Finding Your Niche: How We Messed Up and How We Grew From It
As a business, it can be tempting to say “yes” to everything and try to appeal to a broad audience. You may not even realize you’re doing it.
However, doing so can lead to confusion among your audience and a lack of clarity about what exactly you offer. At Fruitful, we learned this lesson the hard way.
We were suffering from a brand identity crisis and had gone too broad with our message. We realized that we needed to become more specific about the problem we solve for our clients in order to reach the right audience.
The question of “what do we do?” was tough, but we knew it was crucial to our success. We started by writing down specifics about the clients we serve. This helped us focus on the problem we solve rather than who we were solving it for.
After some brainstorming, we came up with a more specific message:
We help service-based businesses and non-profits get out of identity crises so they can reach the right audience, streamline their offerings, and make more revenue.
With this new message in mind, we were able to find our niche and develop a clear idea of exactly what we do:
We help hospitals launch an employee wellness program so its providers and staff can care for patients without being burned out.
We help B2B professional services like accountants and consultants rename and rebrand when the business is being handed down from one generation to the next.
We help service-based companies reestablish their sense of identity after acquiring other businesses.
If you’re struggling with a brand identity crisis or trying to find your niche, we encourage you to listen to the latest episode of our podcast, Growing a Fruitful Brand.
Our co-founders, Ben and Raj, discuss the steps we took to become more specific about the problem we solve for our customers and steps you can take to find your business niche.
Check out the episode now where you listen to podcasts!
Ep. 26:
Finding Your Niche:
How We Messed Up and How We Grew From It
Automated Transcript
Ben Lueders:
Welcome to Growing a Fruitful Brand, where we discuss how to create and grow a brand that makes the world a better place for you, your customers, and your employees. I'm Ben Lueders, Founder and Art Director of Fruitful Design and Strategy, and this is my business partner and brand strategist, Raj Lulla. Today, we've got a confession to make. We've messed up. For the past few years, we haven't been communicating very well with potential clients. So you might be wondering, what did we do wrong? What did we do wrong, Raj?
Raj Lulla:
Well, a lot of businesses, we rode a good economy. It was growing for basically ... Fruitful turns 10 this year, and for basically all of those 10 years up until COVID, the economy was growing. It was great. It was right after things had recovered from the 2008 recession, and it was the longest economic expansion in US history as far as I know.
Ben Lueders:
It was awesome.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, it was great. We really enjoyed it.
Ben Lueders:
You might have liked it too.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, and during that time, it was easier to get clients. The referral networks were hot and it was easy to just connect with people.
Ben Lueders:
Oh, yeah. We didn't do really do any marketing for ourselves. We just felt like we just kept on getting work.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, and so it was easy to do what we knew, and even when clients would ask us to do new things, it was easy to say yes to it. So ultimately, what we did wrong and what a lot of our clients have done wrong is that we went too broad. We wanted to be everything to everybody, and especially as we were trying to come out of, ironically, to come out of a niche or a niche, I'm going to say niche-
Ben Lueders:
Apparently, you can also say, what's the other one, niche?
Raj Lulla:
Niche. Yeah, like Nish Kumar from British Television. Hi, Nish. So had a niche because I came out of the nonprofit world, the church, the Christian nonprofit and church world. So immediately when I joined Fruitful, even before I joined Fruitful-
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, because I mean, all my connections were in that Christian nonprofit slash church space. So yeah, we both had that.
Raj Lulla:
So that was our built-in customer base. Then as we grew up and had kids and our skills got better, we started charging more, then we started to outgrow our customer base, and that wasn't wrong. We were just evolving. We were maturing at what we did. So it was okay for us to change our niche or even leave, exit that niche because you and I had a conversation at one point where we were like, "Should Fruitful just be a nonprofit? Should we just do as much nonprofit work as we can at the lowest rate possible and we'll just hire young designers straight out of college forever and we'll squeak out our living by just doing a million of these?"
Ben Lueders:
Well, because we're so good at it and we knew that world so well, and as you might imagine, that niche is very well-connected, so it seems like there's always more work.
Raj Lulla:
I know it was meaningful work.
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, and we enjoyed it and it was very satisfying to us, but it is pretty common, I think, that you might outgrow a niche, but what did we do wrong from that point?
