To niche, or not to niche?

I was casually scrolling LinkedIn, as you do, and came across a really uplifting and empowering post from an internal HR manager.

In the post, she raised awareness to the fact that HR is a transferable skill and asked business owners not to discount many talented HR consultants, simply because they do not have experience of managing HR within that particular industry.

She has a very valid point. Big up to HR professionals!

HR is a transferrable skill and you don’t necessarily need to have expertise of a particular industry in order to deliver said industry with excellent HR.

And when you started your own consultancy, you had to go to where the work is so having this transferable skill set is really important.

It also means you aren’t restricted with who you can work with in the future – the world is your oyster.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

I agree with all of the above, but there are some truths that need to be discussed also:

Truth 1: Even though HR is a transferable skill, business owners still feel more comfortable working with someone that has a perceived expertise or experience within their industry.

Truth 2: Marketing your business to anyone and everyone is hard work.

Truth 3: Winning new clients is really tough. You need to make your marketing more powerful, scalable and systemised.

As consultancy owners, you cannot ignore these truths.

I discovered the super power of niching in a single vertical around about a decade ago. Back when I had my first ‘proper job’ after dropping out of university (don’t judge).

I got a job as a junior writer working for a general PR and marketing business. It was a new business and they would take any client on that was happy to give them a thousand pounds a month.

During the time that the business was generalised. we worked with so many different companies. We had a garage door company, a laywer, an optician, an electrician. The list goes on and on. You name it, we worked with them.

But behind the scenes this caused so many problems…

Winning new clients each month felt like a chaotic scramble. You could tell the sales team just clutched at straws a lot of the time.

And when a client did come on board, we never really got to know them particularly well, so it was difficult to build up that trust - we’d always get questions like: “Have you written a website for a lawyer before, James?”

You then had me as a nervous 21 year old trying to defend myself, and the company because in the client’s eyes we didn’t know what we were doing.

Even though we did, perception and reality are two very different things, especially when it comes to keeping clients happy. You know this as well as I do.

And managing loads of clients from different industries created a massive window for error and just became exhausting.

Then one day, the boss came into the office and said we were changing how we did everything forever. We were going to become a specialised marketing agency for Opticians.

Over time as a generalised PR and marketing agency, we got a number of opticians on board. Think we had 5 or 6.

Looking back now, of course it was easier for our sales team to sell to other opticians because we could say “Hey, we’re also working with this optician, and this optician, and here’s what we’ve done and the success it has generated.”

And this hadn’t gone unnoticed – so that’s why the boss said that we were rebranding the businesses as a specialist marketing agency for opticians.

Within a year, we had over 100 opticians on our books and we quickly became the leading authority in optical marketing in the UK. If you were an optician, you would have heard of us.

As time went by, our general clients cancelled and left. And we were pleased when they did because they were a nightmare, compared to working with clients that trusted us and knew (or perceived) that we were leaders in our field.

We then broke out into different industries that we had synergies with - within 4 years, we were working solely with opticians, vets and dentists and had dedicated brands to serve each industry.

The growth was incredible. I think one year was by 40%, then 50% then 60% in the final year before my boss sold the business to a larger marketing group.

And the business’s rate of growth was pretty much down the focus we gave ourselves by becoming a niche marketing provider to those particular industries.

This is a strategy I have copied ever since, because I’ve seen how powerful it is. And every company I have worked in (or for) has benefited from having a perceived expertise within one or more industries.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you to fire all of your clients and only work within one industry. Most clients I know still have their general clients and still continue to win general clients along-side their chosen vertical.

What I am advising is to create a niche and run this alongside your business, almost like a separate brand. Whether that’s an internal way of looking at it, or in fact you do create a new brand that is specific to that industry. 

There may even be a trend in your consultancy already that would make this process easier. You can then collect testimonials from them and create case studies that will help you in your marketing.

When it comes to marketing and growing your new niche, the more specific you can be, the better. That’s the power of a niche, after all.

Consider:

• Separate brand that is branded specifically to your niche
• Separate website addressing the industry you’re targeting and using their terminology
• Focussed marketing materials, such as testimonials, case studies and articles and lead magnets

If you’ve read my book “Firing People Doesn’t Grow Your HR Consultancy” or any of my articles, you’ll know that I always try to encourage you to systemise how you market your consultancy using strategies like the data capture system. Because this is the most powerful, efficient and scalable way to grow your business.

Without a niche, it’s incredibly difficult to do this.

Who are you going to target? How are you going to target them? What’s the best way to target them? What are their problems? What do they need help with? How can you make yourself stand out? How can you convey you’re an expert? How can they trust you?

When you don’t have a niche, it’s very hard to answer these questions. Meaning you have a lack of focus and direction, you spread yourself too thinly and your marketing message becomes so weak it’s ineffective.

But let’s say you want to target IT support providers as a vertical.

The industry is mainly men. The owner mainly employs engineer type people. Their problems are engagement, engineers not time tracking correctly, following procedures, being on board with company changes, culture etc. The owner doesn’t have any time to deal with staff problems, or anything else for that matter. And they’re all used to hiding behind computers for most of the day so personal skills aren’t the best – you can see where I’m going with this.

When you focus on a vertical like this, you can drill down so much more and become so much more aware of the problems that drive IT support owners to seek HR advice. You can then answer their problems with very focussed lead magnets, educational guides and free resources – tools to help you build a big list of prospects.

You can target them using automated tools like Duxsoup, or buy lists of data, or run LinkedIn ads and Facebook ads. You can join industry relevant groups and scrape their details, or promote your services.

And of course, when you do get their attention, they listen more because you’re perceived as an expert that knows their industry. And these are strengths that will help you win more clients, more quickly, with less stress.

I’m a fan on niching, as you can probably tell. I think you should be too.

For more information about niching, or how to grow your HR consultancy, book a relaxed no obligation chat with me today.