David C. Baker - The 5 Things That Happen Right After You Specialize
Hello and welcome to Ditching Hourly. I'm Jonathan Stark. Today, I am joined by repeat offender, The Experts expert David c Baker. David, welcome back to the show.
David C. Baker:Thank you. Like, how many times you have to show up before you get a gold jacket?
Jonathan Stark:Yeah. Blair's one ahead of you. I think Blair's got 3 under his belt.
David C. Baker:So wow you must have been really scraping the barrel to have him on that many times
Jonathan Stark:savage Cool. Okay. So, we were corresponding over email before this before this interview about an article that you published recently that I it just was so great. I was like, we need to talk about that. It the overall article is about positioning and that is a huge subject of conversation on this show and elsewhere and other things that I do critically important critic critically important.
Jonathan Stark:But the angle that you that you had in the article, I just loved, which was the the 5 things that happen right after you narrow your focus and there's it's just so great and I wanted to bring it on have you share it with the audience and and maybe have a little discussion around drilling to some of those
David C. Baker:points. That sounds good. I, this one came to me really quickly when I was writing it, And sometimes, like, the ones that take me hours and hours don't resonate quite as much, but then this was just lying in bed one night thinking, oh my goodness. You're kinda thinking back over the calls you've had with clients that day, and you start to see them voicing the same sort of concerns about a possible decision, and then you realize, oh, a lot of people think this. I should think about it in a new way.
David C. Baker:So it was a fun article to write.
Jonathan Stark:Great. You know, sometimes the good ones just boom, fall out of your head fully formed. Yes. And one of the benefits of narrowing your focus is recognizing patterns like that.
David C. Baker:Yeah. Somebody said that one time. Absolutely.
Jonathan Stark:Yeah. So let's jump right in. The the first Well, do do we need to do a tiny preamble on why we why would you even do positioning in the first place? Maybe a little bit. Maybe a little bit.
David C. Baker:Probably for somebody that's never listened to your Cast before. Then it's hard to imagine anybody that listens to it regularly would need that. But to me, I mean, I'll so I'll just give you a 60 seconds here And just a broad sweep overview, back in the late eighties and early nineties, your the moat that protected you from the competition was largely geographic, and so you just had to be better than the options around you. And then when the Internet really changed the world, all of a sudden it was exciting until we realized something else, but at first it was exciting because now, Goodness. We can work anywhere in the world.
David C. Baker:And the flip side of that was, oh my goodness. Everybody can work Here, I no longer have a geographic moat.
Jonathan Stark:Mhmm.
David C. Baker:And so that was the first thing is that I'm gonna need to be specialized because Why in the world would somebody work with me because I no longer have the advantage of geography? But the other was that the world around us got so complicated, And there's just no way to be an expert in that many things. And so it was sort of a survival strategy, and there's lots more to talk about it but fundamentally sort of philosophically that's the whole point is that you've got to go really deep and narrow there's some dangers in doing that But you've got to do that or you just don't have you just can't have much impact. You can't make too much money. You can't see the patterns.
David C. Baker:It just goes on and
Jonathan Stark:on. Yes, agreed. Cool. So let's let's get into the 5 points. So let's say you're working with someone and I'm sure you've worked with 100 and 100 of people on their positioning or firms I should say and and and you convince them to do it.
Jonathan Stark:Right? So, like, we're past that point, they're bought in, and they you're I don't know you're in a meeting and Eureka, this is it. This is the one that we should try. This is the hypothesis. I've you know, I I know when I do it with someone, I'm like, this is it.
Jonathan Stark:I can this is the one, you know, and it's as a starting point, you'll iterate on it, but you can feel I can work on it with enough people. All of a sudden, you could be like, that's the one because it's immediately memorable. I immediately have a rolodex moment. I'm immediately, like, I know who to reach out to to see if maybe I should introduce you like all of a sudden it clicks there's a clear value proposition so great and I've seen the same thing that you have seen that you wrote in the article is that you do it and it's like okay put this on your LinkedIn put this on your as the headline on your website or you know wherever they're going to put it email signature and they start to you know, the next day it's not it's not in the email signature. They get cold feet.
Jonathan Stark:They run it by someone. It's someone talks them out of it. So what what happens right after you've come up with what seems like a really good starting point for a positioning statement and then they chicken out
David C. Baker:yeah well and I love this because We can talk ourselves out of so many good ideas, and what's worse, we can take months to talk ourselves out of good ideas just wasting all kinds of time. I, yeah. So the the first thing that happens is is really not much. You're you're not You're not all that smarter the next day, and I think people I'm not sure why they think they should be, but it just dawns on them the next day. Okay.
David C. Baker:Now they're claiming something, and and they're not all that smarter. But in relation to that, one thing changes that just Just revolutionizes your consulting practice or your advisory practice, and that's that the rate of learning accelerates because Now what you are seeing, especially not not immediately, but pretty close to that decision, you're starting to see One firm after another that shares more characteristics. They could be vertical or horizontal characteristics or anything like that, but they are They share there's more opportunity to see the patterns because I'm gonna say, okay. I'm only gonna work with tattoo shops from now on even though I've worked with all kinds of other, Like, okay. It's not like your observational powers are better the next day.
David C. Baker:Mhmm. It's just that you're working with 1 after another after another, and the rate of learning is so much more accelerated. I I live on 61 acres in Tennessee, and I think of it Sort of like this, and I'm always getting people asking if they can hunt on our property. We kinda say no because, you know, people with guns, we don't No. It doesn't seem like a good combination.
David C. Baker:But they're and but when they ask to hunt, they don't say, can I hunt on your property? They say, Can I hunt wild turkey or deer or whatever it is specifically, or coyote or fox? Those are the big ones that they hunt. And They so they're hunting something very specific. And because they've done this for a while, they know what gear, they know what time of day, they know where to were to park themselves to wait for Mhmm.
