Agency Forward

Chris DuBois 0:00
Two agencies walk into a bar. They're targeting the same ICP. One gets ghosted, one gets inbound. What's the difference? They have the same niche, but different positioning. Your Niche is the map. Positioning is where you will plant your flag on that map. I wish that joke felt like had a better punch line, but this is the punchline for a lot of agencies, because you are not standing out against the competition, because you don't have a strong position, and that's what we're going to talk about with this episode. Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency. For most it's unpredictable, it's slow and it's usually expensive. GF flips that. It's the all in one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline. Gia automates lead gen follow up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing. You can check it out and get some free bonuses at get gia.ai/dynamic agency, and now let's talk niching versus positioning. It's easier than ever to start an agency, but it's only getting harder to stand out and keep it alive. Join me as we explore the strategies agencies are using today to secure a better tomorrow. This is agency forward. You

Chris DuBois 1:31
all right, this is a topic that's constantly on my mind, and I decided I wanted to do a full episode on it, because I'm seeing so many people misconstrue niching and positioning, and they're not understanding that these are actually different things. And a lot of the people who are making these claims are other coaches, and so I'm not going to dime anybody out, but like, it is important to get these terms straight, because you are going to tell people to do the wrong thing, and you're missing the point. So you're never going to get the best result unless you actually understand this right? So let's set the term straight. First, your niche is who you serve and what problem set you focus on, right? We're looking at narrowing and getting really focused on who we are working with, your positioning is about how you are perceived in the mind of that audience. Right now, it's specific to that audience. So your niche and your positioning are important, like together, they are intertwined in many ways, but they are different. One is about who we're serving. One is about how they're thinking about us, and it's really important to get that right. Now, a lot of people will mix this up, because both are about focus, but one is about market boundaries, while the other one is about market meaning. And so we end up facing these consequences and confusing them, where we keep just niching tighter and tighter, but we're sounding like everybody else. Okay, we're in a state right now where it has never been easier to create a marketing agency, right? I call this the democratization of expertise. In the past, we had the democratization of knowledge, where everyone started to be able to learn like we just we had the capabilities. People were a little more educated, and so they could actually go learn things, right? You weren't tied to your priest to read the Bible. You weren't tied to some local school teacher or like any of the master tradesmen to be able to learn something. You could actually go take some initiative and figure these things out for yourself. The same is happening with this democratization of expertise, where now anyone can become an expert. And so we're looking now on this like a ladder of like, how much of an expert do I need? And when you start adding all of these technological advances that are out there, right, we can it is really hard to use expertise as your only like thing to stand on for your business, because someone else can use chat, GBT, and now, even if they were a beginner, can start to get some like, intermediate level, uh, type ideas or improvements within their process, things like that. Yes, they still will not be able to hold up against you in a conversation where we're looking at who's the expert who can spot the patterns faster. But a lot of clients don't care about that, right? They care that they get this result. And so if someone can do it cheaper because they're less experienced and they just don't have as much demand, so they're able to charge charge less for that supply, right, those things matter, and so what we need to do is actually stand out more, rather than just leaning on our expertise. So, okay, to round out this section, right niche is creating the room that we're in, right if we're going to a party, it's like, which party are we actually going to positioning is going to decide who comes to talk to us at this party? Okay? So. Right? So first we're going to and we're going to go all over the place with this episode, but the first thing we're going to do is kind of decompose What, what nicheing is. You can find other episodes on this. I'll try to link them up in the show notes, but you have these, like, multiple layers when we're talking niching, right? You have so in my belief you're going to work with me, or go through my philosophy, it's we got a vertical niche, and then a sub vertical we want to target. So we can get really specific. We can maintain the language for those, but then we want to add a horizontal function to that. So are we talking to CMOS? CFOs, right directors of marketing, like, Who is the person? Because they have a very specific set of problems within that vertical, and so when we hone in on that person with that industry, we're able to look at the problem set and select one of those that we are the best fit to solve. When you can do that, you get really clear on the niche really fast. And it's usually a niche that not a lot of people have tapped into, because you're solving a specific problem, rather than just