Be a Big Fish

You would be hard pressed to find an agency owner that disagrees with the power of a niche. Positioning a firm around a specific capability or industry expertise drives recognition and focus. Quite plainly, it increases our chances of being a big fish in a small pond. 

So why do we refuse to take our medicine even though we know it’s good for us?

Our continued refusal to focus on our strengths comes down to two things: Capability and Commitment.  

We Lack Capabilities

Developing your agency’s niche isn’t simply a positioning exercise with your leadership team. It’s about understanding how to tell the story of the firm for a specific audience with specific tools. 

This is where the dropoff starts. 

Leveraging billable resources to help develop positioning and brand assets is a challenge. As is creating a strategy to educate the entire team (and no, “osmosis” doesn’t qualify as a strategy). And what about customized sales assets? Those are difficult to come by as well. 

A lack of internal capabilities to operationalize a niche positioning is a very real excuse. But excuses don’t solve the problem.

We Don’t Commit

Lack of positioning pull-through aside, committing to the vision presents additional challenges. I’ve sat through countless strategy sessions that have ended with some type of statement around focusing on “high-value activities” and “doubling down on our industry verticals”. 

However, a few days later when a client from a new industry came calling with a problem we have no experience solving, we were spinning our wheels trying to figure out how to win the new business. 

The inability to commit to a niche positioning comes from a valid place of fear. We don’t want to box ourselves in, leave money on the table, and see opportunities pass us by. But we’ve never really committed enough to develop strong go-to-market and campaign strategies that would help us break the cycle of chasing new business. 

Are you going to continue to chase?

Or are you going to commit to your vision and invest in the capabilities to get there?