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. So from there, for one, we were never just in that niche because our first three clients together was two churches and a software company. So it was like we didn't, even from the very early days of us working together-
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, we weren't exclusive. It was an accidental niche in a lot of ways. It wasn't like, "No, we won't take on ..." We didn't do a whole lot to fend off certain clients. We got what we got.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, and then in the years past that, I mean, we had photographers, we had ... I'm trying to remember.
Ben Lueders:
Consultants, all kinds of things.
Raj Lulla:
Yup. There were apps that we branded, all sorts of different things. Some were more tangible goods, some were services, some were nonprofits. There was education in there. There's been some healthcare.
Ben Lueders:
Oh, my goodness. Yeah, it's crazy.
Raj Lulla:
There's been so many different types of businesses that when we started to clarify our message, ironically, we became a story brand certified agency, started to clarify our message. The best that we could come up with was, what do all of these different types of businesses and people in those businesses have in common? We went with mission-driven businesses and organizations. That's not been all bad. We've met some really, really wonderful people who've felt drawn to that on our website, but we've also found a lot of people who are like, "Oh, cool, you guys are still the church nonprofit guys, and you can work for $500, right?" So we wasted their time, we wasted our time.
Ben Lueders:
The answer is no, by the way. There's not as much we can do for $500.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, and that's because our team has grown. Again, our expertise in story brand has really deepened. Our expertise in building websites has really deepened. So all the brand development that we do, the website development that we do, it has really matured beyond what a small church or nonprofit can afford. That's not because we got greedy. I still drive a used Hyundai. You still drive a used Hyundai. Hyundai, if you're listening, we'll take new ones anytime.
Ben Lueders:
There's a lot I would do personally for $500. I want to make that clear. It's not like we're so rich that we just use $500 bills for toilet paper. Those days hopefully are ahead of us, but we're not there.
Raj Lulla:
It's five $100 bills, but no. Yeah, no, but you're right. Yeah. We didn't just get high on the hog and decide, "Oh, we don't need the little people anymore."
Ben Lueders:
We still do some work for churches and nonprofits.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, a fair amount.
Ben Lueders:
We did a lift for a local nonprofit last year, Access Period, but we did that at a great discount because we wanted to.
Raj Lulla:
Yes. That was more of our gift back to the community as opposed to this is the rate that we can work for.
Ben Lueders:
Exactly.
Raj Lulla:
That's actually a lot of how our model changed was we decided to go at a price that we could sustainably build our business on and then decide to donate our services whenever possible-
Ben Lueders:
Exactly.
Raj Lulla:
... to causes that we find to be worthy.
Ben Lueders:
We're not the first ones to do that. That's something that you see a lot.
Raj Lulla:
I'd recommend it.
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, exactly, and that way, you can do that when you really, really want to instead of feeling like, "This is our main line of revenue."
Raj Lulla:
In doing that, we've gone from five employees to eight employees. So I feel like the amount of good that we're doing in the world has actually increased because there's people and families that are dependent on us now, and that also allows us to serve our customers better. So none of the reasons that we did these things were wrong, but the way that we communicated to people was it was too vague.
Mission-driven businesses and non-profits, we help you with branding messaging strategy. Again, it is not terrible, and we felt pretty good about it at the time, especially because we were right in the middle of that identity crisis for ourselves, but as we have come out of that season, we're post the height of the pandemic now, and we've had basically three years of massive change, and the economy has changed as well. Now we're starting to go, "Okay. For real though, in this season, what is Fruitful? Who does it serve the best?" So that's what we have figured out for ourselves. At least we have a new version of this that we're working on.
Ben Lueders:
We're working on it. Well, here's the funny thing, Raj, that comes to my mind is, and I know what this has come out of, is we do this for our clients all the time. One of the main things that we do as design and strategy agency is we really help our clients identify who their target audience is and to really communicate well to them because we know that if you're trying to communicate to everyone, you're really communicating to no one. So now we're just like, "We got to take our own medicine a bit."
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, and I think there's a lot of people out here like us who have experienced this and have suffered because of it because what happens when you do this is you attract the wrong leads, and those leads might be the same kinds of leads that you were getting before. It's coming through your network, "Oh, it's Ben. Ben has a cute little design shop. It's got an orange. Oranges are cheap, so Ben's cheap."