David C. Baker:Something to appear, and their rate of learning once they decided to choose something very specific was just accelerated that's what changes first. Mhmm.
Jonathan Stark:Yeah. Totally agree. Yeah. So it's not like you're gonna have I mean to be honest I have seen overnight positioning success is where someone changes their positioning and they're just, like, immediately start getting leads. People just, like, here's my phone number.
Jonathan Stark:We need to talk right now. Like when you're when you're really you're like okay yep that that one's gonna work, but you're right, you know, you you you're not instantly smarter, but the And, of course, everyone I suppose it's obvious that that if you spend more time focusing down, you're gonna notice more things and that is going to dramatically set you apart from your competition because, you know, it pretty quickly if you stick with it it'll happen pretty quickly because you can find out where all the watering holes are find out what their specific language is you can start using specific language like if your target market is doctors, you won't say clients, you'll say patients or whatever the case may be. You can start using their lingo and jargon in your in your marketing materials and it'll automatically set you apart from any other generalist so you just start pulling ahead of the pack very quickly
David C. Baker:and That's also when your conversations from that point forward will elicit a comment that sounds something like this. There'd be a pause and they'll say, Dang. It's like you know me. Like, you've got a camera in my office, and, obviously, you don't, but but that's how well you can see. When I'm talking with somebody on the phone, if I'm feeling particularly on that day, I'll often say, can I take a guess at what your revenue is?
David C. Baker:And I'll get it pretty close and that's when there's this weird pause it's like how did you know that
Jonathan Stark:yeah Yeah, you can start doing something I think is an extremely black belt move with your with your perspective clients, which is a something Oren Claff calls a cold read where they don't even tell you like normally I would most people they need to have like the why conversation and uncover what the desired outcome is and that, you know, the clients ask for Motrin, but what are they really trying to solve? Is it a is it headache or a lower back pain? Like, what are you really trying to solve? But when you focus way way down on an industry, you can tell them what their problems czar like 7 times out of 10 right before they even open their mouths. Yeah, yeah, so cool.
Jonathan Stark:All right. Well That it's very related to this next this number 2 this number new, number 2 point your impostor syndrome is a false flag. So Let's talk about what impostor syndrome is a little bit because I know you've written some, some really good stuff on that. And then why it's why it's the resistance, why it's a phony objection.
David C. Baker:Yeah. So imposter syndrome is just simply feeling like you're not quite big enough to Fill the shoes that you're claiming or something like that. I had a little moment of this last early this week. I was keynoting a conference down in Miami Beach, and it was for A bunch of really high end firms that rented out unique event Furniture and fixtures and so on. And I knew a fair bit about it, you know, but I did it was out of my normal My normal feel of competence, and I I just remember standing up there saying, oh, I've tasted competence, and I've tasted something less than Competence, and I kinda don't wanna do this anymore.
David C. Baker:Yeah. So that's that's what it is. And this one just makes me Smile because once you mention this to somebody, then they grant and say, yep. You caught me. And so what talking about here is after the positioning decision, you are making some unique claims around expertise that you haven't made before, And all of a sudden you feel insecure or unable to fulfill those promises.
Jonathan Stark:Mhmm.
David C. Baker:And and you feel like you're cheating your clients or something. And what what just makes me laugh is and this is what I tell them. It's like, well, yesterday before you made a decision to specialize or focus you would have gladly taken this work and you would have never thought twice about whether you were delivering value or not and it's like and now you're concerned
Jonathan Stark:isn't that funny yeah it's like naming It's like naming it somehow or making making it's not even naming it because it's more like just making a claim.
David C. Baker:Yeah. Right? And what I wish is that that would have occurred to them earlier because when people come to me, I've worked with 900 some firms and then lots of others in seminars, Ours, like, kind of casually and and so it's about 50 a year. And when those firms come to me and want to adjust their positioning, Never once has somebody come to me and said, I wanna be more effective for my clients. Never once.
David C. Baker:It's almost always I I really want to control the lead generation process for my firm, and I have no idea How to build a marketing plan on my positioning and it's like, well, I don't either. So let's fix it.
Jonathan Stark:Yeah. I wanna actually illustrate this with some tangibles just to make sure that this lands. So imagine that you're a business coach and a CPA comes to you and says, hey. I'd love to get some business coaching, and you'd say, sure. Let's do it.
Jonathan Stark:And so what David here is saying is that saying on your website, I'm a business coach for CPAs, now suddenly makes them nervous. And if a CPA came to them, they'd be like, feeling impostor syndrome because, like, how could I possibly do a good job? But you would have taken CPA yesterday. Right.
David C. Baker:It's crazy, isn't it? It's just so fun.
Jonathan Stark:Anyone, but I won't pick one because then that will make me nervous.
David C. Baker:Right. And the truth is that today, you aren't any more qualified to work with this CPA than you were yesterday. But Within a week, I'll bet you're more qualified. And within a couple years, you will just completely own that space. So it's just funny to point it out to people.
David C. Baker:Nobody's ever been offended when I laugh at them but they kind of like smile and say yeah I guess you're right
Jonathan Stark:so So I wonder if that just just to explore this just for a second. I wonder if that if they're naming the thing that they're feeling, they're sort of naming it wrong. You know? Like, What what because I've seen the exact same thing. It's it's observable.
Jonathan Stark:It's an observable phenomenon. So what is it? Have you do you have any idea what what it is that what's the what is the what fear does that claim trigger?
David C. Baker:I wonder if it's the fear of getting caught. So in other words, if they're not specialized in coaching CPAs, Then during a conversation in a client relationship, something might come up and you could say, oh, that's interesting. I I didn't realize that or, you know, ah, that's different from an architect I just worked with.
