One cardinal marketing rule is: Find your niche and stick to it. The “we can do everything” is usually a kiss of (marketing) death for construction businesses — in fact generalization is usually totally unwise unless you are setting extremely narrow geographic bounds (and then, of course, you are defining your niche by geography rather than specialty or expertise).
Usually, if you narrow and focus your energies, you can achieve much greater and more profitable results — and your brand is enhanced as you strengthen your leadership within your chosen field. I would advocate in choosing your niche define it by (a) the work you enjoy doing the most and (b) the work your previous clients — or your former employer’s previous clients indicate you are best at doing.
In other words, play to your strengths. And when you are tempted to stretch outside of your space, stop, think carefully, and demur about sidetracks and extensions that take you away from your core competencies and market strength.
Fair enough.
But a recent reader’s inquiry reminded me of the one exception where niche busting makes sense. If your clients are clamoring for you to offer a new or broader service, listen to them!
I learned this lesson a couple of years ago when one of our business-to-business clients urged me to launch a consumer-oriented renovation magazine in Ottawa. Until then, our company had only produced business-to-business regional construction publications using a standardized newsprint format. Certainly, I had ambitions to grow the business — and I stretched it with some creative geographical expansion — but I always declined invitations to leave the safe niche (especially recalling an ill-fated earlier attempt to publish a general business publication which flopped miserably.)
Our client insisted — to the point that I sensed I would offend him if I didn’t take on the job.
Then, I decided to solve the problem by setting up a new business, enlisting partners with retail consumer market experience. We quickly formed a joint venture and with our ready made market — we set out to produce a profitable and successful magazine. And this year, at the suggestion of one of my sales reps, we took on a “small” job, producing a show guide for a consumer renovation show. The sales and scope of the project have been modest, but the net revenue is entirely satisfactory, and has helped us bridge one of the most challenging times of the year revenue-wise.
The key to niche busting, I think, is to listen to your clients. You don’t want to blindly expand outside your niche with the hope of finding new clients and markets (this is a dangerous marketing gamble I would never take), but if your clients are imploring you to stretch your bounds, then, don’t be afraid to go with the flow. Obviously be careful when you are stretching outside of your core competencies, but remember you bring one of the most valuable assets to the table for a potential joint venture or partnership arrangement with others with the required skills — you have the market in your hands. Certainly, when my magazine joint venture partners saw that indeed I really had the ability to generate the key client referrals, they jumped on board.
We are now getting ready to publish the third issue of Ottawa Renovates! The experience has taught me that when clients insist, sometimes it is wise to bust out of your marketing niche.
