Seven Types of Hubs:

When you start thinking about your niche market, and how to reach them with effective word of mouth marketing - you immediately need to start thinking about the 'hubs' in their networks. You need to ask yourself, "who do they already trust?"

Luckily, it's not that hard.

These seven questions will take you most of the way there.

1. EVENTS & LOCATIONS: Where does your niche gather, congregate, celebrate and hangout?

2. BUSINESSES: Where do they already spend their money?

3. GROUPS: What formal groups are they a part of?

4. SUPPORT: What resources or groups exist to support them?

5. WEBSEARCH: if your niche were to search for a solution to their problems on google, what would they type in?

6. PUBLICATIONS (on and offline): Where do they go for news and information that is relevant, credible and valuable for them?

7. INDIVIDUALS: Which individuals do they most trust (whether globally or locally)?

9 QUALITIES OF A GOOD HUB:

Once you've identified the niche you want to attract, it's probably a good idea to ask yourself, "Where do they already spend time, money or attention? What are the events, groups, businesses that they already trust? Who are the individuals they respect?" After all, if you can align yourself with those groups - those hubs - well, you've made your life much easier.

But what makes a good hub in your niche's network?

9 things . . .

1. credibility: they are trusted and respected by your niche, they are influential to the life, work, opinions and practices of your niche (e.g. maybe they’re pushing the envelope, on the cutting edge and an industry leader or maybe they’re committed to the basics etc).

2. reach: they have a large sphere of influence and reach a lot of people within your niche

3. list: already established, well organized and set up communication mechanisms through which they are regularly in touch with your niche (e.g. email list, mailing list, blog etc).

4. mutual respect: you already know them and they trust you, you have an authentic relationship with them, you genuinely respect them and already endorse their work to your clients and friends, you’re a really big fan of theirs

5. cooperative: they are open to endorsing quality things to their list, they’re excited to partner and collaborate

6. active relationship with niche: your niche already spends a good deal of money, time and attention on or with them

7. shared vision: you share a common vision and set of values

8. fresh: you haven’t maxed out this relationship already (e.g. maybe they’ve already endorsed you to everyone they can think of)

9. service: they’re passionate about meeting the needs of your niche

NOTE: You may have to create your OWN hub if none exists and be a host for your community.

14 PREMISES OF EFFECTIVE WORD OF MOUTH:

The most effective marketing is, we all know it, word of mouth. Here's 14
"seed thoughts" to consider when you think of word of mouth marketing.

warmest,
tad

1. The Law of the Niche: Trying to reach everyone is futile. Life becomes easier as you choose a focus.

2. The Law of 1000 Miles: the conversion of stranger to client is one of many steps.

3. The Law of Irresistible Steps: Make each step irresistible. Each step must be low risk and high value (high R.O.I.) to your niche - and ideally low cost to you. Remember: people want solutions to problems and relief from pain - they want you to do it for them, to have it already figured out and be told what to do, they want you to hold their hand. They don’t want to have to spend years educating themselves and read reams of info and listen to hours of audio. What drives sales in this process is not “closing techniques” but “irresistible offers”. Marketing is best woven in from the start - not plopped on at the end

4. The Law of Push-Back. Pressure is deadly. The entire process must be pressure free - they must be 100% in control. People love buying but they hate being sold to.

5. The Law of Gossip. People love to share their opinions and experiences (good and bad) with their friends. If people like you and like what you do they are already talking about you to their friends. The stronger the emotional intensity of their experience the more often and more intensely they will share their experience (whether positive or negative).

6. The Law of Advertising: People don’t trust ads & pitches. People mistrust things that look like advertising or sales pitches. Their defenses go up. The most successful marketing will therefore be authentic, genuine endorsements from people they already trust.

7. The Law of Problems: In the prospects mind, they are not looking for your product or service, they are looking for solutions to problems. They want relief from pain. They’re look for a particular result that is self serving to them. There is a particular need that they are trying to fulfill. Everything in your marketing must be geared around this.

8. The Law of Empathy: People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. In old sales, you would spend hours identifying people’s problems. In today’s market you need to walk in with a deep understanding and empathy for the pains they are experiencing and the frustrations that they have with your industry.

9. The Law of Alignment: In order to influence people you must know what already influences them; you must know what is most important to them. And then you must do whatever it takes to make your business a living, breathing expression of those values.

10. The “Birds of a feather” Law:

11. Bigger Birds: Some birds are bigger and sing louder and more beautifully than others.

12. The Law of Endorsement: In order to influence people you must know who already influences them. And then you must do whatever it takes to get the endorsement of those people and groups.

13. The Law of Hand to Hand: There are things you can do to support people in talking about you. You must create materials that can be passed on at the point of conversation.

14. Marketing = community building. Pick a niche and become a champion of that community, help it to thrive.

Eight Qualities of a Good Niche

So, you've decided that you want to fiddle with a niche. That's a very good decision, but how do you know if the niche you're thinking of is a good one?

The list of eight criteria below probably isn't a bad start.

warmest,
tad

1. common set of easily identifiable needs, problems that you can help them with

2. common lifestyle: desires, passions, values, interests, hobbies, that you can cater to

3. established, high quality hubs, communication networks etc. You can find them and reach them easily.

4. there’s enough of them to meet your needs

5. they’re fun to work with and in alignment with your nature (these are likely the kinds of clients you most easily and naturally attract and the ones to whom you feel the most attracted - it’s a niche or community that you want to see thrive).

6. they are underserved

7. they can afford to pay you full price for your products and services

8. they are in alignment with your long-term business goals (e.g. if you do eco-lawn care and want to work with “Golf Clubs" eventually, but now need to do residential, it might be wise to focus on people who golf for now so that you can bridge into that later).

Tad in the Globe and Mail

I was recently featured in an article in The Globe and Mail - one of Canada's national newspapers.

http://www.tadhargrave.com/Media/globeandmail