Jonathan Stark:Oh, they've got wiggle rooms. Yeah.
David C. Baker:Exactly. Exactly. I wonder I don't know for sure, but I wonder if that's part of it. But if if I put if I hang a shingle on my website that says I'm an expert in such and such, By god, I better be. And it's pretty easy to find out if you aren't.
David C. Baker:So it's that it's just you're too you're too far ahead of yours That first day, and you haven't quite caught up with yourself. Mhmm. And, yeah, it's, I don't know. It's a there's something really human about it, though. And it's I don't see any patterns in terms of it seems like everybody sort of thinks that way.
David C. Baker:Now where it doesn't happen is if somebody already has sort of an unstated positioning, but they they're not getting any benefit from it in the marketplace because yeah they're just not attracting the right clients
Jonathan Stark:yeah that actually happened with me when before I even knew when I was purely generalist mindset, I was very horizontal specialization for a long time in my consulting. I I was, really well known and good at, a particular technology.
David C. Baker:Mhmm.
Jonathan Stark:And it was and it was in high demand. So I basically fell in a pile of money and the I was I had I backed my way into a really strong positioning by writing a book that was fairly popular. So the so the book did all the positioning work for me. I never was out there. I I didn't really articulate it myself from my website.
Jonathan Stark:My website was a typical garbage, you know, nothing resume. And, and but the book did the positioning for me. So when I started to realize what positioning was and I was like oh it'd be kind of good if I if I did this intentionally. Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan Stark:What a thought. So when I went when I pivoted to do to doing what I'm doing now, I I was super duper specific. So the other thing that the thing the thing about saying I I do business coaching for CPAs or whatever it is, it does it removes that wiggle room where you can ask like, you you kind of like have permission to ask dumb questions about their their, business, if you hadn't said that. Right. And but it so let's just look at it from this angle for one second, like, you know, to the dear listener, why why should you be allowed to ask dumb questions right like if you're an expert like get get there get there be an expert not at what you do but at the outcomes you deliver So become become good at delivering positive outcomes or, like, outsized to may maybe even remarkable outcomes for your clients.
Jonathan Stark:You can you can hit a you know, I don't know. You can get on base or hit a double all day long by just being a good business coach, I suppose. But if you go deeper and you want to hit home runs and grand slams on a regular basis you the way to do it is to get to know your clients better and the way to do that is by picking 1 you know deciding what you want to be when you grow up
David C. Baker:right and you may cover this in other episodes but just for somebody that might be Used about vertical versus horizontal. So we've been using a vertical horse, example of a CPA. But let's say you were a counselor And your horizontal focus was youth, teenage youth.
Jonathan Stark:Mhmm.
David C. Baker:That that would be all of these examples work. Got it. So that people aren't confused. There's lots of different ways to position. It doesn't have to be by, like, a vertical CPA sort of a SIC or NAICS code.
David C. Baker:It's, Yeah.
Jonathan Stark:It could be
David C. Baker:horizontal as well and this all the same principles apply.
Jonathan Stark:Yes. Right. I I do talk about it a lot. I'll probably do a follow-up episode after this. I haven't talked about it in a while.
Jonathan Stark:You can pick apart you can segment a target market by psychographics demographics interest of a million things worldview whatever it's like but what are it like you know when you've got a good one when you've got a good target market I don't love that term but it's easy to understand so You know when you've got a good target market when you tell someone you help that target market and they say, oh, I should introduce you to my cousin Bob. Yeah. Because they they immediately have a rolodex moment.
David C. Baker:Right.
Jonathan Stark:Okay. Cool. So let's move on to number 3. I I love this one and I think I've got some questions about it for you. I'd like your experience with it.
Jonathan Stark:The Number 3 was you don't have to turn down work that doesn't fit the new focus.
David C. Baker:Yeah. And this like, I didn't used to believe this. I Kinda was hard and fast. Like, grow up. Make a big decision.
David C. Baker:Quit ripping people off. My usual sort of overkill approach. And, and I realized, oh, that's so unreasonable. In fact, that was my whole, I think, consulting gig in the first 10 years is like here's what you do if you don't have the courage to do it then goodbye you know it was just a really terrible approach so To be a little bit more empathetic, one of the fears that people have is, oh my god. What am I gonna get enough work?
David C. Baker:And because Most of the work that comes to me now, this is them still speaking, most of that work comes to me through referrals. It just crosses the transom. It's, you know, and it's all over the place and I'm I don't I'm not worried about the end game I'm worried about the transition
Jonathan Stark:to the end game yeah
David C. Baker:And so what I say to them is that focus is about the work you look for, not the work you accept. So it's fine to accept some of that generalist work that you would have accepted yesterday but what you don't want to do is tell people about it Or make it public on your website. So you just keep doing it. Now I wanna add a twist that Yeah. I think it's pretty important in that.
David C. Baker:So if you think of the three phases of your career moving towards being an expert, you have sort of the generalist approach, then you have the final Expert approach, but then there's this middle where you are looking for certain stuff, but you're accepting other stuff. That will be A that middle period will be a very unsatisfying experience, and you will find yourself getting A little disgusted with yourself and a little bit impatient because you'll the the difference between Doing work for people that you know a lot about and people you don't is so stark, and you'll begin to feel A little dirty about it, and that period will not last long. I've never seen it last more than 18 months. More typically, it's less than a year Where you're still where you still have a foot on both sides of the fence.
Jonathan Stark:A 100%. Right. Because you well, you said earlier how you were sort of talking, you felt maybe a little, I don't I wouldn't say out of your depth, but you've you've you were like, I know what confidence feels like, and this isn't it. And and I don't like that that I don't like the not feeling competent feeling. So it's the exact same thing.
