- April 11, 2018 -

At the end of last Friday's email (if you didn't have a chance to read it, it's also posted here) I promised I was going to play the devil's advocate.

And since I'm feeling especially ornery, today's the day. Lol

Friday's topic was all about specializing and finding your niche.

Honing in on a niche audience, a niche service...being super specialized.

Think brain surgeon vs general practitioner.

In a perfect world, this is terrific...but let's get practical here, people.

You've got to put food on the table, and when transitioning to a more niche-focused business model, turning away business is a tough pill to swallow.

So the question I want you to think about is:

Specialize or die...or Generalize and survive?

When we first started Barron Marketing, Cheryl and I took every project that came our way: Infusionsoft, paid advertising, web design, SEO, etc.

Everything!

We had jumped off the bridge and needed to paddle fast...or sink.

I had closed the doors to my dying mortgage business, and she retired early from teaching.

We couldn't afford to pick and choose.

There were mortgages and kids college tuition to pay for...and, of course, golf memberships haha. Not as much time for golf in those days.

We were Yes-Aholics.

And we needed as much experience as humanly possible so that when the time was right, we could make better decisions about how to structure the business.

Generalize and Survive was the song we were singing all day long.

After about six years of 17-hour days, 7 days a week...we were burnt out.

I told Cheryl to take whatever time she needed to figure out a new model - and I started Barron Properties to create a second source of income since I could draw on my mortgage experience.

And our song shifted to this tune:

If it can't be scaled, it's got to go.

So nowadays, we have had to say "No" to custom work because it doesn't fit with our model of "one to many."

We still work with our past clients because working one-on-one is something we love - and it's tough giving that up.

But we had to adapt or die from exhaustion...or drink more wine 🙂

Every service, every product that we offer now has to pass these two tests:

+ Can more than one customer benefit?

+ Can implementation be documented so that fulfillment can be processized (not sure if that's a word)?

My intention today is to give you some food for thought as always...not to shove our model down your throats.

Design your business to support the lifestyle you want...not the other way around.

Because isn't that why we all became entrepreneurs in the first place?

If this resonates with you and you'd like to talk, then set up a free consult with us.
 
Later!

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