The Savvy Entrepreneur

During a coaching session with a realtor yesterday, she admitted to feeling overwhelmed by all the information out there and said it compounded her marketing challenge — focusing her efforts and streamlining her message. As I dug deeper, she said that she wanted to target 2 particular markets: residential sellers and investment buyers.

Now there’s nothing wrong with defining more than 1 target client — at least she knew who she most liked to work with. However, problems arise when trying to speak to all those targets in one marketing campaign. This realtor was getting ready to launch a 6-month advertising campaign, with no quantifiable goals and no clear target in mind (she was wondering how to advertise to both her targets on a 2.5″x2.5″ ad). OUCH! Imagine the waste of time and money that would have been!

So, what if, like this realtor, you just can’t decide which target client you want to concentrate on? You, really, only have 3 options:

1. Keep doing what you’re doing and hope you get clients (“After all, everyone needs my service“).
2. Decide to market actively to both groups (“After all, I don’t want to lose any business“).
3. Just choose one target market at a time and stick with it (“After all, I can’t be all things to all people“).

Now option #1 is obviously the easiest way to go. It involves little research, little effort and little to no forethought or planning. It does take more money and more energy. I’m sure you’ll agree with me when I say, this is NOT the way to go, unless you’re happy with spending lots of money, spreading yourself thin, sending an unclear message, not getting your top rates and looking unprofessional. Oh yeah, and not getting clients!

Option #2 is a better than the first, but realize that by going this route, you’ll be “splitting” yourself in 2 (or however many target markets you’ve defined). There are 2 major drawbacks to going this route: (1) You’ll spend lots of time researching each market, determining their individual needs and describing the benefits of your service and how you’ll help them overcome their unique challenges. (2) It’ll cost you more to create individual marketing materials and advertising campaigns to reach all the targets you’ve chosen.

As you’ve probably guessed, option #3 is my weapon of choice and is what I recommend to all my coaching clients, especially those who hesitate in choosing one target client or who are stuck in their marketing efforts.

If you have more than one defined target client, list them all in detail. But start by choosing 1 — the group you’re most passionate and excited about working with (whom you have access to, who need what you offer and can afford your rate) — and market to only that group. You’ll know you’re on the right track when your practice starts filling with clients, you get recognized as an expert in your field, you look forward to serving your target each day, and people ask your professional opinion or for advice. If it’s not all that, choose another target on your list and start over.

By concentrating your efforts to one specific target client, here are things you’ll notice:

• the more you’ll enjoy what you do
• the better you’ll become at identifying and answering your target’s needs
• the less time you’ll spend researching
• the more consistent, clear and concise your marketing message will become and attract your ideal client

Besides, think of how much easier it is to brand yourself and create a tag line, business cards, website, 30-second introduction, newsletter and all other marketing materials, when you are concerned with speaking to only one type of client!!