Jonathan Stark:Right? And Yeah. And depending on a lot of things, depending on a lot of things. The work that you seek, the positioning and the marketing and everything you're doing to get the kinds of clients that you want, It can happen relatively quickly. You can it I shouldn't say it like you've you you definitely don't complete the trans the the transformation or the transition super fast, but you can pretty quickly like, I I've worked with people who are, like, in my coaching program who are really good at executing on the advice that we that we that I give them in the the homework that we put together.
Jonathan Stark:And, and when they're real directed and they don't, they don't sort of fishtail around too much Mhmm. Mhmm. You you can have demonstrable traffic with your new might I should say, demonstrable traction with your new positioning in 4 months. You can see immediately that that, like, it it's not it doesn't happen every time. It probably doesn't even happen most of the time, but it is not uncommon for it to happen so that you could say oh I'm getting a lot of I see that I'm getting traction here I'm getting inbound for the first time ever like non non referral inbound requests I'm getting people reaching out to me on Linkedin that that are like we should set up a call.
Jonathan Stark:Yeah.
David C. Baker:And and they're already pre qualified because they've already decided oh this is kind of a fit. I just want to see what kind of a person this is but obviously The expertise is a fit. Rather than you trying to spend the first 15 minutes of the call explaining how you do know something about their world, they just assume it because they've read well you've said it for one thing but they've also read or listened to all kinds of evidence that you know that the world Mhmm.
Jonathan Stark:Yes. And I and I agree a 100% with the point you were making about, you can absolutely in the transition period accept work. You're probably gonna you're probably gonna be like, oh, wow. This feels like the old way. Yuck.
Jonathan Stark:I have that a lot with people who are who who are transitioning away from hourly billing and they switch over to value pricing in there for their project work and then they just sort of chicken out and take on a an hourly project and they're like
David C. Baker:Oh, I forgot how bad this is.
Jonathan Stark:Yeah. Right.
David C. Baker:Now I know why I don't touch the stove all the time. I remember now.
Jonathan Stark:Yeah. Exactly. And it's similar with the positioning thing thing. So, when I say to people, you know, I'll be coaching someone and the the thing is most of their work usually was from referrals just like you said. And when it comes in, there's sort of there's the jeez, this is money.
Jonathan Stark:I should take it. I don't I don't get maybe 6 leads a year. So, oh you know I need to I need to take this also our mutual friend that made the referral I've there's a social obligation feeling that they don't wanna say no because the friend extended themselves, extended their reputation to make the introduction and then to be like, oh, no. I don't work with people like that anymore. Right.
Jonathan Stark:That that doesn't feel great.
David C. Baker:But it also but the way to salvage that in my mind is to be really honest about the fit and then if you can refer them to somebody that's a great fit and then that kind of rescues the the social connection part of it
Jonathan Stark:That's true. That's good. And so well, so when when I have someone who's wrestling with this decision, I'll say I say to and they're like, what should I do? And so we'll sort of go into the specifics of it, and we'll make a decision. And I'll say, but here's the here's my rule.
Jonathan Stark:You cannot put a testimonial from them on your website. You cannot put their logo on your website. You are not allowed to it's like a it's just a money. It's for the money. It's, You know, it's to give them the result they want and get paid fairly for it, but you are not gonna use this in any of your marketing material marketing materials.
Jonathan Stark:Right. And sometimes that will flip the switch for them and be like, oh, yeah. You're right. Know, it so it it's a case by case thing. It depends on people's cash flow, a million things.
Jonathan Stark:Right. But, Yeah, cool. So but I do love explicitly sorts differentiating between the work that you seek and the work that you'll accept not necessarily the same thing cool all right number 4 you immediately begin the process of narrowing it even further say more
David C. Baker:yeah yeah here I have to reluctantly refer to my podcast partner because dang it he's the one that came up with the phrase Oh,
Jonathan Stark:you mean our most successful guest on ditching hourly?
David C. Baker:Yeah. So I'm talking about Blair Ents. We were recording an episode For our podcast, and and we were talking about this, and he said he he kind of rephrased what I was stumbling around to Say and he said, yeah. What you're not looking for the perfect positioning. You're looking for a perfectable positioning.
David C. Baker:Mhmm. And Which is absolutely true. It's like a light went on in my head, and I wanna add to that though and say That it is not perfectable until you go public with it and you begin testing it with prospects and with clients. Mhmm. So you get to a point in your deliberations where you feel like in your bones and based on the research that you've done and there's some good you can do that this is it.
David C. Baker:Okay? But it doesn't the fog hasn't lifted completely. It's almost like releasing an, minimally viable product Where you just know that user testing from a small base is the only thing that's gonna really improve it. There's nothing else you can do in the lab. It's gonna go out on the marketplace, you're gonna have to get dressed up, go to a party, and and let people laugh at your clothes, so to speak.
David C. Baker:Mhmm. And and that's what's happening here, And it usually takes longer. So 1 to 2 years is about typical. And Every once in a while, 1 in a 100 cases, you have to flip it because something happened. Either we missed some piece of data, which is unlikely, or the marketplace changed.
David C. Baker:Yeah but most of the time it gets even narrower but you wouldn't see how to narrow it further until you'd play with it for a year or 2
Jonathan Stark:Mhmm. Yeah. It becomes obvious because it when I say that phase what I say to people is different language but it's the same thing where will be will have a bunch of sort of candidate potential positioning statements. I've got, like, different formats that you can use. Some are easier than others.
Jonathan Stark:Some are more complete and useful than others. But So we'll go through, you know, sort of a brainstorming session, maybe go through their their past experience and maybe pull from that or other circles or communities that they're in if they're going into a new direction or whatever. So we brainstorm some stuff, and it's really easy for me to see when something's not gonna work. Like, no. That's that's The odds of that working are like 0, you know, and you can see all the bad ones and kind of throw those out.
