Zoning in on Your Niche’ and Marketing Performance

Finding Your Niche’ Pays

When Dirk Downing first got started in healthcare marketing he was faced with many of the challenges all marketers face. With so much opportunity, where do I put my effort? As a recent PHD graduate from Mizzou in Sport Psychology, Dirk, was stuck and needed to find clients for his sports performance and athletics mentality practice. Starting like every other healthcare practice he had zero clients to serve.

Dirk remained open minded when he started his practice 9 months ago. With a website he built on squarespace and not much in funds for marketing, Dirk knew he needed to find revenue and find it fast, if his practice was ever going to survive. This is when he had his breakthrough idea that changed his revenue and started the client acquisition process in his practice.

Golf! Dirk was not talking about networking on the golf course, although he still does that, he specialized, niched down, and zoned in on golfers to help them reach peak performance. To find the vein of gold though, Dirk zoned in on High School golfers and helps them reach peak performance.

By zoning in on a niche target market, his practice began to grow. In 9 short months, he now coaches over 100 clients including individuals and teams. Why is zoning in on your niche’ so important?

Zoning in on a niche’ helps grow your practice for 3 reasons.

1. People Know How to Help You - By zoning in on who you want to serve other people in the business and healthcare world know who to provide you with an endless stream of referrals. It also lets the clients or patients you serve know that your service was designed specifically for them.

2. You Reach Them Cost Effectively - In marketing whoever is willing to spend the most money or time to acquire a client or patient will ultimately with that relationship for the patient. By zoning in on the niche’ you can reduce the wasted time or money to acquire the client. You can essentially go right to your target. Dirk is now working with High School Athletic Director’s and asking to speak to the High Schools on Athletic Performance.

3. You Build Discipline to Succeed - Success takes discipline. According to Success Magazine, for every disciplined effort, there are multiple rewards (Rohn ,2016). The disciplines rewards come from consistent efforts to the niche’. This might sound a little woo woo, put if you put in the work to stay disciplined to one niche’ good luck or good fortune will come your way. Think about it from the perspective of a farmer. If you sow good seeds and water them you will reap a harvest. This is the promise of staying disciplined.
Now that you know why it is important to select your niche, now you need to know how to select your niche’. Zoning in on your niche’ is all about your true authentic passion. Who do you really want to serve and serve them. What inspires you, motivates you, or moves you? People can see right through greed and this is the real thing that holds companies back. Founders, owners, and marketers that are only in business for the money. The mission is just as important as the money and, according to Entrepreneur Magazine there are 5 steps to finding your niche’

Step 1: Determine your passions and interest - When Dirk made the connection between his passion for golf and his business he started to zone in on his niche’. All through high school and college Dirk had a passion for the game of golf! In fact, he did his dissertation with research completed from assisting the Mizzou golf team!

Step 2: Identify problems you can solve - Today High School Athletics is more competitive than ever before, and parents are asking for assistance to help their children get competitive advantage that were not afforded to them earlier in life. The undeserved High School athletic programs was a great opportunity Dirk has identified.

Step 3: Research your competition - For Dirk, the process of zoning in on his niche’ has provided an opportunity that has almost zero competition. This allows Dirk to serve an entire population of Athletes that are under served and continue this relationship through out that golfers life.

Step 4: Determine the profitability of your niche’ - Dirk is still in the process of doing this. He has tried a couple of different pricing structures and models. He knows that he loves helping golfers one-on-one. He also like the lifestyle flexibility this niche’ affords him to pursue.

Step 5: Test your idea - Since zoning in on his niche’ Dirk went from zero clients to over a 100 client caseload.

In conclusion, Dirk Downing, President of Zoning in Peak Performance Coaching, received a PHD from Mizzou but not in healthcare marketing. Dirk found that finding his niche’ ultimately helped him grow his practice. If you would like to connect with Dirk you can: CLICK HERE

Sources:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/272808
https://www.success.com/rohn-the-key-to-getting-all-you-want-discipline/

Contributions by:
Dirk Downing
President
Zoning in Peak Performance Coaching

From Dirk: I offer Sport Psychology Consulting based on the proven effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. This approach teaches individuals how to change thoughts that may be hindering their performance. Athletes of all levels can be unaware of thoughts that can affect their ability to perform at a high level. To address this, I teach clients the same mental skills top athletes use to improve their game. In my practice, I work with clients both to understand these mental skills and then implement them. Once these mental skills are implemented, we work on game and sport specific scenarios where these skills can benefit the athlete. I believe every athlete is different and therefore requires and deserves an individualized consulting style.

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