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What’s Your Position Within Your Niche

So what’s your position within your niche, do you know?

As a business owner, how do you view feedback, is there such a thing as positive and negative feedback, or should we just look at it as “feedback” period? My guess is this, we really should be making the majority of our business decisions, and creating our best ideas from the wants, needs, and desires of our customers and subscribers.

Right?

Actually, I think it’s completely WRONG!

That direct marketing “great” Dan Kennedy once said that when he gives a seminar he’s interested in one thing only, and that is: how many sales did he make. In case you don’t know Dan Kennedy is a legend in the field of direct sales and has made millions of dollars by selling information products, many on the speaking circuit, so when he says that he is
not focusing on feedback just sales, it is worth examining in more detail.

And you know what? I think he might be onto something with this one.

Although this opinion and behavior mostly goes against what 98% of the marketing “gurus” out there will advise you to do, I’m finding with my further research, that actually this approach is followed by many of the more successful business owners (on and offline) I know.

Now, without going into detail regarding The Law of Attraction (read more on the Law of Attraction here) you tend to move towards what you focus on.

Similar to driving a car, if you focus on a certain point in the road, you tend to steer your car there, consciously or not.

Focus on a wall and you will tend to hit the wall. Focus on the centre of the lane just ahead of that nice tight little curve and you’re much more likely to hold the right line and exit gracefully.

What’s Your Position Within Your Niche

So what happens when you focus on complaints from people who don’t like you, the tendency then is to steer your blog (and your business) in the direction that makes it more appealing to them, and why would you even consider wanting to do that?

So, ask yourself these 2 important questions, before responding to ANY feedback!

1). Who you want to work with?

But MORE importantly…..

2). Who do you NOT want to work with?

The 2 questions above are probably the 2 most important questions you can ask yourself to define the direction you business will take. I mean, would you?

A). Rather spend your valuable time working with incredibly awesome people who are both clients and friends, or..

B). Spend any more agonizing minutes working with barely tolerable clients who suck the life out of you and your business?

It does seem rather ridiculously simple when put that way, doesn’t it?

Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m not for one single minute saying, “Don’t work with evil or nasty people.” This is not about dividing the world into either Good or evil. It’s more like saying “is this person a good fit for me and my business”.

What is The right kind of feedback?

Well, I have another question here which you can ask yourself:

Is this person offering me this feedback (good or bad) actually a potential customer?

This is one of the most important questions to ask yourself when you get a negative remark. If someone’s angry with you for having the audacity to offer a product for sale, it can be very productive for you to ask yourself, is this person my customer?

If someone unsubscribes from your your email newsletter with a 100-point vitriol on how stupid you are, it’s productive to ask yourself, is this person my customer?

If someone leaves you a blog or website comment about all the reasons they wanted your latest post to be on a different topic entirely, it can very productive to ask yourself, Is this person my customer?

Finding Your Unique Position Within Your Niche

Don’t forget that as an individual business online, it is important that YOU are unique. In other words you have your own position within the marketplace you are in (your niche).

So right now! think carefully about your business’s positioning, and ask yourself the following questions:

1. What makes your business different?

2. How do you help customers in a unique way?

3. Who do you serve and what’s special about them?

4. How well do you know their needs and desires?

5. What’s YOUR story, What story could you tell that no other business could?

6. What is your overall marketing message and who is it targeted towards?

Out of these questions, the audience and target market you serve is more than likely the most important, but it’s not the be all and end all. You need to think about yourself here, too. So start by thinking about who you are, what you contribute, what qualities you bring to the table, and who you do, or don’t, want to work with.

So that’s it, spend sometime going over the above pointers, ask yourself the aforementioned questions and you will soon find out exactly what your position is within your niche.

And now for some homework:

If you’re genuinely serious about creating your own strong marketing message, then spend approx 20 minutes writing down answers to the questions above, then put them somewhere you can re-read them 2 or 3 times a day, EVERY day. Then in
about 7 days time look at your answers again and now see if you would answer them differently.

Because my friends, when you know who you are, and you know how you can serve and WHO you can serve, that’s what will make your marketing and therefore your business, a massive success.

All the best
-Jon