Jonathan Stark:And then you usually it'll come down to like 1 or 2 that I feel like these could work. So then it's like, but to me, it's a 100% hypothesis at that point. Right. Yeah. And it needs to be tested.
Jonathan Stark:And the way that you test it is through conversation. So then I with people in the target market, does is does this resonate? Are these the right words to use? Like sometimes I'll have I was working with someone now actually who I know what his positioning is he and I both know what it is but we haven't figured out how to say it yet. Mhmm.
Jonathan Stark:And that's almost cheating but like we know a clunky way to say it but it it doesn't you can't say it. It's too long. It's too confusing. It's it's very specific and clear, but it's not it's lacking a certain poetry that maybe is I don't know if I would I don't know if it matters where I would draw the line is that part of the positioning or is that part of the messaging it doesn't really matter you still figured out how to say it right and but if it you know and if someone said to me or if this person you know it's like well I'm gonna try it this way and that way and the other and we don't know if this you know when I say product to this market do they think coffee cup are they thinking like sass?
David C. Baker:Oh, right right
Jonathan Stark:stuff like that. So, so you need to figure it out. There's only one way to figure it out. It's like by talking to people in the target market and see if it resonates in the way you know if the message is is making it through to the other side or
David C. Baker:it's
Jonathan Stark:just if I could
David C. Baker:If I could pick up on a point you just made, you're not going to test it by slapping it on the top part of your home page just because you're not going to learn when it doesn't strike somebody. They'll just go on. That learning is exactly like you said. It's in conversations With prospects and clients, mainly prospects, honestly. Mhmm.
David C. Baker:So that when you say something, you immediately know what didn't resonate Or you can see how they interpret it not the way you intended, and that's when you learn from it. It's very much the difference between sort of a Blind email to somebody versus a cold sales call. Like, you're you're not gonna learn something from one of those. And Mhmm. Not advocating you got to do the Cold sales call much.
David C. Baker:But but it is it is a tie it is the way it's the best way to learn. It's like slathering yourself a meat tenderizer and then jumping behind a zoo fence so it's like okay something's gonna happen here right
Jonathan Stark:yeah there's no way to not get feedback I had one student early on who was very social you know he's in his 20s in San Francisco went out a lot and would go to you know, it was a it was a fairly savvy networker, you know back in the day and he when we were working together he would just go to parties and of course people gonna ask what do you do and you try a different version on everyone And even though they weren't in the target market, at all, I still like this approach because a good in my opinion you tell me if you disagree but my opinion a good positioning statement it can hit anyone near your target market and still get you to the target Yep. Right.
David C. Baker:They should they should understand it. It may not resonate, but the fact that it doesn't resonate means something.
Jonathan Stark:Yes.
David C. Baker:As long as they understand what it means and they say, oh, that's not me, but I know who somebody who is. That's a great test of a positioning statement.
Jonathan Stark:Right. Right and if you this particular guy actually he he had a bizarre target market I had never even heard of this profession before that that that he was gonna serve and it was I think it was called a college counselor and they're people who kind of they are consultants basically that that parents of high school children will hire to help get their kids into a really good school without breaking the bank. So it's sort of a advisory position. Right. And, he gets in a cab and, You know, he's the same guy.
Jonathan Stark:He's, like, always bouncing the idea off people. So instead of so the cabbies was a chatty guy and was like, hey. What do you do? And, he said something like I help college counselors get more leads. And and the you know?
Jonathan Stark:And a lot of people in that same scenario would brush caveat off and just say, like, you know, like, oh, I do computers or I work on a consultant or more. Right. You know, just like just like kind of
David C. Baker:Something that that kills a conversation
Jonathan Stark:Exactly. Exactly. So instead and I'm I'm a big fan of not judging the listener or the asker and just telling them the truth and not judging that they won't be capable of understanding what that thing is. Right. And and sure enough, said oh, I help college counselors get more leads or better leads or whatever it was increase their income.
Jonathan Stark:He's like no way my mother's a college counselor. Oh.
David C. Baker:That's great. Yeah, busted right?
Jonathan Stark:Yeah, so I love that story for both of those reasons one It's like It's like, don't judge the person who's asking what you do. Just tell them. Don't try and cater it to I don't know. Like, it's to me, it's like super obnoxious to to change it for everyone that you talk to. And then the other thing is it's like you you just never know.
Jonathan Stark:Right? Like, you never know. It's like everyone is so connected these days between social media and and whatnot that if you're really clear about who it is that you're here to help they will gladly make an introduction you know so it's it's when it starts working everybody says the same thing to me like when you nail it everyone says the same thing It's like magic.
David C. Baker:And it's fun now. It's not new business is not something I dread, but I have to do it. Now It's fun because the conversations either resonate or they don't, and the fact that they I I've always felt like, Listen. I'm not afraid of the truth. If if we're not supposed to work together, I'd kinda like to know as soon as possible.
Jonathan Stark:Yeah. Yeah.
David C. Baker:If I don't wanna have a conversation with somebody and ask me what I do, I'll Say I I do financial risk self assessment for credit unions and that always shuts it down. It's like no more chitchat after that. I sell life insurance. You wanna talk?
Jonathan Stark:Yeah. Ernst, you want to talk?
David C. Baker:Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan Stark:Cool. Okay. I think we've I think we've Beat number 4 into submission. So let's jump on to number 5 Yeah, this one I think will surprise people So let's So number 5 is you'll have lots more to talk and write about.
David C. Baker:Yeah. It seems counterintuitive
Jonathan Stark:Mhmm.
