Step 2: Niche

Short Version:

Running your business to achieve maximum profitability by using our preferential "5 ways" method. The Niche step is about making your business profitable. A Commercial, Profitable Enterprise that Works without You.

Continue reading below to learn a better point of view for your marketing, sales and expense management. We briefly describe:

• Why being the cheapest never works
• How to determine your uniqueness in the marketplace
• Why you must have a guarantee
• Where successful business owners incorrectly spend 80% of their resources

1. Your customers are trained to buy only because of your low prices
2. They cannot determine what is different and better about your product/service
3. Advertising is ineffective
4. Ignorance about your customers' lifetime value
5. Poor or no results from your marketing
6. Unpredictable cash flow

8 of 31 Requirements for Graduation to the Next Step:

1. A defined, fortified and exploitable USP
2. An eye popping guarantee
3. Ability to know how all advertising performs
4. Ability to calculate conversion rate and Average dollar sale
5. Scripts in place to increase conversion rate %
6. Minimum of 3 strategies always in place to up Average $ sale
7. All customers graded (extra credit if prospects can be pre assed using the same formula)
8. Sales projections in place

Long Version:

The Fable of the 2 Barber's :: Coach Tim explains "niche" in a story: Joe the Barber has his shop right across the street from Bob the Barber. One day, Joe decides he is going to get more business by lowering his price, so he puts out a sign reading "Haircuts now only $14.00" Bob retaliates with his own sign: "Haircuts $13.00" Joe-won't be outdone. He redoes his sign that afternoon to read "$12.00 haircuts" Bob is now mad. The next morning his sign reads "Hair cuts- $11.00" Joe was expecting this. So he puts out the sign that he had ready: "Hair cuts - now only $9.00" Bob takes down his sign and does nothing more. He doesn't even put a new sign out. Two days pass and Joe, who is now doing his haircuts for $9.00, watches with anticipation wondering what Bob will do next. Bob does nothing.* But on the third day, Bob puts out a new sign: "WE FIX $9.00 HAIRCUTS" * Coach Tim actually tells it differently. Bob actually hires an ActionCoach who shows him the math of how a 10% discount on selling price can mean 40% destruction in profit.

Unique Selling Proposition-

• The imminent danger of attracting customers just because you are the cheapest will eventually catch up with you. And when it does, it will hurt those who didn't identify what it is about their business that makes them stand out in a sea of competition.
• In today's economy, the businesses that have found their niche outperform those businesses that are unaware/ignorant of its importance.
• The process of defining your uniqueness is not a 30 second conversation. Using our closely guarded "USP BUILDER", ActionCoach walks their clients through a 70 plus checklist designed to uncover what you can offer that the market really wants.
• Think of it selling oranges when everyone else is selling apples. Or better yet, selling the highly profitable apricot, generating more profit per unit than those old apples.
• 100% of the businesses we work with are sitting on something they are already doing, or could be doing to make them stand out and command higher prices. But in most cases, it's a blind spot for them and they need a coach's help to discover it.
• Once you have identified your USP, then fortify it and sing about it every chance you get!

"My coach and I spent almost 3 full sessions on his "USP Builder". And 3 years later, I am still generating leads and closing sales from that work. The increased revenue through that “USP” work probably paid for all my coaching."
Chris K., Lancaster

What Can You Guarantee?
Statistics tell us most small business owners offer a weak guarantee or none at all. So if you take the time to consider what people want, you can come up with a guarantee that will bring in more sales.

• The biggest roadblock we've seen when clients forge their guarantees is fear. Fear that they'll have to refund thousands of dollars in returns. Not the case. Your guarantee is not part of your "operations" department. Actually is it part of your marketing department. Let me explain: When you guarantee a product/service, the resistance level of prospects evaporates and they are more likely to buy, or at least hear about your USP.

"Myopia or short-sightedness is common in small business owners. I was working with a client a few years back who trembled at the Guarantee I wanted her to offer. But in the first year alone, the amount of new sales she generated far surpassed the 1 or 2 refunds she had to offer. AND...she would have given those refunds anyway!"
Coach Paul Currie

The Most Powerful Tool We're Offering Here: The 5 Ways
It takes several hours to do justice to the 5 Part strategy you should be using to increase your profits. But I can quickly tell you that it is based on the principle of "divide to multiply." Rather than hitting your business with one enormous bulky club, you'll get faster and meaningful results if you break your business down into 5 compartments. Then work on each compartment separately. In our "5 Ways" workshops, we teach students to focus on:

• Lead Generation
• Conversion Rate
• Average Dollar Sale
• Number of Transactions
• And Profit Margins.

Are you dissatisfied with the profits from your business? A Free No Strings Coaching Session will break down your business into these 5 parts, and we can make initial recommendations on which of our 357 363 (and growing weekly) strategies are best for you.

Here are 7 of the Methods an Action Business Coach can support you on this step:

• Because you have been immersed in your business for a while (which is good), you probably have lost an objective perspective on it (which can be bad). ActionCoaches, using our powerful USP and Guarantee Builder will walk you through this intense practice to forge your new power tool for all your marketing.
• In the educational portion of coaching sessions, clients who are on step 2 receive customized training on their own business's acquisition costs, and lifetime values. We find about 80% of small business owners mistakenly spend time on customer fulfillment that should be spent on customer acquisition.
• Probably the #1 reason we get hired, and why clients keep us for 18* months is our ability to coach them to larger profits. And our 5 Ways Method is the all encompassing tool that we use. Because each client is different, the order we will follow is unique each time. And with some clients, we spend twice as much time on 1 area than another.
• From our vault of 363 (and growing weekly) collected strategies, we bring specific tactics to our clients that we recommend because they have already been tested and proven as a winner. Remember, you don't just hire 1 coach, but other 8 coaches in our local office, 19 coaches in Pennsylvania, 400 or so coaches in North America and around 3000 Action Coaches worldwide. You really get the best of the best.
• Not that long ago, a coach from Southern Ireland who worked with a job shop, saved my client and I months by handing me on a platter 2 strategies that we were able to copy and see immediate results.
• I would guess that we as a team have about 800 templates and forms that we give to our clients as the needs arise. One of the first ActionCoach forms we give is our simple "How Did You Hear About us" report. Clients are held accountable on a weekly basis to make sure they know where their leads and their business are coming from so that they never make a stupid advertising choice again.
• In addition to the standard coaching sessions, your ActionCoach is on a "retainer", available throughout the week for quick advice, a pep talk, a sounding board or to provide input on your marketing materials. With several seasoned advertising experts on our team, we will edit your marketing and advertising with as many as 10 sets of eyeballs to ensure you have a winner. That's one of the reasons "Yellow Page season" is a busy time of year around the office. Coaches are critiquing and improving ads not just for their own clients, but for all the clients of the Action Coach firm.

In the next step, we'll show you how to leverage what we have taught you so far...
Click NEXT to continue with Step 3!

Please contact us if you would like permission to reprint any of this content.