Say what? Focusing your marketing plan on getting clients who are ‘happy’ can make you the opposite? How can that be? Let me explain…

Mindset Niching

At the recent International Coaching Federation conference I spoke at, most of the coaches I talked to had the idea that they wanted to niche in (target) clients who had a specific mindset, like happy or forward-thinking or open-minded or spiritual etc. This was part of their elevator pitch and even their business plan. There’s only one problem with this kind of targeting, it’s really hard to find these people.

Where Are They?

The reason why it’s hard to find and target humans by their mindset is because you can’t generally see it from the outside. You can’t tell if a prospect is happy or forward-thinking or open-minded just by looking at them. Even after talking to them, it’s hard to tell if they’re happy right now or always etc. The other glitch is that people don’t gather by mindset. They self-organize and gather by industry or interest groups. For example if a person is interested in soccer, you can search for clubs or meet up groups and you can find a whole bunch of soccer lovers. If a person works for the IT industry, they have organizations and conferences for that industry where you can find a group of them together.

Hard to Target

When your marketing plan is built around people you can’t find in large groups or people you can’t visibly identify, then you’re in trouble. You’re confused about where to go to find prospects and where to spend marketing dollars. You have to do the heavy lifting. One by one you try to identify who is a good prospect (by talking to them or observing them in behaviour that demonstrates their mindset) and then invite them to work with you. This is a long, hard road. Instead, why not change your strategy and figure out which industry or interest group of people is the best to target for your business. Then take advantage of the fact that they self-organize their own conferences, meetings, trade shows, have publications and online groups and so on?
Having your own business is hard enough as it is, why not make it a little easier on yourself? You’ll be happier in the end…
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