David C. Baker:And this hits people between the eyes because Whatever their marketing plan looks like nowadays, it you kinda have to give Google something to work with and, you know, whatever that is, audio, video, Words, whatever it is. So it's gonna it's going to involve you figuring out what sort of content or insight to produce, And if you're an undifferentiated firm, that's a really tough topic because you end up writing something that's equally Interesting or not to most everybody, which means it's it's just ignorable content. And So you you come to this decision with that tension of, oh, goodness. What do I write or what do I talk about? And the last thing you want to do is narrow those options by having a tighter positioning thinking that it's gonna be even harder to do this stuff later and I think this is another illustration that Blair gives sometimes sort of this decision that you're provisionally going to make Picture it as a door into a room, and you're afraid of getting trapped in that room.
David C. Baker:You're now you're all over the house, but I'm telling you, go into this room. And you're one of the things that makes you nervous about it is, like, well, what's in there? Like, is there it what happens after I get in there? And you get in the room and you see All these windows and doors and passageways that you didn't even know existed. Yeah.
David C. Baker:I will never run out of things to talk about. It just it's just impossible Now I have almost 400 possible topics. More than half of them are already outlined, and I have an illustration and at some stage of production from my illustrator, and it's just the most amazing thing that happened. You start to focus and you think, oh my goodness. I I'll never run out of topics.
David C. Baker:And it's so much fun to think about but it's it's counterintuitive enough that a lot of people are fearful of just the opposite happening
Jonathan Stark:I know it's insane While you're saying that I flipped over to my my drafts folder for my daily email. Right. 861 drafts.
David C. Baker:Good thing you don't have OCD.
Jonathan Stark:It's I mean it's it is totally counterintuitive but the the more you focus down the deeper the cavern goes and there's just so much more to explore in there And if we're talking about differentiation differentiation, it's gonna set you apart from the shallow garbage that, you know, People have, at this point, have AIs generating for their blog so that Google's AIs can read their blog and then maybe some human comes along and searches for it. But it's like you you read some of these sort of generalist blogs and it feels like robots writing for robots
David C. Baker:yeah and and it it just annoyed it it used to just bore me and now it just annoys Because I've wasted my time yet again. When I go back to LinkedIn and I see a bunch of notifications that Somebody just contributed something. I'm, oh, I'm really hesitant. It's like, okay, but you better not waste my time. This better not be some Seven point listicle that any high schooler could have written.
David C. Baker:Mhmm. And it's just it's so much fun. I I, I love the fact that it's just a wide open if I decide that I wanted to mine gold in my spare time I'm not gonna go out and With a shovel and just start digging, I think I'll start in the backyard and then I'll go to the front yard, then I'll go to the neighbors after dark and, Like, no. You figure out where the gold is, and then you dig very, very narrowly and specifically with the right tools, and that's where you're gonna have the most luck. And it's different for every other focus and I don't know why we don't kind of get that when we translate those principles to our world
Jonathan Stark:I know I I don't it's just not model well I don't know right it's it seems it seems a little I mean I guess there is a paradox a seeming paradox to it which is like The more I focus my business, the bigger it gets. Like, that seems impossible. And and I've heard people say, like, oh, well, I only got 10 leads this year and they were all over the map if I focus down on just the dentists then I'm only gonna get one lead right it's like it's like no you're like right now I like the fishing analogy it's like right now you know when people say oh I don't wanna you know why why would I focus down when I could be a generalist and cast a wide net and it's like no you've got the metaphor wrong It's the the net is your marketing ability. So the net doesn't change so big being a generalist is fishing in the ocean with a teeny little net or like a single hook and being a specialist is like fishing in a barrel stock full of trout. Right.
Jonathan Stark:It's not a it's not like it's not Nike has a big net Apple has a big net you as a soloist I talked to soloists mostly A soloist does not have a big net and they're never going to, so you need to have precision tools and and focus your energy where it's gonna be the most effective and that's in the barrel of fish not I mean, the ocean has I I looked it up. It's got 3.5 trillion fish estimated. Wow. 3.5 trillion. Why would I fish in a barrel of a 1,000 trout when I could fit when I could go out and get 3.5 trillion potentially?
Jonathan Stark:Right. It's like, okay. Go ahead. Go out on the ocean in your
David C. Baker:local city. There's no there's no shows on Discovery Network, of Of really capable fishermen that just throw a big ass net out, and then at the end of the day, they sort up. Okay.
Jonathan Stark:Well, we got
David C. Baker:21 different varieties of fish. Alright. Somebody go figure out who's gonna sell, who's gonna buy this, and, oh, shoot. We got a tire too. What are we gonna do with that?
David C. Baker:You know? It's like no those shows are there for shrimp or for their their for salmon or
Jonathan Stark:you
David C. Baker:know yeah exactly
Jonathan Stark:right yeah it's like pick what you're going after
David C. Baker:but there's there's something about this that I think sorry to interrupt you just around the whole entrepreneurial spirit And this this one just perplexes me even though not so much that I don't understand it because I see them myself a little bit. But The the best entrepreneurs are risk takers, and they have can do attitudes, and they're disciplined enough, and they're smart enough. They don't have to be brilliant, they need to be above a certain level. And and if they were starting out at the very beginning and they wrote out a list of things they could probably be successful There'd probably be 20 things on that list, and now they're just choosing 1. And and yet still, they have this scarcity mindset that, Oh my god.
David C. Baker:If I run out of opportunity, what's gonna happen to me? And it's like the entrepreneurs I know, not a single one of them is gonna starve. They're gonna figure something out. That's not a really valid risk it's not a valid argument about specialization running out of opportunity and or running out of things to talk about either it's the same thing just the other
Jonathan Stark:side of the
David C. Baker:coin right?
