: 45 days
• Measurable goal: Get 2 new clients

I want to disclaim that there are no guarantees. Your mileage may vary, but what I want you to get from this exercise is a feeling for what being a specialized business can mean for you. Is messaging easier? Is finding the right kind of client easier? Is the pay better?

Your First Week

Over the next 45 days, take 90 mins per day and dedicate it to working towards being a specialist.

Pick a type of customer to focus on.

Pick the type of work that you’ve done in the past that you enjoy doing.

Pick a specific solution that is scaled back from your current offering. Something that may be a piece of your current services in fact that you can deliver quickly and effectively.

Look at your services and select a piece of it that you can deliver to a specific type of client quickly.

This could be building landing pages for non-profit events. Could be writing about pages for coaches and mentors. Could be designing Facebook Group banners for groups that are larger than 1000 members.

Remaining Month

Then over the next month and a half, go looking around for clients, set up sales calls, reach out to your own network of colleagues and have the conversations around your new offering.

Reach out to lost leads and see if your new offering fits a need they have.

Build a simple landing page on carrd.co or even your own website to at least direct people to.

Goto Megamaker and follow Justin’s template of building out that landing page.

Pay attention to the language you are hearing in these conversations. How are they talking about problems they have? How are they talking about the solution to those problems?

Over the course of the next 45 days, note down in a spreadsheet how many people you reach out to, how many engage in conversation with you, and how many buy the thing you are selling?

At the end of the 45 days if you’ve given this a genuine effort, meaning you dedicated 90-minutes a day, then take an afternoon and review your results.

Post Experiment analysis

How does it align with the results you have with being a generalist?

Was it easier to speak the language when you had the solution to present?

Was it easier to go to the places to find prospects that fit for your offering?

By the end of the 45 days, did you have a better grasp of the solution and potential customer?

How did the offering change over the course of the 45 days?

The answer to these questions should give you a good sense of how niching down can make an impact on your business.

How do I know, because I’ve done it 4 times myself. 3 of which allowed me to pivot my business and the 4th allowed me to steer clear of a road that I needn’t not go done.

If you want some help in executing on this, head on over to askrezzz.com, find the chat bubble in the bottom right corner and let me know.

I would love the opportunity to execute this experiment with you.