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I attended the IT@Cork event this evening, where Tom Raftery spoke about “RSS for non-techies” - another great it@cork event - check it out
I was reminding a friend about something he said to me a number of years ago when I was strategising about what business I was in, the late nineties in Vistech. He said “you’re first of all in the business of being in business”. Great words, great guy, thanks Andrew. A Market Leader in his own market - checkout NewsWeaver.com
Also as we discussed this evening, too many businesses never get out of the mode of “just being in business”. Their goal is simply to be in business.
What enourages a person, or a business, to want to be a Market Leader?
Is it a sign of business maturity or is a person’s competitive nature? I’m a believer in the Market Leader goal. Whatever business you decide to be in, strive to be the leader. We cant claim to be the leader first day, but we need to have the clear objective to constantly improve and build our business towards a worthy goal. If you were leader what would you be doing? What Marketing Activities, what speaking engagements etc then at what point should you be starting these? - should it not be right now?
I joke sometime about getting to the top of market is like pushing a big boulder up a hill, at which point the momentum of marketing and general business activities is self-sustaining for a while. As a customer of mine once put it, “we got to a point that we could do no wrong in the marketplace, we were winning everything”, another associate talked about “leads just coming in the door”, sales was more like order taking.
SO Why pick a niche? Why strive to be market leader?
1) Clarity of focus - you business will get better at solving a core set of Needs for a your clearly defined Ideal Client(s)
2) The Ideal Client can identify you much easier as a specialist in resolving the Needs they have….
3) Specialists can charge more premuim rates, because they better guarantee success due to their expertise and track record in resolving the same Needs for so many before this.
4) Because of your track record, you can easier assess the value being gained by the client and charge Value Based fees - As Dan Kennedy talks about - in Selling Money, in reference to the Return-On-Investment argument - If I can save you √¬¢‚Äö?Ñ??¬¨¬®100,000 will you pay me √¬¢‚Äö?Ñ??¬¨¬®10,000?
5) Clarity of focus for your team, Motivation for your team - good people, motivated people will need a worthy goal to capture their passion
6) last reason why you want to be a leader - “If you’re not the lead dog, you’re view is always the same” - cant remember where I read that, but it makes it very clear.
getting to that dominant position, depends on many things and as Andrew said “we’re first of all in the business of being in business”
Are you just in business or are you striving for Market Leadership?
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