Jonathan Stark:Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's the thing it's like you you couldn't eat 3.5 trillion fish if you could even catch tomorrow, but you know if there's a 1,000 trout in a in a pond or a barrel or whatever, you could probably only handle 10 of them. Right? There's like way more opportunity than I think I think part of the part of the the disconnect where the scarcity mindset comes from is because I think the human brain is just really bad at large numbers and to your point earlier about we're all we're all one click away globally, and you no longer have a, you know, a a geolocation sort of moat around you, a geography around you that that keeps competitors out, the markets for whatever whatever market you're going after is surely 10 or a 100 times bigger than you think it is.
Jonathan Stark:So they feel like, oh, there could only be, you know, there could only be so many, I don't know, CPAs in the United States that speak English, you know, and it's like I was making this point at a conference in Las Vegas one time and before the before the presentation I was like I'm just gonna Google like a like a local search dentists near me to see how many dentists there were there were like 10,000 dentists within walking distance of the conference And there were Have you heard of
David C. Baker:the guy that named his firm that Dennis near me? That way when he did a Google search, that's that's true.
Jonathan Stark:Is that true?
David C. Baker:Yeah. It's true. Now that's a smart person right there.
Jonathan Stark:Yeah. He'll need to figure out how to do remote dentistry, but okay. Yeah. Oh, that's funny. But, yeah, I mean, it's it was mind boggling.
Jonathan Stark:I mean, there was something like, I don't know, over a million like, I I remember thinking I don't remember the exact numbers, but they were mind boggling. They were thousands of times bigger than you could ever hope to service as a soloist. And I remember thinking, you know, to your point earlier about niching down farther, you'd probably have to go with, like, periodontists or, you know, like pediatric dentists or something, like, something even more specific. His dentist was like, I'm like, oh, wow. That's still way too big.
David C. Baker:Yeah. Yeah. Dennis who won't whine when I want more nitrous oxide. That would be the one I would get. But it it is kinda crazy.
David C. Baker:I don't, I don't know how we I don't know how we think about I don't know what comes in our mind sometimes and how we just step away from this and we lose We lose our confidence. Like, there are specific numbers behind this too. You know, you in my research, I found that it's a pretty safe assumption that if you are Decently capable in the professional services space, you could, if you do most everything right, you could lock up about 1% of the unity. That's a pretty safe assumption.
Jonathan Stark:Mhmm.
David C. Baker:So if you need, say, 20 clients a year, which is really more than you need, but let's say you need 20 clients a year, Then you only need 2,000 prospects. Now when I'm trying to evaluate a possible positioning decision, I try to get more around 10,000 or so but there's no reason you gotta have more than that so let's keep niching down maybe not right away but maybe this is what happens When you look to narrow it further, as you see even more patterns that weren't apparent right at the boundary of making that positioning Mhmm. It's just a wonderful it's a wonderful journey. I'm I'm so grateful that, I've been around people that think this way. I've got so many clients that think this way.
David C. Baker:I'm somebody I'm so many so glad that people like you and And others understand this and make good arguments for it. It's just a better world that way and we deliver better value to our clients too it's not just about making more money which is obviously true but it's about delivering better value too.
Jonathan Stark:Yeah and that's why it's you know as much as I talk about value pricing and I think most people know me for that you can't do it without positioning.
David C. Baker:Oh yeah right exactly.
Jonathan Stark:You literally cannot be an undifferentiated generalist and and well, I mean, you can Do it, but it won't change your income. I mean, it's not gonna be a home run for you. You know, you could try it, but people are gonna be like, I'm just gonna get the $10 an hour web designer like what do you ask like what do you ask me why I need a website? I just want a web designer can you just do what I want and without so like for me step 1 with everybody every student that goes through my coaching program is step 1 is positioning I don't know what to do. If we don't have that, there's nothing for me to
David C. Baker:do. I don't yeah. Everything that follows is is murky. Like, okay. I don't know what they're losing sleep over.
David C. Baker:I don't know what Water coolers, they're hanging around.
Jonathan Stark:Mhmm.
David C. Baker:I don't know what service offerings to do. I don't even know who to hire to fulfill these promises. Until we get the positioning right nothing else falls into place.
Jonathan Stark:Mhmm. Yeah. There's a there's a thing I noticed that that that reminded me of when you were talking about you'll never run out of things to write is is a lot of folks who have sort of got the memo that, jeez, I need to blog, because I guess business, like, reasons, you know, they just think they need to blog. They don't have this burning desire to blog, and they think they have writer's block, and they just cannot I just never, like, you know, it's every blog post starts with boy it's been a while since I blogged so I can't believe it's been 6 months yeah and and they and it's just torture it takes him days to to you know crank out an 800 word post or something and and to me it's like you don't have writer's block you don't know what to write because you haven't decided who it's for you don't know who you're talking to.
David C. Baker:Right. It's not an output block like writer's block. It's an input block.
Jonathan Stark:Yeah. So you literally don't know what words to choose. You're constantly second guessing your word choice or, you know, just to just to pick one thing. You know, you don't you don't know if, like I said before with the doctors, you don't know whether you should talk about guests, you know, it's like if you're talking to a hospitality client, audience, or patients if you're talking to, like, a medical audience, or clients if you're talking to you know professional services or customers if you're talking to product businesses you don't even know what to call the people they sell to so how you gonna and that's just one example there's just a hundreds of these things that come up here like I don't know what to say it's like because you don't know who you're talking to you just have to pick and then that's
David C. Baker:when a blog
Jonathan Stark:oh go ahead yeah and then all this all of a sudden you're like oh now I know what to say
David C. Baker:and that's when a blog devolves into a newsletter where you know how to talk about this and it's just like nobody really cares about the new person you hired or about some of the work you did for somebody else last year that doesn't relate to them at all and
Jonathan Stark:yeah. Right and it's like sit you know and and they're More and more I see more and more people talking about this. It could be confirmation bias because I'm aware of it now and I I sort of swim in these circles, but I do see more people talking about the benefits of niching down and, in, you know, this particular I love this particular article that you wrote because it focuses right on that point after you've already figured it out. Like, we could talk for days about how to do it, how to convince yourself to do it, why it's good, and all those things, and some of that's come up here but I really liked that point right after the sort of buyer's remorse of positioning and and and then like okay we've we've got a hypothesis here like and and maybe they even go for it you know they they they start talking about it on link usually I have people if if their audience their new target market is active on LinkedIn I'll just say all right let's just let's just change your headline there on your LinkedIn and see if anything happens, and sometimes it does.
