Talking with (potential) clients about their online marketing strategy I see a lot of missed opportunities. Why do I recognize it so well? I have the same problems.

Your Clients and services

You started your own business. Clients were happy with what you did and recommended you to their network. New clients came from that network and you followed up and started working for them. Your clients also asked you to do another project that is close to your current expertise.

Over time you grew a clients list with a variety of markets and business sizes. The kind of services or products that you offer mirrors this variety in clients. Every time a project is done you will have to find new clients.

This is not what you want. You want, if you are just a little bit like me, that clients come to you. You want to attract clients. If you are not clear in your communication who that client is, they will not come to you. If you are not clear in what you do for your clients, they will find another company that does.

I talk with independent professionals about what they do. Often I get a short and sometimes a long story of what they do. The story is based on all the stuff they have done or are still doing for their clients. When I dig deeper we talk about target clients this often is also a list of various branches sometimes they even say “Everyone”.

When you really want to attract clients it is extremely important that you have a laser focus on what you do and for whom.

Loss Aversion

There are plenty of smart people online that will tell you to pick a niche. There are even books on that. What they don´t tell you is that when you already have a business, this is a really difficult process.

It is so difficult because you have to stop doing some or maybe even most of the stuff that you are doing today. You will have to say goodbye to some of your clients and to some of the markets that you are in now.

For my next book I am doing some research on why this is such a difficult process. And why I get tons of excuses why they don´t need to do this now. It is good to understand that there is a part of your brain that is giving you such a hard time. This is the Amygdala (Wikipedia)

This part of the brain is responsible for your Loss Aversion (Wikipedia).

Loss Aversion generates a feeling that you want to keep what is ‘yours’. When making your niche smaller, your aversion to loss wants you to keep all your current clients, services and markets. Even if they do not generate money.

Then you come up with all these great excuses “What if there are not enough clients in that one niche?” or “I am not good enough to be an expert in this area” or “I will get bored if I will focus on this niche.” Yes, I have heard them all. Yes, I even used some of these.

Pick your niche

Do you want to attract clients?
Then it is time to focus and pick your niche, choose your target audience, choose your services and choose your specialty.

Now you understand why it is so difficult and where this feeling is coming from. Accept the pain and continue.

Or like Ittybiz (Naomi) says:

If you pick a niche, you lose some customers. If you don’t pick a niche, you lose ALL customers.

Do you know that feeling of being afraid to really cut drastically in your markets and services? Share it with us. If you have picked your niche successfully I love to hear it in the comments.

photo credit: LadyDragonflyCC -August is Canning Month

Post from: Erno Hannink veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Choosing your niche hurts

For my trip to France I wanted to be sure that I could check my email, Twitter and Facebook very day. For this you can use the wifi of your camping or hotel during holiday or business trip. Here you can also experience some extreme pricing.


You can easily spend EUR 10,00 – 25,00 for a day of wifi or just for a few hours per day. While I was investigating internet solutions in France for our holiday trip I saw a great solution on Twitter.

@vincente mentioned #droam offered by a company Attore in Amsterdam. They were doing a test for the next few weeks. When the test is successful they will introduce it in more countries in Europe.

Sending a message to @attore was enough. Via mail I received the small box that creates a wifi solution with a sim card.

The solution costs EUR 25,00 for the first day and EUR 1,00 for the following days. For this holiday it means EUR 25,00 + EUR 7,00, and I have to return the Droam via mail (EUR 6,75).

The Droam helped my perfectly during my trip I could check, the local weather, things to day for our trips, email, twitter replies and Facebook. My son even checked his scores on the online soccer manager daily.

The price include 50 Mb usage per day. Additional usage is charged at EUR 1,00 per Mb. For my regular T-mobile subscription it is EUR 2,00 per Mb.
On a special menu I could check my usage in the browser.

See the video where I talk about the Droam from Attore (@attore)

photo credit: Wrote

Post from: Erno Hannink veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Using internet on your trip abroad

Interview Seth Godin on b2b marketing from Ingrid Tappin on Vimeo.

In the video he explains why a company should blog. Why Seth has no comments on his blog and why he is not using Twitter. All very valid and interesting reasons. Where so many of us just do what we are supposed to do: “Be on Twitter” “Be on Facebook”. Seth thinks about the advantages and disadvantages, “Do I want to spend time here?” and then comes to a decision.

Also they talk about his latest book Linchpin that has nothing to do with marketing. Very interesting espacially when you work at an organisation. The chapters about Thinking about your choice, The resistance and Making the Choice.

via MarketingFacts

Post from: Erno Hannink veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Why you should blog and become remarkable – Seth Godin

This interview with the lovely Stephanie Ward, owner of Firefly Coaching is about pick your niche. A very interesting subject. It is also the subject of my next book that will be published January 2011.

So it is great to have Stephanie in this interview and share her tips to Pick your Niche. She talks about picking your people and problem and ideal clients.

You can find Stephanie on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn… and of course on FireflyCoaching.com

Post from: Erno Hannink veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Pick your Niche tips from Stephanie Ward – Firefly Coaching

Meeting a lot of foreign people made me want to start an English site and blog. This site should also give me the opportunity to offer my services outside the Netherlands.

Post from: Erno Hannink veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

New Blog in English