Ben Lueders:
Do you even know what oranges cost these days, Raj?
Raj Lulla:
So it might just be the same kinds of leads that you were getting before, but they're the wrong leads for where your business is now. When you do that, again, it wastes their time, it wastes your time, and then the people who you would serve the best don't hear from you. They don't hear, "That's the place that I should go," because you're not communicating it clearly.
Again, we've met some really, really wonderful people who would consider themselves mission-driven business or nonprofit leaders, and that's been really good, but I think that in this next season, we can get a lot clearer about who we are and that we will start to reach out better to people who will really benefit from our services.
So that's what we're going to go through today is talk about what we did differently, what you can do differently to get more and better leads really for free because this is all just work that you can do yourself and really work through. Of course, we're always happy to help you with that if you want to call us, but this is work you can do yourself for free to get more and better leads.
As the economic headlines are pretty doom and gloom these days, JP Morgan just said that they think that we're past the point of no return on having a pretty serious recession towards the end of this year, being so clear in your sales and marketing process has never been more important. It's going to be a lot harder to get sales across the finish line, especially in service-based businesses than it was pre-pandemic. I know that's bad news. I know that's hard to hear, but this is why doing this right now, being really clear about the problems you solve is going to be really important for your business.
Ben Lueders:
All right, Raj, let's just dive right into it. What should our listeners and ourselves do differently? What can we take away and think differently in this season?
Raj Lulla:
So there's a lot of creative agency consultants out there who will tell you that the riches are in the niches.
Ben Lueders:
Riches in the niches.
Raj Lulla:
I hate the phrase in part because it sounds like the motivation is wrong. It's like, "Oh, we're doing this to get rich," and it's like, "No." What I really care about is I care about being in business tomorrow and the day after that. Yes, I want my family to do well, but I'm not trying to become the next Bezos here. There are choices that I don't want to make for my life that are going to keep me from being that kind of wealthy, and I'm okay with that. I honestly am because I want my kids to have a very present father. I want my marriage to be solid. There are things that are much more important to me than money.
However, I also want to have a job to come to every day. I want this business to survive. I want the people who depend on us to have jobs that are secure, and that requires us to do the things that would result in those, quote, unquote, "riches". Again, I don't like the phrase, but the concept is right. How do we make sure that people are continually coming to us to solve a problem for them and that they identify clearly that we're the right place to do that because we have told them that.
So the first thing is really that we have to be really specific about the problems that we solve. So Ben, what are some of the ways that we've imperfectly talked about the problem that we solve for customers in the past?
Ben Lueders:
I mean, I hesitate to say it because I actually really like the line and it's on our website right now. We say, "Grow something good," and I know where this is coming from. We are very passionate about helping people grow, helping good organizations grow something even better, but when you're talking about really focusing in, you're talking about clarity. You're talking about niching down. It's a pretty vague statement too. You know what I mean? It's like there's a lot of vision in it that's really good. I believe in it. It's painted huge on the wall right outside here, and that's probably not going to change.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, we're not going to abandon that.
Ben Lueders:
No, we're not going to abandon it. It's true, but that doesn't really connect with a specific problem that we're solving for a specific kind of client either.
Raj Lulla:
... or in a specific way.
Ben Lueders:
... or in a specific way.
Raj Lulla:
Now, people are smart enough to know that they're not going to come to a creative agency to literally help them grow corn that's good or something.
Ben Lueders:
We have a lot of with our agriculture.
Raj Lulla:
We have a lot of faith in our audience to get that part, but I mean, still 10 years in, we still get questions like, "Do you guys do websites?"
Ben Lueders:
It turns out we do in case you're wondering.
