How narrow should your offers be? Be as specific as you can bear...

George Kao argues that while your brand can stay broad, each individual offer should be narrowly targeted to a specific segment. Speaking to one friendly face on stage creates connection that radiates to everyone. Vague positioning like "my coaching works for anyone" kills credibility and engagement.
Chapters
How narrow should you be in your offerings? I often like to say you don't have to niche yourself. You can offer a bunch of different things and integrate a bunch of different modalities, but please try to niche your offers as closely as you can. So for example, the life coach, right? The life coach who said, well, life coaching is a general modality that can apply to relationships, health, work, leadership, you know, family, children, whatever, you know, lots of things. Um, and I want to cast a wide net because I don't want people to go, well, that's not for me, so I, I'm gonna scroll past you, or I don't— I, I'm gonna ignore you from now on because your narrow offer is not for me. And I think that's a mistake because I, I think the great thing about you don't have to niche yourself but do niche your offers is that the general homepage and the general profile, uh, on your social media can be casting a wide net. The homepage can cast a wide net. Your about page can cast a wide net. Your work with me page can cast a wide net. But each offer underneath the work with me page, you can have 12 different links, 15 different links to different doorways that people can walk through. Um, using that life coaching example again, let's say you have a passion for relationships and, and health, okay? And relationships for people who are, you know, trying to date better, uh, but also for people who are trying to repair their marriage or whatever, okay? So let's just even say those two different doorways. Those are specifics. Specifics are good for offers. You don't have to specify your entire brand, keep it general, that are more values-based or more vibe-based, keep it general, fine, whole brand. But each page, each offer, each webinar should be as specific as you can bear. Okay, because you know how, um, okay, I always like to use this example of, uh, when I had just a tiny bit of public speaking training in the past, and I'm grateful it was with Lee Glickstein, who wrote Be Heard Now. He was a legend in the San Francisco Bay Area for authentic speaking. He started this whole movement, and I love his book. I recommend it, Be Heard Now, and playing on Ram Dass's Be Here Now, but Be Heard Now, wonderful book about authentic speaking. And he always said, you know, when you're up on stage, and you're facing an audience, do you go generally just try to like look at the whole audience all at once, right? Which is like, you kind of have to like generally, or you kind of like move your, dart your eyes back and forth to try to look at every eyeball. It's obviously not possible and it looks weird and it's also very disconnected. What he recommends doing is to glance the room for one friendly face, and then you look at that friendly face for 30 seconds, a minute even. Talk to that one friendly face and just really talk to that person and just like talk to them. And you have a speech already planned, you have some topic, you talk to that per— that one friendly face. And if in fact there may literally be a conversation where you ask them something and then you tailor whatever you're about to say to that particular situation. One friendly face. And then when you're talking to that one friendly face, guess what? Your natural human, you know, architecture is that you will feel more connected to one person, and you'll feel like you're talking to one person. And you know, guess what? Everyone else in the room feels that connection, and it's so powerful. Everyone else in the room feels the connection you have with that one person as if it was a connection with them. The mirror neurons or whatever. Okay, so the same thing with offers. When you are real specific, two things happen. One is that you come across as more credible, and that's never a bad thing. Obviously, you come across as more confident because you're willing to stand your ground. This is— I'm going to talk— I'm an expert in this. I'm an expert in this. You don't have to literally say you're an expert in that, but just by saying this webinar is about this topic, you instantly come across as an expert in that. Okay? And being an expert in that also translates— there's a halo effect where they kind of assume you're an expert in things that are related to that. So, or at least you have resources probably to colleagues who are, you know, so, so, so Niche your offers as narrowly as you can bear. I mean, literally, if you find yourself having exploratory calls with all of them are women in their 40s or late 40s, you would— you could literally have a webinar or an offer coaching package specifically for women in their late 