Finding Your Niche
By: Linda P. Kester
I see many
leasing sales people who are stuck in misery.
They cold call day after day after day only to find meager results. They are trying to stand out in a crowded
market place and they are not getting noticed.
What is the answer to this? Well,
there are many answers like differentiating yourself, improving your sales
skills, believing in company, falling in love with leasing, and focusing your
efforts. One part of focusing your
efforts is niche marketing.
The word “niche” comes from
the French verb nicher “to nest.” Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
defines a niche as “a place, or activity for which a person is best fitted.” A
business leasing niche, then, is a specific type of vendor or lessee on which
you are best fitted to focus your marketing efforts.
One of my friends, Paul Lee,
works for Sterling National Bank. Paul
has carved out a niche in a unique type of equipment. (No, I will not tell you what industry it is.
Some sales people would not even finish
reading this article and start calling on his vendors! Find your own niche. It is much more satisfying!) Paul’s strategy is to stay away from
industries that are saturated with leasing companies. He said “I found my niche by backing into the
vendor relationship. I would interview
lessees, small Mom and Pop companies and determine what type of equipment would
help their business grow. I then focused
on lessees with the same equipment needs.
Soon I was an expert in a type of equipment that no leasing company had
a major presence in. The vendors were
thrilled with the results and started looking to me to finance more and more of
their deals.”
Many leasing sales
professionals resist niche marketing because they want to be everything to
everyone. They feel if they focus on a
specific type of equipment they may be turning away other opportunities. They also think that a niche might be boring. Believe me; it’s never boring when you watch your monthly
volume grow!
I am
a big proponent of finding a niche in equipment leasing. Having a niche builds confidence. You can intelligently discuss the pros and
cons of the equipment with the vendor.
This increases your credibility to prospects.
People are more likely to
trust the work of an equipment leasing specialist than an equipment leasing generalist.
Achieving mastery in a specific area gives depth and focus to your portfolio. Also a
niche helps you become known rapidly. If
you direct your marketing efforts repeatedly to the same group of people, you
will become known more quickly. If you communicate a clear benefit to this same
group, they are more likely to remember you when they have a need for equipment
leasing.
A
niche reduces your marketing costs. When you target your marketing to a
specific group, you no longer have to worry about marketing to the “universe”
through generalized e-mails, fax’s and direct mail marketing.
A
niche can increase your income. People are happy to pay specialists
more than they pay generalists. If you are known as an expert in your field, you
can command higher rates. My friend
Jack Wolff was the controller of a publicly traded company. He told me he would have gladly paid a couple
more dollars a month for each of his leases to ensure good customer
service. “I had leases with three big leasing companies and I would have much preferred to deal with one company who
focused on my individual needs and knew my account, rather than just be a
revenue generator that those companies did not give a crap about.”
You will be worth higher rates
if you can solve a lessee’s problem more efficiently, quickly or conveniently
than someone with less mastery. When you
can demonstrate that you know a lot about a certain kind of issue or challenge
that your lessees face, it positions you as a real professional who knows his
stuff. It attracts both vendors and
lessees.
What makes a niche work? You need
to pinpoint, or target your lessees and vendors. You need to communicate your uniqueness to
prospects and vendors in a way that sticks in their minds. You do this by creating a mouth-watering
message about what makes you unique.
Then you make your presence known offline and online. You share your message by marketing
consistently and repeatedly to the people are receptive to hearing it, people
who want and need leasing. Paul Lee said
“I go after profitable and credit worthy business that the big banks tend to
ignore, and it’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.”
Niche marketing is one of the keys to developing a profitable business
that will make you stand out from the leasing crowd. Think of it this way…prospecting can become
less of a bitch when you target your efforts on a particular niche ;=).