A ghostwriting client recently shared a great story with me.
In her "Claim Your Expertise" session, mediator Wanda Joseph and I worked on honing in on a more specific niche group of clients. It was a delicate balance between the stretch and the comfort zone, and I think she did great!
We ended up a little broader than I originally recommended, but her target group of "workplaces in the public sector," was MUCH narrower than what she'd started with.
Wanda was curious and excited about the possibility of creating information products, as a supplement to her training programs and as a way of helping more clients than she could possibly reach in person.
We started with The Merry Go 'Round, a written sample of her training expertise. With fun and creative icebreakers and suggestions for respectful ground rules, it's designed to improve the climate of conflict-ridden staff meetings.
The report will soon be downloadable from her new website (our other work-in-progress) in exchange for the visitor's name, email address and permission to keep in touch.
A few weeks ago, my client was traveling and found herself face-to-face with a member of her niche market. She could see that this particular person didn't need her services – she was more like an "after" picture than a "before" picture!
However, my client had the insight to realize that this was still an amazing opportunity. She complimented the person on what she was seeing, introduced herself and talked about her work. The woman immediately provided contacts for her regional association of libraries, instant access to a huge potential market.
The clincher? My client handed the woman a print-out of the Merry Go 'Round, featuring the valuable do-it-yourself exercises and all of her contact information.
"I had so much more confidence to approach this woman with that special report in my hands. I've been afraid to sell myself before, but now I see that I have a valuable service that people want to know about and tell other people about.
Writing the Merry Go 'Round report with you also gave me the language to describe what I do – both from the positive perspective of someone who's doing it right, and from the opposite perspective of someone who has the problem that I can solve."
So what are we up to now? We're writing an e-book compilation of her winning training strategies. It's going great, and I just can't wait to see where we end up!