Niching: Why You Should Do It And How It Will Make You More Money. EP #297 - Den Lennie

Welcome to the Video Business Accelerator Podcast. Each week we uncover the secrets to creating a wildly successful and scalable video production business. With your host Dan Lenny, discover how the Accelerator program is transforming the lives of our members at www.videobusinessaccelerator.com. enjoy this episode.

Today we're diving into the topic of whether or not general videography is a better option than being a niche specialist. It's an important question to ask yourself when you're growing and scaling your video business. Should you be a generalist or should you be a specialist? Ultimately, only you can decide if specializing in a particular type of videography is a better option than general videography. We'll be discussing the pros and cons of each so you can decide which one suits you better. Disclaimer I have a very clear preference and I'm going to tell you why. Hi, I'm Dan and I'm a video producer who's been in this industry for 26 years. I've worked with the likes of Duran Duran, Cristiano Ronaldo, Robbie Williams, as well as making launch films for Sony and a whole host of other content around the world. Now I have in my video business been very niched down and I've made an awful lot of money doing that. Nowadays I help videographers grow and scale their business, which is why I'm making this content for you. So please make sure you subscribe like and tell your friends. Let's get on with this topic because it's a good one. Everyone starts their video business as a bit of a generalist. That means they'll pretty much do whatever's asked of them for whatever money people will give them. We often refer to businesses that are starting out as relying on the three Fs, friends, family, and anyone foolish enough to get within five feet of them. So how do you then scale your business so you can have more predictability in your income? I think the reason most people go general to begin with is they think there's a lot of work, and for the most part that is fundamentally true. The trouble is, when you're trying to appeal to everyone, you end up not really talking to anyone. And that's where the idea of general videography leaves most people struggling to make very much money because they're not focused enough on who they help and why they are the obvious choice to solve that particular video problem. One of the real issues with general videography is that when you are a generalist, your website typically is is a bit of a mishmash of everything from music videos you've made to short films, to any corporate work you might have. And what that typically does is it confuses the audience as to not being quite clear on what you do and who you do it for. When you confuse your audience, they typically don't take any action. Now, I'll often hear people say to me, yeah, yeah, but then I don't want to niche down because I'm going to miss out on work. Now, we'll get more into niching in just a minute, but let's go back to that whole idea of general video. So if you want to appeal to everyone, what is your marketing message? What are you saying to the audience? Hi, we do video for everyone. We'll do funerals, weddings, you know, bar mitzvahs, corporates, music videos. We can do it all. We can make a short film for you. In fact, we're really passionate about making short films. So let's make a short film for you. No one wants that. So the big mistake that videographers make in this general capacity is they're not clear on exactly who they're targeting. So being a generalist is very ineffective, particularly in the early stages of building your business. Now, I'm not saying that being a general video production company can't work, but what I've seen is it works much better for well established businesses who have years and years of experience in different verticals. They might work in finance, they might work in healthcare. Healthcare. They might work in corporate, they might work in automotive, manufacturing, engineering. The point being is that they are general videographers within the realms of having pillars of specialisms. And that's something you can build up over time. So my advice is don't be a generalist. Another key reason why being a generalist is a very ineffective way to grow your business is that most of your competition or are doing the same. So the market can get easily confused about why they should choose one company over another. And when they struggle to tell the difference between one company and another, they start to look at price as the only differentiating factor. So if you want to raise your rates, if you want to make more money, then being a specialist has way more benefits than being a generalist. But it comes with a few caveats. So why would niching down in your video business make so much sense? Well, here's the big secret about niching and where most people get this wrong. Niching down your business doesn't mean you can only do health care videos, for example, if that's your niche. It means that your marketing message is tailored 8020 towards health care. Now, 8020 is the Pareto principle, which says 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts. So what do we mean by that? We mean that if you have 80% of your business coming from healthcare, then it doesn't really matter what else you do in the meantime. If your marketing message says you work with healthcare, then what will happen is the healthcare industry that you work with will see you as a specialist, as someone who understands their particular business, understands the compliance issues, understands the sensitivities around those types of films, and they will feel much safer hiring you over a generalist. I have a couple of clients in the US who specialize in health care. They're making over a million dollars a year and 80% of their work comes from health care, public health and medical devices. They still do lots of other work and lots of other fields, but the majority of their work comes from that niche. Now, what that means is people within that niche refer. Which brings me to another very important aspect of niching down. When you are niched in a particular industry, people