The Savvy Entrepreneur

Here’s the case of a virtual office assistant who recently took the plunge and claimed her unique space in the VA world. This is how Tina M. Hilton worded it on her blog: As of May 1,2009, Clerical Advantage will no longer be considered a ‘generalist’ virtual assistant company, but will focus on providing services [...]

A few weeks ago my step-dad told me he wants to start a business selling log homes in Canada as an authorized dealer for a US company. The coach, entrepreneur and Devil’s Advocate in me perked up and started asking tough questions about how he plans to execute his marketing plan — is there even [...]

July’s Question of the Month is all about target markets. What’s your biggest challenge when nailing down your target market? Share your concerns with me. Have you figured it out? What’s your secret? Please take one minute to submit your answers here. I’ll share the results with you at the end of July.

Don’t mistake your Ideal Client with your Target or Niche Market. They may share some similarities, but the differences are important enough to make a distinction. Michael Port describes your ideal client in “Book Yourself Solid” this way (page 16): Your ideal clients are a subset of the target market you choose to serve. It [...]

What’s the difference between a Target Market and Niche Market? I get this question a lot. It’s a question I’ve been asked a lot lately, so I thought I’d clarify my opinion here. A Target Market and Niche Market are the same but different in their own way. They are the same in that these [...]

Rima McDonald, of Business Resources Podcast Directory, recently interviewed me on the subject: “Getting More Clients… By Choosing Your Target Market.” Here are the topics I covered: Why do I feel it’s so important to talk to small business owners about choosing a target market? What is the difference between a target market and a [...]

I love sharing questions that come up on the various online networking groups I belong to, because I feel they reflect what’s really going on in business. For example, last week, this question came up: I am looking at a starting a VA business part time while maintaining my full time status at work for [...]

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 [...]

Are you like many people I speak with who think that targeting a specific client will limit their business and turn potential clients away? If you answered yes, my question to you is this: Is that such a bad thing? You can’t be all things to all people — nor do you want to be. [...]

I’ve been reading Mark O’Neill’s article Selling Your Services on eBay: Bring Your Own Beer and wondered if this trend has really caught on in North America… If so, is it working? So I decided to do some detective work – Cristina-style. I started searching for “coaching” on eBay. Most listings were for coaching products [...]

How often have you agreed to take on a new client or project after being asked “Do you offer this service?” when you really don’t. Your gut reminds you that 1) you don’t have the qualifications or skills to handle this project, 2) you hate to do the task(s) involved or 3) you are not [...]