Smart Solo Business

I help solo professionals acquire their ideal clients

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What’s Your Market-Defining Story?

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In 14 years of self-employment, I’ve learned a number of things. Here’s a lesson that’s crucial – serving the right market is essential to any lasting success.

Of course, “serving the right market” means serving people who are a match for you and your unique business. If you’re a solo professional like me, then you are your business. That makes finding the right match all the more personal and important.

So, who do I most want to serve, and how will I help them? That was the first question I asked before launching my business as a mentor to solo professionals.

To begin answering that question I created a brief market-defining story. This story was a basic sketch of the type of person I’d be serving, their situation, and the benefits they’d experience as we started working together.

Here’s what I wrote:

“Kris has been working as a self-employed consultant for several years now. Although her income meets the immediate needs of her family, her business is a lot less profitable and fulfilling than she hoped it would be when she started working for herself.

Kris is determined to do better. She believes that improving her sales strategy might solve her problem – but she doesn’t have a background in sales or a firm grasp of what steps to take.

In her search for better sales ideas, Kris downloads my free LinkedIn guide. Shortly afterward, she reaches out to me to get some personalized sales and business guidance. By the end of our first conversation, Kris starts to see a clear path to a more profitable and fulfilling business life. She feels more energized and optimistic than she has in years.”

This story helped me to create a useful context for myself. My sales and marketing efforts were now focused on “Kris” and her situation – not on a textbook concept of a target market. Based on that distinction, I was able to connect with the right prospective clients in a more personal and direct way. That’s a competitive advantage that doesn’t require a big marketing budget.

Having a market-defining story in mind also makes a big difference as I plan for the upcoming year. Why? Top business planning expert, Tim Berry, sums it up better than I can in his outstanding book, The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan. He writes: “Telling your market story isn’t about doing formal market research, or gathering the supporting information you’ll need to include in a plan for investors, or professors, or in some cases for the bank, your boss, partners, or any other third-party plan judge or reader. No. This is about knowing your market for yourself, so that you understand the decisions you make, understand the strategy, understand the heart of your plan.”

As you plan and prepare for success in the new year, does this post trigger some thoughts about your own market-defining story? I hope so. Do you have a few questions? Send me an email at [email protected] and let’s talk!



Finding Profitable New Markets For Your Professional Services

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If you’re around long enough, then changes in your current target market will impact you and your business. It’s unavoidable. The ability to evaluate new markets is a skill that every entrepreneur will eventually need to develop.

When you boil it down to the essentials, evaluating a new market involves answering a few key questions:

  • Given your resources, can you reach enough buyers with your sales and marketing efforts?
  • Do these potential buyers have a painful problem that you can help them solve?
  • Have they already spent some time and money trying to solve their problem?
  • Realistically, are they willing to pay for the solution(s) that you can provide for them?

For a market to be solid, the answer to all of these questions needs to be yes. If you’re currently evaluating a new market, which of these questions can you answer now?

Of course, getting real answers to some of these questions also requires engaging with that market directly. You’ll need to speak with potential clients.

Does this mean launching an extensive market survey and speaking with hundreds of potential buyers across a large market? No, I don’t think that’s realistic for most of us. I suggest that you start by researching a smaller market segment that you think might be viable in light of the four questions above.

Here’s a personal example to illustrate the process I’m talking about here. I currently own two businesses. For my executive search business, I started researching mid-sized consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies with well-established marketing departments and nationally distributed food and beverage brands. By the way, I didn’t focus at all on gigantic CPG companies like Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, etc.

What did I discover in my marketing research travels? First, there were many mid-sized CPG companies already paying executive search firms sizable fees to help them recruit talent for their marketing teams.

Did they have significant problems that I could solve for them in a distinctive way and stand out from my competition? Yes, many of them were dissatisfied with the services that larger executive search firms were providing. They told me that these firms seemed to consider mid-sized CPG companies like them to be second-class clients. This translated into slow, often inconsistent service.

They also told me that large executive search firms often failed to recruit the big company marketing candidates that they wanted. Why? One reason is that those larger search firms recruit marketing talent for many of the world’s biggest CPG companies. As their clients, those same big companies are now off-limits for them to recruit marketers from.

In the midst of my research, I came to realize that a small, specialized search firm like mine could thrive while taking on many fewer corporate clients than my larger competitors. By minimizing the number of top marketing candidates that would be off-limits for me to recruit, I could give mid-sized CPG companies the broad and deep access to big company marketing talent that they wanted.

I decided to go after this new market with my sales and marketing efforts. Over the years, my small firm became a thriving, mature business serving these companies.

From late 2012 into early 2013, I went through a similar market research process for a second business I wanted to launch — the sales and marketing mentor practice serving solo professionals that you find here. This was obviously a very different market for me. With that said, the research process that I used in the past told me that it held great potential. To make a long story short, my newest business is on target for rapid growth.

Of course, you and your business are unique. But the questions that I outlined above still need to be answered if you want to properly assess the viability of a new market.

Would you like to have a sounding board as you consider launching your own market research project? if so, send me an email at [email protected] and let’s begin the conversation.



A Trend Impacting Self-Employed Professionals Everywhere

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There’s a major trend that has been unfolding slowly but surely for years now. It’s having a significant impact on self-employed professionals everywhere.

This trend is driven by an escalating corporate obsession. That is, an obsession with creating efficiencies through the use of technology, aggressive outsourcing and cyclical corporate downsizing.

As a result, more white collar professionals than ever have been forced to take the plunge and work for themselves. Many others have decided that job security is essentially dead. They’re testing the waters and preparing to leave the corporate world and start a business of their own.

What’s the impact of this trend on you and your professional services business or solo practice? You’ll be seeing more and more new competitors pursuing your best prospects and clients. This is a situation that can’t ignored.

The real challenge? You’ll need to stand out among an ever growing number of professional service providers in your field or face increasing commoditization and decreasing profit.

My advice to you is heart-felt. If you’re in this for the long run, commit now to continually growing your sales, marketing and business knowledge and skills.

Along those lines, I have some resources to recommend. Here are Amazon links four books that have been extremely helpful to me as a business owner:

Market Research – The New Business Road Test, by John Mullins
Some people will tell you that real entrepreneurs don’t rely on market research; they just fly by the seat of their pants. Unless you have time and money to burn, ignore them. This is the best book I’ve read on the topic of market research, targeted to entrepreneurs.

Business Model – Business Model Generation, by Alexander Osterwalder
Your business model is how you bring value to the people you serve, while keeping your costs under control and staying profitable. There are a lot of wordy and confusing books written about this subject. But you won’t need them if you buy this incredibly innovative and useful book.

Business Planning – The Plan-as-You-Go Business Plan, by Tim Berry
You could waste a lot of time writing a formal business plan. With that said, it’s still important to think through the basic elements: what your goals are, why they’re significant, and how and when you’ll achieve them. I recommend the flexible, informal approach in this book to any independent professional.

Sales – Same Side Selling, by Ian Altman and Jack Quarles
If you sell professional services in the business-to-business space, then you know how challenging it is to engage prospective clients, gain their trust and prove that you’re different from the competition. This book delivers a unique and powerful approach to selling that will bring ideal clients to your side of the table.

The ideas that all these authors share are innovative and results-oriented. Every independent professional can benefit by reading these outstanding books.

Of course, I realize you may want guidance that goes beyond these book recommendations. I would be happy to point you toward additional new business development approaches and high quality resources that I’ve come to trust as a business owner over the past 14 years. If that might help you — send me a confidential email at [email protected] with some basic information on your business, the target market you serve, and your current challenges. I look forward to hearing from you!