saying, Hey, we work in manufacturing, we work in, you know, retail, whatever it is, once you get to that point, right, you have the problem. You have your horizontal, you have your vertical. You can start adding other filters in here to get more specific, you can I only want to work with people who have HubSpot in their tech stack, I only want to work with companies located on the east coast, right? They have to be serving like their minimum ACV has to be so and so, such and such for value, right? There's going to be different things that you can keep narrowing this so your tam keeps getting smaller. And then Quick, quick aside, a lot of people get nervous with niching because they think their tam will get too small and they won't make enough business. It is really hard to shrink your tam down that much. There are plenty of businesses in the country. The more focus you can get here, the better, I promise. Okay, so, so that's what we're talking with niching. When we get into positioning, right we are. We're trying to answer, like, why are we actually different? And it's not because of your niche, right? You can say, I am the only company who serves this specific audience. Yes, you can do that for a while, and people had relied on that for a long time. But now, with the democratization of expertise, anyone can come in and say, oh, yeah, you're not the only one. We also do this. So now, how do you stand out? You serve the same exact niche, right? It's going to come down to all of these other details. Okay? So basically, first thing we're looking at why you, when we look at all of the other credible options, like why you, and that comes down to what you stand for and against this is about beliefs. It is really important for you to understand how you see this, to have a perspective, to have opinions. Otherwise anyone else can say the exact same things. Right? We've reached that state of techno parody. Anyone can copy what you're doing, what they cannot copy. It's just your perspective and how that shines through every decision you make. They can say they have the same perspective, but are they actually showing up and doing that? Is their team showing up and doing that right? Is it baked into your company culture? Often that's not the case. So you want to identify that what you stand for and against, right, your point of view, all of these different things. What outcome are you best at producing? You should also understand this. And then, because you are so clear on your opinions and your beliefs and all this, you should be very it should be very easy for you to understand what trade offs you're willing to make. And that's very important. Because when someone comes to you and they say, Well, can you do this? You should be able to say, no, actually, we don't do that. Here's why. We don't believe that's the case, and the people who that resonates with are going to flock to you, everyone else who disagrees, right? They're going to be a hard sell. Anyways, they might not even get the same value, because we have this inseparability with marketing, where all the work you're doing is tied directly to who your client is, right? They are part of this engagement. And so if you can back away from those types of people and only have the people who see the world the way you do like that's only setting you up for success. So some of the levers that you pull within this right? You have your point of view, you should be able to name the problem, and you should be able to frame the problem in a very specific way your category. So when you select your niche, right, you're comparing against certain people within that category. And so when you can select also the category that you want to work within, like you can go try creating your own that's a lot of work. Or you can just pick the category and say, within this category, we are, you know, these types of we're the most reliable. And you lean on that. You should have a signature method. You should have the right, you know, pricing, posture and your packaging for this. And then you should have evidence. When you do all that, it builds a very strong position within the market that you can leverage within that niche. Now let's talk quick, how these interact, right? So a niche without positioning, you are very easy to find, but also very easy to replace, and this is where I think a majority of agencies fall into, where they they've gotten a lot more specific. They follow the advice of picking a niche, but they have, they still sound like everybody else. Our websites are interchangeable, right? All the things that they're doing are just following best practices from everybody else. And so while yes, anyone can spot you, right? Hey, I found you in this directory because it says you work with these types of people, when they start talking to you, they realize, like, Oh, this is the same exact thing that these other companies that I talked to say. So you have nothing there. Now, if you have positioning, without niche, right, you're going to be memorable to the people who just aren't ready to buy, right? They're not, because you're not focused like people are going to say, oh, yeah, this person has a very strong belief around this, but it isn't necessarily the belief that they need help with in regards to like, solving their problem, right? So we need niche to create the relevance, and then we need positioning to create preference. Let's do, I guess, a quick field test, if you want to call it that, how do we know if our niche is actually relevant? It's one can a stranger instantly know if they're in or out right. Can they look at the criteria that you have around your business and say, like, Yes, this is like, I fit this, this ICP that you have.

