Marketing Your Consulting Services.pdf - epiheirimatikotita.gr

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WHAT’S THAT POSITION THING?
In Chapter One we discussed the 4 Ps: Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion.
Positioning is a fifth P that is critical to your marketing plan. Your position is how
you are presently perceived by your clients and competitors. The concept identifies
various dimensions that set you and your competition apart. Where you appear
on these dimensions is your position. To determine position you need two
pieces of information. First, what is unique about the products and services you
deliver? Second, what is unique about what your competition offers?
Positioning and Your Niche
Your niche is related to your position; however, it is where you wish to be perceived.
People often refer to finding a hole and filling it. If you can determine whether there
is a niche,“the hole” that is not filled for your clients, you will have a ready-made market.
You need to identify what your clients need that is not readily available to them.
Your niche is the place you wish to occupy that will set you apart from most of
your competition. It might be the specific services you provide, how you provide
those services, the people to whom you provide the services, or even the expertise
and/or experience you have when providing these services. Your niche is the unique
position you hold when compared to the rest of your competition. Your niche is your
unique combination of components that gives you an unfair advantage over your
competition. A combination of your position and your niche defines how you portray
yourself and the services you offer to your targeted marketplace. So your consulting
company’s position will be determined by the niche you have selected.
One of the reasons new consulting companies fail is because they are unable to
identify a specific niche. They print business cards, begin to network with potential
clients, land a few contracts, and then when they need to move out to the next
circle of clients, they have difficulty finding work. Part of the reason is that they
have not established something unique that they offer. If a consultant is just like
the rest of the pack and the other consultants arrived at the client’s door first, the
new consultant has little chance of landing new work. Start-up companies do best
if they narrow their focus to a specifically defined market. Sometimes that seems
scary to new companies that worry that a narrow niche will not generate enough
business to sustain them.
If you are a small company, it is usually easier to create your own position than
to compete against larger companies for theirs. In The 22 Immutable Laws of Mar-
Marketing Your Consulting Services