David C. Baker:Like, it requires so much courage. Meanwhile, there are people in Ukraine defending their homes with guns and we're terrified of changing our LinkedIn title.
Jonathan Stark:I was you said something earlier about that, you know, the entrepreneurs have 20 for things they could do and like there's a there's a whole conversation to be had about the sort of human animals you know the modern human or whatever you want to call it current current corrupt humans they're just so bad at accurately estimating risk. It like people are there's, you know, 2 components to risk, likelihood of a loss and the impact of a loss. Yeah and and I'll you talk to people you know that just like okay just update your linkedin headline and they act like the likelihood of a huge loss happening is imminent you know it's like hi and it's like what could go wrong what possibly could go wrong
David C. Baker:when that happens with me and this is always The plan b, c, or d, it's never my first choice. If they if I cannot get them to publicly abandon their generalist approach, then I just tell him, okay. All we gotta do here is I don't know anything else. We just gotta do a sub brand. You can't have 2 you can't have 2 marketing plans.
David C. Baker:Lord knows you've not even done one well, so I'm not gonna expect you to do 2, but you've never done marketing for this generalist firm the way it should be done anyway. Those those things will be coming anyway looks like they always have here your marketing plan is gonna be around the sub brand I don't think it's the first choice you should make but it's much better than just sitting there and not Making a decision.
Jonathan Stark:Mhmm. Yeah. I do something similar with, sometimes honestly, I haven't had someone that just couldn't I think I probably scared those people away. Like people know when they're like, this is part of the deal if you're gonna work with me. Right.
Jonathan Stark:But there have been times where I had really heavy resistance from someone and so what what we did is we would create a service like a productized service and then we would do all the positioning on that and and make that thing, You know, this instead of saying I help, I don't know, musical equipment manager, manufacturers kick copycat products off the Internet or, you know, something really nice Crispy, it's if they can't bring themselves to do that, they're getting too many referrals, whatever, and then they like git let's say okay let's make a productized service that is for someone specifically hyper specific it has a and And once you pick that, then you can say, okay, what promise can we make to those people? What is the thing that what's their expensive problem? What can you know what what are the but it's instead of saying I help blah blah blah blah It's like this service is for people like this who have this kind of problem and it's unlike the other options in these ways and sometimes that that has been that's been an approach that would get people to move forward. Yeah. I actually had one friend who it wasn't a student but a friend of mine who had a firm It's kinda kinda maybe maybe a little small at the time for somebody you would work with I suppose, but, you know, I think it was about 4 or 5 people and he was sort of a co founder and he was trying to convince his partners to niche down on people who sell on Shopify.
Jonathan Stark:They were just a sort of generalist web design firm. Right. And he's like let's let's just focus on Shopify. Shopify was this is a while Shopify was still new, but it was, like, seemed to really be happening. Couldn't convince the partners to do it, for all the reasons that you you're probably have heard a million times.
Jonathan Stark:And he said, okay. What about this? Let's start a a different website with a specific name and we'll just sell this. It would just be one page and it'll be for people who sell, like like, physical goods on Shopify. And they're like, alright.
Jonathan Stark:Yeah. Fine. Do that. I don't know. Like, 18 months later it was the entire business like yeah it was actually just like completely proved the model and at the same time, he he jumped on a platform right at the perfect time and had this sort of platform specialization.
Jonathan Stark:So there's a timing factor here too, but It it is maybe an approach for people, but I agree with you. It's like especially for soloists, don't don't try and I get this all the time. What if I have 2 websites? And I know I just described that, but that was a firm and and whatever they had the energy to do it but if you can't manage the marketing for one business on your own, yeah, what makes you think you're gonna suddenly have twice as much energy to do 2. It's just not realistic.
David C. Baker:Yeah. Exactly.
Jonathan Stark:Cool. Wow. Okay. What is there anything else we to talk about this has been this has been great we went through all five things I think we got some cool tangents in there too
David C. Baker:I, I've thought of some other episode we should do someday, but for this topic, I think this is really nice, nicely tied up.
Jonathan Stark:Perfect. Great. Well this has been super fun. Where can people go to find out more about you online?
David C. Baker:So my business website is David cbaker.com, and there's lots of free stuff. Almost everything there is free if you wanna learn more. And then the most recent book is the business of expertise which is at expertise dot is dot is so those 2 would probably be your best bets
Jonathan Stark:cool yes and and listeners if you haven't heard the previous episode that we recorded together it was about that book. So if you're curious about that and want to check it out just search back through the I don't know how you actually do it I guess just search back through in your podcast player David's name and and you will find that and also sign up for his mailing list. It's one of the it's one of the best I'm on and I'm super picky about mailing lists. I'm always Glad I read it even though they are they're not short and sweet like mine, they're long and sweet. So I'm always always glad I read it and look invited you on the show to talk about one of them.
David C. Baker:Thank you for having me, Jonathan. I appreciate
Jonathan Stark:Alright, folks. That's it for this time. I'm Jonathan Stark, and I hope you join me again next week for ditching hourly. Bye.
Creators and Guests
