It’s true! Specializing – much like using dental floss, exercising and saving for retirement – is something you need to do. Being a generalist just doesn’t cut it in the competitive marketplace we find ourselves in. If you try to be everything for everyone, you end up being nothing for no one.
Specializing helps
- create your brand
- people remember you
- people recognize you as an expert
- you make more money
- you help more people
- people finding you online
- people finding you by word of mouth
The fear is that you’ll lose clients, but the reality is that you will gain far more.
The other fear is that you’ll never see clients with other issues, but you still will. In fact you’ll get MORE referrals for OTHER issues once you establish your expert brand. People respect competence and in a world where service is shoddy and bureacracy rudely shoves people into website support and voice mail menu hell, personal competence is highly rewarded.
[...] Alicia Yabeta wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptIt’s true! Specializing, like using dental floss, is something that you need to do. If you try to be everything for everyone, you end up being nothing for no one. Specializing helps [...]
By: » Specializing on January 23, 2008
at 4:10 am
Joe, thanks for the great content and post. I agree that I am needing to specialize more in my own practice. And, I have been greatly influenced by your business model. I have been speaking with other therapists in the group practice where I work part-time, and we are discussing your ideas in detail. I read recently that you need to identify your niche/s, study the target population’s felt needs and wants, and then design products that are solutions to those problems. Your site is helping me think this way.
By: Success Factors on September 23, 2008
at 7:33 am
Glad to hear it – you’ll definitely be more successful as a specialist — and will become known as “the guy to go to for x’ – which is how you get a lot of word of mouth referrals.
Joe
By: Joe Bavonese on September 23, 2008
at 11:01 am