Chris DuBois 11:34
Or do they need to go find somebody else too? Can you list out 20 real accounts that like fit what you're trying to do? Like, do you just off top your head? Could you name all of the ideal businesses that fit your niche perfectly? Right now, if you can't do that, you're either not tight enough, or it's not just a strong niche, like, because you have to go find other details with positioning you some of the things that you want to do to test this right? Could a competitor just credibly say your headline if they repeat the same headline, does it fit them? Does you know strong positioning? Do do your trade offs? Like, exclude some buyers on purpose, like you want to exclude people from being your best customers, you can always accept again, like your positioning is about who you seek, not who you accept. Right? You can take on any business that you want, if it means, and I'll say this 1000 times if it's between you having to lay off team members and put them in poor positions, like you can take on a client to just pay the bills and make sure you're good. But do it deliberately, have a plan. Know that you are doing it to take care of your team, and then you are going to keep working to find the best fit clients so that this doesn't become an issue again. But you should have some trade offs you are making that say you are not a great fit for me, and then, I guess last do do your client like, when you're talking to prospects, you're talking to clients, do they repeat phrases back to you? That is one of the most rewarding things. When you're in a prospecting call and they start using the same language you're using to talk about the problem. It's like, you know that it's resonating, that it's it's bringing in the right people. So let's talk, I guess, briefly, the practical frameworks, right that you can use. So specificity is all about driving relevance, right? And your belief is what drives that preference. And so we need, again, need both of them. So with positioning or niching, rather, we want to hit those four things that we've already discussed, your industry and sub industry. Who is the horizontal like the person, the economic owner of this problem that we are targeting? What problem or pain do they have that threatens their goals? And then, are there other additional constraints that we can put on this, whether it's tech, platform, geography, size of business, things like that. Okay, so you need to nail down your pitch that way for positioning. The things you should be doing is, do you have an enemy that you can name, right? Whether it's the problem or a specific villain that is holding them back from achieving their targets? You need to give it a name. Then you need your point of view. And you need to have a strong point of view on that, cause it should not be a point of view that anyone else can just walk you up and be like, Yes, that's what everyone believes, right? There are very few people who are going to be who are going to say that Hitler was a good person. And so, like, if, if everyone, if your opinion is just Hitler was bad, it's not strong enough to create a business on you need to find some other things, right? And then maybe that wasn't the best example. Maybe I should cut that out so that someone doesn't cancel me later in the future. But you know what I mean? If something that's something that everybody agrees on, then we don't need to use that as our point of view, because that's what everyone agrees on. We need to have a strong opinion about something that. Shows we there is an actual different way of believing this, and that's what we believe. So if you also have those same thoughts, you can come to us now you want to map out what is that outcome that we optimize for. You should have a signature mechanism that sets you up to help achieve that, and then you should have this evidence pattern, right? These like proof points that you can show what everything is like. One of my favorite little exercises is just going on to a competitor's website, swapping out the logo and saying, Does this break anything? If it doesn't, then your positioning is generic. Some of the pitfalls that I see agencies fall into a lot is they are like, over niching, in order to dodge positioning work, positioning is hard. It is because you have to actually, like, be reflective. You have to think about yourself. How do I want to be seen? And then how do I do the work? In order to do this, it requires way more commitment than niching, which I know a lot of people are hesitant to niche because they feel like they're going to lose business, but if you are positioning, then you are going to cut off, say, half of that niche. And so there is a lot more at stake, but if your claims here don't force a trade off, then they won't force a choice. And so right, it is really hard for someone to say, like, this is our strategy. This is what we believe in, and what we're willing to trade in order to achieve our goals. And so they spend more time focused on just niching and well, if I can just be the only one in an audience for an audience, then it'll work. And that's true. The challenge is that finding that audience that is