A Different Way to Niche with Your Business Development Strategy
If you’ve been told once, you’ve been told a thousand times: Find a niche and stick with it. This is the conventional wisdom when it comes to a good business development strategy, and without a doubt, it works. But have you ever considered what it would take to niche in a highly competitive field?
First things first: Yes, Virginia, contrary to popular belief, you can niche in a cluttered market.
- Steve Jobs did it when he niched Apple computers as a sleek, sexy machine that worked extremely well.
- Southwest Airlines did it when they niched their airlines and combined fun and exceptional customer service.
- I’ve done it by providing executive coaching exclusively for printing owners. My clients trust my expertise specific to the printing industry.
Computers, airlines, executive coaching. All of these arenas have tons of competition flying at them from all angles.
The point I want to make is that you don’t need to escape a competitive industry to “niche.” When I tell printing owners to discover a niche, I don’t mean they should position themselves as a left-handed plumber clad in purple that only provides services to Albanian fur traders.
As you can guess, that’s a pretty thin slice of the pie. (Not sure where that pie would come from, but you catch my drift.) You can niche in a highly competitive field. But you have to adopt the habits of a challenger, and not a brand leader.
Niche by Ignoring the Brand Traits of the Leaders
For this next section, I want to give credit to where credit is due – a fantastic post on the subject by Andy Rice. Andy references two important sources – Eating the Big Fish by Adam Morgan, and The Brand Report Card by K. L. Keller, which was published in the Harvard Business Review.
What Morgan pointed out in his book is that challenger brands have to exhibit traits that are counter to the characteristics of a strong brand.
For example, Keller’s The Brand Report Card notes that there are common traits among leading brands. For example, “The brand is positioned consistently over time despite its need to evolve.” These traits must be countered by the challenger, who needs to reinvent itself and break with its past to gain new market-share and open eyes.
As a printer, if you’ve found your market share has evaporated and you’re struggling to gain a foothold in a new niche, you may need to adopt this strategy and break with the past. You’ll need to reinvent yourself, and then position yourself as a challenger within a new market.
All these sources provide great insight into discovering a niche in a competitive industry. Use it as a starting point for your business development strategy.
(Photo by USACE publicaffairs)
To read about mistakes to avoid when selling your printing business, download, Rock LaManna’s “12 Code Red Seller Mistakes.”
Rock LaManna provides executive coaching for printing owners looking to grow their printing business, merge with a synergistic partner, make a strategic acquisition, or create a succession plan.