More Specific Than You Think

The Lead - More Specific Than You Think

I was thinking this week about one of my early career transitions, back when I sold insurance. There were a lot of valuable lessons I learned but one of the biggest, was the value of specificity. Aka finding your niche.

Now, this isn’t some revolutionary idea (nothing I write here is, by the way). But as is the case with most things in sales, having a story to tell can help spark a new way of thinking or approach.

When I left my first sales job in insurance, I started fresh at a new brokerage. No book of business or pipeline. Just a revenue goal, and a sense of urgency. I knew a lot of people in the non-profit world and so I thought maybe that would be a good angle for me.

I started pouring through 990 tax forms and lead lists. I was cold-emailing non-profits in the Triangle, just trying the best I could to get a meeting with someone. Very little strategy here. Just chucking darts at the board.

Finally I got a reply. Habitat for Humanity of Wake County, the CFO got back to me saying she would take a meeting. Fast forward a couple months, we won the deal. The largest revenue deal by far in my short sales career.

I had stumbled into a great little niche. By sheer luck, my client was one of the largest Habitat for Humanity organizations in the US. As a result, most of the Habitat offices in the southeast really looked to Wake County as thought leaders.

In addition to the instant name recognition, these were fairly complex organizations to insure. They operated retail stores, handled thousands of volunteers coming through construction sites, and oh by the way they were building homes. Not exactly a straight forward risk profile.

There were a few really critical challenges to insuring one of these non-profits. The experience of winning that deal was really eye-opening and it gave us answers to a lot of questions these folks were asking. We solved the problem for one, which opened the door for many.

When we sat down with the other Habitat offices around NC and SC, we were able to speak directly to those problems. We’d quickly found that many of them didn’t even know these were problems they had, or in insurance speak “exposure”. Simply bringing these challenges up opened eyes and built trust pretty quickly.

Depending on who you’re selling to, you may not have the advantage of name-dropping. But here are a few thoughts on how you can leverage your specific niche.

1. Speak the Language - When someone can speak very specifically to the world you live in, it resonates. As you consider your own target audience, I would challenge you to be specific as possible. If you work with investors, how many properties do they have? Where do they live? Where are those properties? Commit yourself to learning the ins and outs of what they do, need, struggle with, value. If your target audience is too broad, it’s hard to speak the language in a meaningful way.
2. Social Proof - if you’re able to drop meaningful names, that helps. But regardless, one of the best ways to instill confidence and build trust is to reference other people you were able to help. When a prospect raises a concern or a question, most salespeople will jump to explaining. They’re eager to answer. Rather than starting to pitch vomit, try telling a story of someone you helped who was in a similar situation. This makes it less about you, and more about the outcomes you help produce.
3. Confidence - I firmly believe that if you’ve been able to attain those outcomes for someone, it instills a confidence in you that others can feel. When you’re able to see firsthand that what you’re selling really makes a difference, how could you not want to deliver that for others with the same problems? If you’ve sold a product you didn’t fully believe in, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

You may be thinking to yourself, what if I get too narrow? What if my niche is such a small addressable market that I can’t really hit my goals? While I sort of doubt that’s true, I’ll play along. Back to what I shared before about Habitat - I wasn’t going to build an entire book off of Habitat for Humanity affiliates. But, I stayed close to my niche. I continued to work with non-profits and found where the Habitat story resonated the most. There was a lot of common language that could be effectively used.

I like practical, so I’ll give you one more example in property management world. One of my clients operates in a very very regulated market. Lots of laws to be mindful of as an investor, and those laws are constantly changing. Specifically, if you own a building with 16 units or more you have a long list of requirements to keep up with. By being specific in our messaging about those things, we’re able to strike a chord that we know uniquely resonates.

I’ll leave you with this - I think it’s a natural instinct for people to want to cast a wide net. The opportunity feels bigger. By niching down and being more specific, you think you’re missing a lot of people. The problem is, it’s harder and harder to get people’s attention. If your message is broad and unspecific, you’re just asking for the “Ignore” button. I actually think it’s ok to have a couple niches. Just make sure you actually understand the people you want to work with, and can deliver the outcomes they really need.

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