Hello,
In last week's newsletter I wrote about happiness and creating a job for yourself that might just make you bounce out of bed in the morning, well, as long as it is not too cold.
Know-What
Once you know what you might be happy specialising in, as in creating a job where you are your own boss, and you're confident that you have the know-how to do this, you'll need customers who value what you can do best, and are willing to pay for that.
Expert positioning
Before we start trying to find those customers, you'll need to define and articulate exactly what you can do. This is positioning, and it helps clarify what you will do, and won’t do. Think about the No’s here - what you won’t do.
By being clear on this makes it much easier to reach out to your preferred customers.
Narrowing your focus
This is where the No’s come into play. These are the jobs you are not interested in or the type of people you don't want to work with. What we are after here, is the people you do want to work with and where you might find them ie. industry, size of firm, demographic etc.
You may want to explore contracting back into a particular industry in consultancy, mentoring or training basis on a part-time basis. Not all businesses need someone with expertise full time.
By working within a particular, narrow, niche you will be able to further your expertise and hopefully continue to develop an indispensable skill set. I mean here a specific, identifiable group you want to target and a skill set that is not easily replaced.
Getting those Customers
I'll let you in on a secret, most of my work, and most of my client's work, comes from word of mouth. Friends or colleagues recommend us to each other or their colleagues or friends who might need our help.
You will know people in your industry, or related to your industry. Hopefully they are still working and you know them enough to get in contact and softly-softly keep in touch, maybe through LinkedIn or direct email. Catch ups for coffee are good too.
You may also be able to work on some industry committees as one of my clients currently does. While it may not pay, it may introduce you to potential clients and help you observe their problems which may then provide opportunities for paid work. It's also a good source of ideas for blog articles and other content, see websites below.
Collaborate
Maybe you already know others, or can meet up with like-minded creative specialists to create and work on some projects together, and solo projects and recommend work to each other.
Websites
We also use our websites to create a hub for helpful information with blog articles and other content our niche audience might find useful.
It takes time to create a specialist website and to get Google to start indexing it for relevant search terms. It becomes useful when prospective customers have a problem and a Google points them in your direction.
Using a website such as WordPress allows you to curate your reputation with useful articles, downloadable ebooks, white papers, checklists, slideshows, videos, podcasts or collate articles and YouTube videos of interest and comment on them. For some of those ebooks or white papers you can charge a premium price.
Hence your website is something that you use to carefully craft articles and content to demonstrate your expertise. In the process of creating it, researching and writing, you are also furthering your expertise and understanding.
Lead Generation
Now, if you go one step further and start collecting email addresses from your website visitors, and like this newsletter, keep in touch by emailing them on a regular basis and establish a relationship with your readers. You can then advertise events and other services you have on offer.
Social Media
My clients and I use social media for a number of reasons; mostly Facebook. It's one way to reach out to prospective clients or to promote your website.
For the specialist though, my gut feeling is telling me that can take a lot of effort for very little return. It will depend on what you are offering. You may be better off just concentrating on your writing.
I have one client in her 70's who has a non-profit website where she gets around 20 000 visitors per month purely on the content she has researched, written and published on her site. No social media whatsoever nor ever having promoted the site.
David C Baker, in The Business of Expertise, articulates a blueprint we might like to use to choose the customers we might like to work with:
Customers with whom we can make a real difference;
Who are willing to pay us a premium for what we know:
Who respect our expertise and allow us to guide the changes necessary; and
Keep us actively engaged while we learn and continue to grow.
Paraphrased from David C Baker, The Business of Expertise
That to me is a great strategy that adds clarity to what we all may want to do:
focus on a specialised area;
know it very deeply; and
become the best you can be;
positioning yourself to work with those who need what you can do;
by making what you do, visible, logical and repeatable;
through your expertise and work.
What do you think?
cheers
Nigel Rawlins
PS. if you have any comments or would like to suggest future articles, please feel free to reply to this email
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