untapped right now is only getting harder next a lot of times, there is, I guess, jargon that is masquerading as positioning, and this is something that you'll see across a lot of coaches. What they actually mean is framing, right you are framing the problem that you solve. And it's still important. It's very important to be able to talk about things in a certain way, but if we're just using words, we're not actually looking at positioning. Positioning is is as much about what we're saying as it is what we're doing and how we're showing up. And when you can actually like true, when you truly believe in your position, right? If it fills the gaps of everything that you're trying to do. It just makes all of these decisions for you, and when it's really strong, your team starts making certain decisions, because that's what your positioning is, right? Let's see a lot of times they'll do like feature. Most agencies will have just a list of services on their website, and they'll call it a solutions page, but you can only have a solution when you're solving a problem, and so these are often like, not seen as what how they're intended. They usually just invite comparison, and they don't actually do anything to explain how you think about the problem and why your solution is actually the best solution for a certain type of person. Let's see some other things that they do. Sometimes it just they'll swap evidence with like, vibes, and it's like, they won't actually show the results. They'll just get testimonials of people who say, like, yeah, I loved working with them. It was great. It's like, that's awesome. But like, what did you actually produce for results? Because that's going to say more about your positioning. Then then just say people like working with me. And then you see this a lot. And I mean, I've been seeing it a lot lately, but people are chasing, like, the category of the month, instead of owning a repeatable enemy. You see this a lot when people just shift to was it like? Rev ops became a huge thing. So everybody started doing rev ops, and now it's go to market, right? GTM. Everybody's just shifting to GTM. You see that a lot. You see a lot of, I'm seeing a lot of other coaches shifting gears just because they're seeing success with, like, with other coaches. And so they're like, Well, let me do that. It's like, but if you don't own a repeatable enemy, something that you are actively good at, you're just you're not going to see the results anyways. And so let's see rounding this out. I guess some of the some of the objections that I've heard before, if we niche, we'll lose opportunities, but you're already losing them to sharper firms that actually have a position right. Focus is going to help you, like, expand the number one, the number of deals, but then also your deal velocity, right? So, so we do want to niche, we also want to position. But I hear people saying, you know, like, positioning is going to box us in and, like, yeah, it will. That's the goal. It puts you in a box in someone's head, so that they can very quickly recall who you are and who you are a best fit for. When they do that, this boxes out the bad fits, and it enables this, like compounding proof that you're able to to go to market with. And then this one keeps coming up, like we can serve multiple industries. It's like, awesome, but. Okay, sequence them right. Publish explicit like swim lanes and separate all of your proof it can work. There are companies that serve multiple industries. Like, it's not impossible. You just won't see as much success as you would if you were focusing on one audience. Like, we are not great at multitasking as people, and even though we all believe that we are when you look at your business, it is also not great at multitasking, but you're going to keep believing it is. And so anyways, I think it's really important that we differentiate your niche and your positioning. If you are not doing this like you are going to be leaving money on the table. You are going to be just frustrating. A lot of potential buyers who could just see you and know that you are the best fit. Some other ones who are going to be terrible clients for you. And you could filter them out before you even talk to them, because they see how you view things and what you're going to do. It's really important. Please do not sleep on this. If you have ideas for other episodes, for things you would like to hear me just, just go on some huge monolog like this one about please send me. Send me those Chris at Dynamic agency OS, or just join the dynamic agency community, where I will often take feedback from anyone in there for what they want to hear for episodes or our weekly Q amp a, and but otherwise, yeah, nail down your niche. Nail down your positioning, and we'll see you next week.

Chris DuBois 21:34
That's the show everyone. You can leave a rating and review, or you can do something that benefits. You click the link in the show notes to subscribe to agency forward on sub stack, you'll get weekly content resources and links from around the internet to help you drive your agency forward. You.

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