Raj Lulla:
So that's one question, but then we also get questions about services that we don't provide. Do we do social media management? No, we don't. It'd be nice to do at some point in the future, but it's not an expertise that we have, but that would be a way to grow your company, and it could be a good way to grow a good company, but it's something that we-
Ben Lueders:
We've seen it. We've seen other agencies do this where they really focus in on a certain industry, and the main pieces in their portfolio, the language they have is focus on very specific demographic, a very specific industry, and it does really, really well for them because when someone is looking for their very specific problem to solve, who are they going to call? They go with this person who has positioned themselves as a proven expert in that very, very specific problem or they're going to go to the generalist who likes to do lots of different things. It just makes sense. If you were that person shopping, you're going to want to go with the person in an agency that's positioned themselves as the expert to solve a specific problem.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. One of the reasons why we love service-based businesses so much, love helping service-based businesses and non-profits so much is because it's so easy to get sidetracked in those businesses. I remember working with a local non-profit here where, I won't name it because of the story, but where basically anytime somebody would offer the founder money to advance the mission, the founder would find a way to do it. So it's like we are really focused on feeding the homeless and it's like, "Do you also deliver Bibles to Africa?" and it's like, "Yes," and it came from a totally goodhearted place, but that makes it very confusing for the homeless person who needs a sandwich to know where to go for it, especially if your airplane's a logo and it's got a Bible on it or it also makes it very difficult for donors to know, "If I would like to affect the problem of hunger and homeless people, who would I donate to?" Now you've confused both sides when you do things like that.
So service-based businesses are tempted to do this all the time. You typically start a service-based business because you are expert in doing something. I came from a communications strategy background. You are a graphic designer, and so it's like those talents can be applied to just about anything. So then when people ask you to start ... What's the weirdest thing you've designed?
Ben Lueders:
What's the weirdest thing I've designed? Put me on the spot there. The things that popped into my mind is things that other people have done with my designs that have been weird. There was a toilet seat cover at one time.
Raj Lulla:
Really?
Ben Lueders:
Oh, yeah. There was a tattoo on someone's calf, but I did not pick those mediums.
Raj Lulla:
I mean, I know we did a bar stool cover at one point, and that was on purpose, but I mean, again, the client asked us to do a bar stool cover. You've done a ukulele or-
Ben Lueders:
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yup.
Raj Lulla:
So basically people will ask us to ... It's like your designer, right? Can you put that on there?
Ben Lueders:
Technically yes. Technically yes.
Raj Lulla:
That happens all the time in service-based businesses. So one of the ways to get out of that is to think of the most successful client experiences you've had, and then just start taking the names out of the situation. So instead of saying for Todd at the Omaha Lumber Company, we built a website that helped increase its sales. You could say, "We help construction suppliers get websites that drive more sales." So you just reverse engineer your product statements in some ways.
Ben Lueders:
Isn't this counterintuitive though? I feel like-
Raj Lulla:
It's weird how it is.
Ben Lueders:
I feel like the thing here at Fruitful, we say it all the time, we're all about abundance, this abundant mindset, and it seems on face value that it's more abundant to be everything to everybody and to do all the things. You don't want to say because when you niche down, when you focus, when you get clear, it sounds like you're saying no to all these people, and there's all this work out there in this abundant world, but there's a weird way in which it's actually more abundant to think that there's more of this very specific type of work out there in a way. Again, it comes down to just being really, really clear and focus on how that can communicate so much stronger to a certain kind of client.
Raj Lulla:
Part of it is it's like I think it's okay to have more than one niche. I might disagree with myself in a couple years. I might come back and tell you again that I messed up, but-
Ben Lueders:
Messed up part two.
Raj Lulla:
... but I think that that's at least better than trying to figure out the minute ways in which they're similar and try to hope to catch both with two vague or one vague message, right? I'd rather have two really specific messages and have to worry about the tension between those two things, who we're talking to and when. I'd rather have that than have one vague message that catches neither.
Ben Lueders:
Well, and I think there's some trial and error that can come into this too. That's one of the things we've been talking about is, "Hey, maybe we pick a few different niches, a few different problems that we solve for specific people and see which ones stick and try them out in ads or in other things to just to see what works." It's like going fishing or something. There's specific bait that gets specific fish and it's like you might need to try things, tweak things, et cetera, but that's better than just continuing down the same vague all things to all people approach, for sure.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, and be a really specific or be strategic about the niches that you're going after. I don't think I would do dog collars for ... We have a cockapoo. So I'll do dog collars for cockapoos that are black and white and the smell of roses. It's like they exist, I'm sure, but this might be a really small market.
