4 - Niche Definition and Client Avatars

In this video, we talk about niche definition and customer avatars. How to define your niche in the right way so that you have a blue ocean and uncontested market space and so that you have a crystal clear picture of the person or people that you're selling to, that you can use to make strategic decisions and quickly build a six figure agency. So in our metaphor that we're

so lovingly crafting, this is the treasure map. Given this ocean of business, there are pockets of secret treasure, we've talked about how to dig into them. Now once you find it, you want to map it. You don't have to go out and dig in again. You want to have it well defined and documented and saved up somewhere, careful, locked away with a key so that you always

have access to this secret treasure. You want a treasure map. Now as we'll also talk about, you only need one treasure map. Once you've found the secret treasure of your market, unless you want to start a whole new wing of your business or venture or something like that, you don't need more secret treasure. In fact, a lot of people try to pursue different secret treasures at the

same time, again, if you're a convenience store business, trying to sell everything to everybody at under one roof, you might try to go after different secrets and you'll probably get none of them. Because if you try to follow two treasure maps at once, it's the equivalent of following none. So you need a treasure map and you need just one. Okay, here's the problem. Here's why we're doing

this exercise. Most agencies don't have the foresight, insight or discipline to hone in on one profitable niche and relentlessly dominate it at the exclusion of all else. They either don't know that anything less than that is going to result in struggle or they don't know how to do it or they know how to do it, but they just won't. They can't. They're not disciplined enough. And so

they won't reap the benefits and they'll struggle in a red ocean. Now, even most niche agencies have a superficial niche definition based on fool's gold instead of secret treasure. For example, they sell websites, photography, Facebook ads, funnels, leads, marketing. They think that's their niche. You know, we sell Facebook ads to plumbers. That's my niche. That's not a niche, guys. That's fool's gold. You think you've got secret

treasure, but you've actually got crap that nobody wants. Finally, agencies that pursue more than one treasure map at a time get nothing. You can't follow one map for half the time you're sailing, then follow another map for half the time. Guys, that's ridiculous. You're not going to get anywhere. You can see when I use this, the reason I use this metaphor is because it makes trying to

focus on two niches just incredibly stupid because it's not something you want to do. Following two treasure maps will get you no treasure. You see, your niche is defined by its secret treasure. If you can deliver full house rewire jobs to electricians, then anybody who wants full house rewire jobs is in your niche. Even if it's somebody who has, say, a startup that doesn't use wires and

uses optical cables to deliver power or something, and they're just making something up, but they still want full house rewire jobs, boom, they still want your secret treasure. They're still in your niche. It defines your niche. Agencies that pursue more than one niche, more than one treasure map, they try to follow more than one treasure map get nothing. They get no secret treasure. And they usually invent

fool's gold to convince themselves that they have. Okay, here's the solution. Here's what we want by the end of this exercise. You've succeeded when your agency has identified and honed in on a blue ocean niche, something that you can win and dominate, and you've chosen the disciplined route of focusing and doing nothing else because you know, in the end, you'll win by focusing on just one treasure

map. Next, you've found the secret treasure in your blue ocean. You've mapped it. You've got your treasure map. You know what your customers lie in bed at night, screaming about during their nightmares, and you're selling it back to them at a high margin, while quote unquote competing agencies try to pawn off their fool's gold, wondering why you crush them. They think they're competing with you, but they're

not. You're in your own market, and they can't even tell. It's a hidden monopoly. Guys, a lot of agencies do this. They just try to pawn off fool's gold, nobody wants it, and it's just sad to watch, but happens every day, 99% of agencies, you don't want to do that. Find your secret treasure, map it, sell it back to your customers at a high margin. Finally, as

the dominant expert in your blue ocean, you focus on your one detailed treasure map. You don't just look for more treasure maps, you don't try to pursue different treasure maps, you just make your current treasure map more and more detailed. You further the gap between you and quote unquote competitors. You know your market's pains, fears, and desires better than anyone else, and you sell solutions to them

in a way that nobody else can. This is what we want. Now, the process. And we've got to work for this. So you want to create a list of markets and market segments that either you have experienced it, worked in before, some knowledge about, two, you're interested in, maybe something that you're curious about or could see yourself devoting yourself to. Number three, you can see are misunderstood

and underserved. Any of these apply to a market, it could be a potential market. So create a list of markets or pieces of markets based on commonalities that you've experienced in, or you're interested in, or you can just see or misunderstood and underserved. Then create a list of the skills and expertise, the functional capabilities that you have, maybe your copywriter, web developer, designer, whatever your area of

expertise is, or that you'd be willing to develop your outsource in order to serve those niches. So a lot of you, as we'll see and talk about later, we're going to need to add services in order to deliver your secret treasure, because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you do. You have to deliver their secret treasure, whatever it takes, and a lot of

you won't be fully equipped to do that right now. You only have half of the pieces in place, you need to develop the rest or outsource it. That's good. That's important. We'll talk about it later. So you want to create a list of the skills and expertise that you have, or you'd be willing to develop or outsource. Examples of this, examples of the past clients have done,

you know, I've worked with a bunch of designer clients. They're really good at design and branding and graphic stuff, but in order to deliver their secret treasure to their clients, they have to do some digital marketing, patient acquisition. That's a piece of the puzzle. Just hire out the digital marketing, the SEO or the Facebook ads or something like that. That's important. Lists stuff like that as well.

