There is a saying (which sounds better with an American accent) that “the riches are in the niches”.

You see, the age of the generalist has long passed, and recent events have reinforced the value of being dedicated to a narrower audience.

Too often, businesses fall victim to the thinking that everyone should be their customer. This results in time and money wasted that could be better spent.

You need to weed out people who are NOT your ideal customer

Often, if people are just serving everybody they possibly can, they may find that the top 10% or 20% of the people they’re working with are providing 80% of the profit, and the other 80% are providing all of the headaches and none of the profit.

Knowing your most profitable, easiest target audience gives you complete freedom to focus all of your efforts on a “let’s just get more of the most profitable customers” approach to marketing.

Don’t be everything to everyone. Focus your marketing on a single target market at a time. The moment you do, you will have much more clarity in your marketing. Identify one very clear target market who is really well suited to your business. The narrower and more defined the better.

It doesn’t mean you can’t look at other targets in the future. But you should pick one target market, and make dominating that target market your absolute focus. Then, when youʼre dominating that single target market, move on to a second target market, and start dominating that one too.

The clients I worked with who narrowed their focus have thrived over the last few years. They became the trusted source for their audience during turbulent times and actually saw sales and profits increase.

And there is no reason, if you also focus on a lucrative niche, that you can’t thrive too.