5 Steps to Become Known in the Market (even if you are pivoting)

Striving to become known is a goal for every single business owner, particularly for those in highly saturated markets. It can be difficult to get the attention of the market and you have to ensure that your message is loud, clear and heard. 

So here are 5 simple steps to becoming known in your market (even if you’re pivoting)

Step 1. Stick a Stake in the Sand  

Whether you're pivoting, starting out new or whether you realise that you've been a little vague and not been particularly straightforward with your messaging, you need to ensure that you are clear about what you want to be known for.  

Deciding on what you want to be known for can be the most difficult step. 

Questions such as -

• Should I pick something that makes the most sense to my expertise and my experience? 
• Perhaps I should pick what I've invested the most money in?
• Or should I pick the thing that I'm most passionate about? 

It’s important to note that passion doesn’t always lead to profit. If you’re multi-passionate my big advice is to pop your business hat on and decide what’s going to stay a hobby and what has legs to become hugely profitable.

I absolutely believe that you need to be passionate about what you do - even if it’s about the process of making money - excitement will be the driving force for your success in business. 

Be smart around what you pick to run with as a business to ensure it’s profitable, and I absolutely believe that it should make sense to your area of expertise.

If you are passionate about something different to what you've been currently investing, learning and developing in, then look at what steps you need to take to become the expert in that area before you start going out and proclaiming your new niche. 

If you are looking to grow and scale a business successfully, it’s important to bear in mind that eventually you won't be the one doing the ‘do’ in your business, you’ll be focused on overseeing the business and growing it.

Part of creating profitable business niche is to look at how desired your ‘thing’ is. In most cases you can absolutely link up your expertise and passion and angle it in such a way that it fulfils a need in someone's life. That’s what business is all about - serving needs.

So, the key three things that will determine what you will become known for are:-

1. Passion 
2. Expertise
3. Being able to articulate it so that is wanted by the market.

Step Two- Create a Sticky ‘Ronseal’ Message

Creating a message that articulates what you want to be known for is key. In order to transform your message into money, you must make sure you angle your expertise and what you offer so that it is wanted by the market.

A message that is:-

• simple,
• short,
• tangible,
• understandable
• and memorable

...will be the most effective. If you can create a message that has those elements, it’s going to easily stick in the minds of the individuals within your market.  Making it as ‘Ronseal’ as possible (does what it says on the tin) will help your message stickiness and make it as clear as day. 

This will be of huge benefit to you and your business when it comes to networking at events and when others make introductions because you will not only be memorable, you will also become well known for being worth knowing.

Your messaging has many levels to it but first and foremost you must be able to articulate quickly with a one liner what you do and who you help with an emphasis on the desired outcome.

The Dangers of Messaging

If you’re switching from one thing to another, it could crush your credibility because people lose trust in you when you're an expert in one thing then in the next breath you’re an expert in something else. People start to doubt your abilities because people are very aware that you can't be an expert in everything. If you start changing things in very short succession, you will lack credibility, so sticking to your decision will give you time to build trust and your credibility back up again. 

The other danger of putting out different messages that are vague is that by firing out different messages something will stick in some of the minds of your market, however you won’t have any control of it - you’ll start to become known for something that perhaps you don’t really want to be known for. So the first thing is to decide on a clear, sticky message that you are happy with so that you can fully immerse your marketing and your market.  

Consider who your message is for, tailor it to benefit and help your target market. Show them how you can help them achieve a particular goal.

Step Three- Flood your following

 So, in order to get your message out there and become known for something, the next obvious step is to talk about it A LOT. What you may think is “a lot” might be very different to what’s required, take your “a lot” and amplify that by a million. 

If you are already known for something different and you are making a pivot, you will really need to push this new message due to the fact that you are having to overwrite a potentially strong previous message that is already stuck in the minds of your market.  

You probably have a current following who you may now no longer serve in the same way, perhaps not even at all. If you have pivoted to this point, sometimes it’s a case of communicating the fact that you’re not supplying that service anymore, but that you’re doing something different.

However, always consider your current following when you do something different because there still might be people within your audience that will follow you to your next thing if it suits them.  So, it's not necessarily about dropping or burning it down. If it's only a slight pivot where you’re still able to help them, for instance helping them at a higher level - then communicate that message and let them know the benefit of sticking with you.

The way you communicate and get your message out is crucial; one private email just won’t do it.  

Go live on Facebook, consistently post on social media platforms, change your website to reflect your new message. Set dates and times when you will be going ‘live’ to talk about your new ideas or services, so people make and give you time. 

If you've got a whole website geared up to something else that no longer exists because you've changed, then cut it down to only a few key pages. This is generally your contact page, your ‘about me’ page and your homepage.

It’s important to change your website, your social media profiles, ensuring that the cover photos have been changed to reflect your new direction. Write a post about the pivot/direction, go live, do a video, write a blog. Make sure everything that the public sees reflects your message. Get your message out in anyway you can!

Step 4. - Use Case Studies

Now is the time to demonstrate how your business has benefited clients and using case studies is a great way to do this. If you don’t have case studies then create them. And if you don’t have clients yet, going out and finding them is a high priority so you can start creating these case studies. 

Your case studies need to reflect the overall desired outcome you are marketing. I see so many people who have case studies but they don’t accurately reflect the type of person you help, the desired outcome of the target market nor the key challenge you help them overcome. Case studies don’t just build credibility that people ‘like’ you, they are designed to help demonstrate and provide reassurance that you’re able to get results for ‘people just like them’. 

It's proof to potential clients of what you can do and how you can help them specifically. 

Step 5.  3rd Party Credibility

It’s really important to catapult your message and become seriously memorable, and this comes from sharing. Encourage your clients to share your new message and how you’ve helped them in a particular area. Ask people for testimonials and encourage them to share your message as well. And don’t just ask for testimonials, make sure you ask specific questions to help guide your clients to help them fully articulate their transformation.

Make anything you can ‘sharable’ so that people can spread the word on what you do. For example:- getting people to post what you’ve done for them on social media to get the word out about your USP.  

Encourage people to share, if you don’t ask, you don’t get. 

Creating shareable content around your new message will really help spread the word further than just your current following. Your personality, style & storytelling can also really help; this can amplify your message and allow it to stick more. It makes your message more personal and unique, which automatically stands out.

Create a memorable, understandable and tangible message. Use your personality, style & storytelling to make it unique to you and stick in the minds of your market and following. 

Flood the market with it - let everyone know.

If you’d like help in defining your niche & category of one status, and positioning yourself as a Market Leader then make sure you book a call with Jen Hall from Market Leader League to discuss how she can help you make that happen.