And finally, you want to create a list of the pains, needs, and desires of the markets. List out all the secret treasure that they want, but can't find. Now, we talked about how important it is to take for secret treasure, so these are going to be hypotheses. For example, you're probably going to be writing for a lot of them, cash and clients, even though you know that

that's not actually what they want, but it just points in the right direction. So list out pains, needs, and desires in the level of depth that you know. And once you hone in on your market, you'll get clear. You'll find their actual secret treasure and throughout your full goal. But you can use full goal as a placeholder until you find the actual secret treasure to help you

find and hone in on your blue ocean itch. So that's the process. The overlap area is where the blue oceans are. You want to pick an intersection and own it. The intersection of these markets and market segments, the skills and expertise, the functional capabilities, and pains, needs, and desires, wherever there's an overlap between those three, that's a potential blue ocean. Now there are plenty of them. You're

going to have a lot of overlap if you did this exercise right and put some time into it. You just need one. Again, only one treasure map. You'll go after everything. You'll get nothing. Just pick one and you just need one. Okay. Now, once you have this niche and you'll go through the worksheet and pick it, once you have this niche, you need to find one to

three real people that fit your ideal profile. Now as we talked about before, you're going to want to interview five to ten of them to start. But you're going to pick one to three of them that are ideal. You're like, these guys are perfect. These are my ideal customers. Then you're going to interview them in depth, study them, document them relentlessly, and don't stop until you know

them better than they know themselves. These people are your avatars. It's deeply important to have a crystal clear picture of who these people are. But their emotional solar system is, as I've used before, the sun and moon that their life revolves around. Now once you have these pictures, you want to use them anytime that you make decisions, craft strategy, write copy, create new products or services, etc.

You should have your avatars in mind. You're going to ask, how would this affect John? Am I serving Sarah when I make this decision? When I create this product, you want to always have them in your mind and always make decisions about them. It's amazing how few people do this. They run their businesses from a, you know, in my opinion, a pretty selfish perspective. How would this

product serve me? It would have made me enough money. This strategy helped me. It would only help you if it helps John, if it helps Sarah, if it helps your avatars. You want to run your business with the north star of John and Sarah. You know, you may, you may still be working out your map. You may still be figuring out where your treasure is, but as

long as you have that north star, that client avatar, that person that you're trying to serve, you'll figure it out eventually. You'll get there. These client avatars are your north stars. I just came up with that on the spot. I should have put that in the slideshow, but that's okay. North stars. Now, your avatar should naturally evolve and change over time. As you require even better customers,

as you understand them more deeply, you'll naturally say, okay, well, I need to replace Sarah with Sally, because Sally makes me more money and Sally is more enjoying to work with. She offers me more fulfillment. So I'm going to swap out Sarah with Sally. That's natural. Or maybe Sally just had a baby, and she's still my ideal customer, but I need to understand this aspect of her

life. You guys, you want to be this deeply rooted in your avatars. You want to constantly evolve and change and swap in and out, but you should always have them. They're fluid, but you should always have them written out in their current form in as much detail as possible at any point, and it works you for this as well. Okay. Then you want to print out a

picture or pictures if you have multiple. So one to three and tape them where you can see them while you work. Literally look at them all day, every day, because this is how, you know, this is how business worked for years and years. You would, you would see in person and regularly communicate with the people you serve now on the internet. The age of the internet, so

many people focus on traffic and conversion and treat people like numbers that they forget that they're people just like you, and lay in bed at night, having nightmares about things and wanting them to stop. Print out pictures of your avatars and tape them where you can see them while you work, so you always keep them as your north star. You want to always have your north star

in sight. If you lose sight of your north star, stop sailing until you get it back. Stop moving until you get it back. Shut off the engine until you get it back. Is that important? Okay. After completing this exercise, after going through and defining your niche, doing the client audit and creating your avatars, post your niche and avatar in the group for feedback using the worksheet guidelines.

This is one of the most important pieces of the program. Again, you know, actually this is the most important piece of the program to get right. Most people do not get it right at right at the first try. It takes a lot of iteration and hashing out, so post it in the group for feedback and we'll point you in the right direction. Make sure that you end

up with a blue ocean of endless cash, clients, freedom, and impact driving you towards your legacy. All right. We'll see you in the next video.