40s. And you know what's going to happen? So I said you have more credibility, more confidence instantly. And also people get curious. Hey, just got 3 C's. I love acronyms. The new CCC: credibility, confidence, and curiosity. You know why people are curious? People go, well, I'm a woman in my early 50s, could you— could this serve me too? You see what I mean? Or, hey, you know what, I'm, I'm a man actually in my late 40s, could it— could this help me too? And, you know, single men go, hey, can I join your webinar and meet some women in late— right? So people go, it's almost like you're playing hard to get, and people find you attractive when you're hard to get. I mean, you're not literally trying to do that, but just by taking a stance, people go, ooh, you're suddenly somehow more attractive. Versus the person who goes, I've literally had, I spoke to somebody early, this is like 15 years ago, a potential client, and I asked her, who's your ideal client? Like, who, who are you? What? Like, I had this conversation, like half an hour in, I still couldn't figure out what she did. Like, tell me, like, what kind of work you do and what? She's like, basically whoever can afford me, that's, that's who my— I'm like, still not helpful. And you're sounding desperate now. Do you see what I mean? Like, like, and it's the same thing you say, hey, I, my offer, my life coaching can serve everybody, can serve all kinds of lifestyles, all kinds of ages, all kinds of life stages. I'm like, I don't believe you. I mean, because, because everybody, every, every customer, every client, every student, every member always thinks to themselves, my situation is really unique. I don't know if you really get me, right? Like, have you, right? Like, no, no, no, my situation is unique. Everybody thinks that. Everybody thinks their situation is unique. So the more uniquely tailored you can be to that person, they go, whoa, I look at lots of offers today just because I scroll social media or scroll my emails. Yours instantly resonated with me because you spoke to something that's true about me. And so I, I feel like maybe you, you get me a little more. And guess what? The people for whom it's not, let's say you were doing a webinar for women in the late 40s, that might be a little bit too specific, I don't know, but you might add something to it, right? So that's more, well, you gotta be more specific. Late, late 40s about what, right? Or you can say women in their 40s, that's fine. That's, that's specific enough. And about what? Right? Um, the people who— with— for whom it's not applicable, they'll scroll past. There's no harm done. They're not going to go unsubscribe, right? They're not gonna— I'm ignoring you forever. They— you know how you do it too. You just scroll past. There's no harm done. You don't even bother to unsubscribe, especially if you like someone's values, you like someone's vibe. You're not going to unsubscribe. You're just going to scroll past it. So for example, Tad Hargrave is a great example. Um, subscribe to his email newsletter. He has got a great email newsletter. He often— I'm still subscribed to this day, even though I have unsubscribed from almost everyone else's email newsletters. I keep subscribed to Tad's, even though he sends all the time. He's like, Victoria, BC friends, in all caps. You, you guys seen that, right? Those of you subscribed. Victoria, BC, I'm doing a, you know, last minute workshop. And I— they sent it out to his general list. I'm like, I can't even remember the last time I've been in Canada. I don't even know where Victoria is. I think I know where BC is. It's somewhere on the West Coast, something, you know, Toronto friends. Oh, or he now he's in Ireland. Oh, Ireland friends. You know what, anyone, he sends emails all the time about them. Like I just archive, scroll past, scroll past, delete. But then he also sends emails that are relevant to me and I read them. So he's a great example. 'cause he's got a great email list and he's got a very engaged email list and people just scroll past the stuff that they don't care about. Because why do they stay subscribed? Because they like his vibe, they like his values, and the occasional time that they open the email newsletters or go to his event, they feel fulfilled. So they, it's like once you have a good impact experience on someone, they're not gonna unsubscribe. At least unless they, something turns them off like several times. So, but something, something's irrelevant, they just scroll past it. Make sense? So that's my pep talk for you to narrow down your offer. You don't have to narrow your whole niche down. That's where I disagree with a lot of marketing teachers and I think that doesn't make any sense. Why would you narrow your entire brand when you are constantly evolving? Doesn't make sense to me. But for each offer, each post, even each post, even, even free content, it's true. Narrow it down. You'll just find you, you'll do better over time.