within that industry have a network and when they get together and one of the colleagues says, hey, we're looking to make a film over here about this, do you recommend anyone? They'd be like, hey, yeah, actually, we work with this specialist company who optimize their work for healthcare. They're really good, they're really trustworthy, they understand their industry, they speak our language. Clients are super busy, especially if they work in marketing. Most of the time, a marketing manager is doing the job of at least 1 1/2 people. So they're short on time, tight on budget sometimes, and they just need to know if they're going to work with supplier, that the work will get done. It will be done on time and on budget. That is fundamentally what clients really want. They want to know there's some certainty in working with you. And nothing says certainty more than niche specialization in a particular area. Niching down also means you can be more targeted in your marketing and your marketing message. One of the biggest obstacles that I see videographers kind of struggle to overcome with their marketing is they don't really know who they're talking to. They don't really know which problem they solve for their market, and therefore they don't really know how to create a very compelling offer that makes them stand out from everyone else in the market. I would say that 90% of video production websites I look at are very general in nature and they leave A lot of ambiguity on the table, so prospects are confused about what happens next. So when you're a specialist, anything you do from a marketing perspective speaks directly to that market and people feel heard, seen and understood and that begins a very solid relationship. When starting a new business endeavor, clients and prospects are time poor. They don't want to have to figure out how your service works and if you are indeed the right choice for them. So in your marketing as a niche specialist, you can speak their language, you can use the phrases and terminology they are used to hearing, and therefore when they come to your website or engage with your marketing in any capacity, they will feel like you understand them. Now, LinkedIn is an incredibly powerful marketing platform for all video businesses. And if you work on LinkedIn, you can take advantage of sales navigator and search for healthcare professionals in a given city. Through that, you can identify key targets who you can then connect with and begin a relationship. And the best thing about LinkedIn is it's a platform that's built for professional networking. So people don't mind if you're connecting with them to build a business relationship. If this conversation is getting you thinking, then do think about joining our free community. Scale your video business. You can click on the link below or up here and you can open up those kind of conversations a lot more within that community. It's completely free and it's a space to help you ask questions that you perhaps don't feel comfortable asking in the YouTube comments. It's my experience and the experience of the clients I work with that niching down will make you more money. There's a couple of reasons for this. First of all, if you are a specialist, you expect that to be paid more. If you go to a general doctor to get an examination, then you'll pay a certain fee. If they refer you to a specialist, you will pay a lot more. And you expect to pay more because that person has additional skills and expertise that gives it a premium price. General videography is priced along with what the market says is the going rate. So what you often find is if you're doing general videography and and you're up against another company, the client will just be simply looking at the price and making assumptions. But if that company is looking to hire you because you're a specialist in a given area like healthcare, they will expect to pay a bit more to have specialist expertise because that's what happens in their industry. Another way that niching down makes you more money is the expansion sideways of your network. If you work with a mix medical device company, for example, and you do a great job. And then you after the project, ask them for a meeting to just discuss how the project went, ask them for a Google review and ask them for some referrals. There's every chance that they will know people that they studied with have worked at other organizations with who are in their network that they could introduce you to with an email or a LinkedIn introduction. Which means you're going to get that referral quality lead coming into your business. Now, referral quality leads are just what they say on the tin. Someone's worked with you, they've raved about you, and they've told a friend about this great resource. You have to spend less on marketing when you work in niche now, some people get a little bit confused by the phrase niching. Think of it like this. What are you known for? What do you do wrong? Really well that people come back to you again and again for that is your niche. In fact, if you niche down well, you will find over time you'll have to do less and less outbound marketing because your network will start to refer you internally. When I ran my production company, we niched down and specialized in the area of camera launches, broadcast and video production, technology manufacturing. We made launch films for Sony, we worked with Canon, Panasonic, Tiffen, o', Connor, Miller, Tripods. We got known for being specialists in that field because we knew what it was like to use the equipment, but we also understood what manufacturers wanted to achieve. I think I did something in the region of six or eight launch films for Sony, one after the other, and the reason for that was I always understood what the client wanted and didn't worry so much about what the filmmaker community would think of the films. And because they didn't necessarily understand all of the parameters we were working towards, I would say we easily did in excess of half a million dollars worth of work with Sony over the years because we specialize in that type of work. Going niche will make you rich.

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