Ben Lueders:
Dude, a lot of people have cockapoos right now. This might be our niche. This is where the riches actually are turns out.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, but if you are doing dog collars that are more comfortable for poodle breeds when you're taking them for a walk, that's probably specific enough. So you don't want to be data agnostic when you're thinking through these niches just because you had one client that did have a cockapoo that liked to smell roses. Instead, you do want to factor data into that to help you get to the right answer more quickly, but you have to start somewhere.
Ben Lueders:
Exactly, and that's the big thing. You got to start somewhere, and then I imagine once you get into that space, you might start discovering more specific niches that you can further, pair things down, but you've got to take that first step and let's start getting it down. So it's like for some of our listeners it might be, "Right now, I'm this super broad everything to everyone. If you've got money, you can be my client," and then it's like, "Okay, no. We are a pet brand." That's the step. Maybe eventually they might realize that, "Oh, cockapoo is where it's at," but no. Just making that bold step to be like, "No, this is the problem that we solve," and you can always clarify further, right? Can you ever clarify things too much?
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, yeah, again, yeah, if you go too far down to one specific breed-
Ben Lueders:
Too soon.
Raj Lulla:
... that could be too much, but there's an easy way to do this that isn't dangerous because you don't have to go all in on this immediately. I'm not asking you to change your website to cockapooleashes.com or something and to change every picture on your website to a picture of a cockapoo. Instead, what you're doing is write a blog post about it. It's like the 10 best collars for poodle breeds that won't get snagged in their hair because that's a problem with the curly-haired dogs.
Ben Lueders:
This is very specific. We have lizards, so very different worlds here.
Raj Lulla:
Curly-haired lizards. Yes.
Ben Lueders:
Our leashes are different.
Raj Lulla:
It is just like a Twizzler or something. You just tie it around. Anyway-
Ben Lueders:
Full string.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. So you do a post like that. If that post performs well on your blog, on your socials, then you might have a little bit of a hint, "Does it drive some sales to talk about this problem in this way?" If not, then maybe you need to go a little more broad and say, "10 best products for poodle breeds," or it could be 10 best products for small poodle breeds. Mess around with it a little bit and find what's resonating with your audience so that they can connect with you.
One of the temptations that we have is to talk about our services and products because we really want to talk about them because this is the thing we're expert in, but the best way to approach this is to say, "Hey, if you are experiencing this problem, then I have the solution for you." A lot of business owners, including us at times, it wouldn't be wrong for us to say, "If you need a website, we're the right people for you," but what would be even better for us to say is if you are a service-based business that is trying to make your website your best salesperson, then we can help you build a website that is easy to edit and maintain. See, just that switch, it makes it really clear who we're talking to and what we can do for as opposed to just like, "If you have a business, then come get a website from us."
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, or usually when someone asks me, someone just asks me actually at the gym the other day, "What do you do?" and it's just like, "Ah, I make websites. I make logo." I just go right into my products and services instead of saying, "Hey, if you are," and starting with you and starting with the problem like you just did, that's the better way to do it. Yes, I love that.
Raj Lulla:
So one of the ways that we can test this, that's what takes us to the next point here is repeat it early often and online. If you are trying to test this message, do a bunch of posts about it on LinkedIn if that's the right platform for you if you're business to business. If you are trying to sell consumers, do it on Instagram or TikTok or wherever and repeat it early and often. Do it online. Maybe do little tweaks and adjustments and then see what's working.
There's a bunch of parenting consultants out there and they have things like, "Is nap time a struggle? Is it hard to get your ..."
Ben Lueders:
You got me. That's my problem.
Raj Lulla:
Is it hard to get your kid to go down to bed? Then they have other ones like, "Is your kid refusing to eat," or it's really specific problems and then they find a way to tie it all together to, "Well, your child is actually responding to the way that you are talking to them, and so what you actually need to do is stop, slow down. The problem's not the child, it's you. It's the way you're interacting with them," and then they coach you how to do it in a better way.
Ben Lueders:
Just as you're saying that though, it's just striking me afresh how specific our problems are. You know what I mean? The thing about problems is they're never very, just these general ethereal thing. I mean, you may have this vague existential crisis from time to time, but it manifests in very specific things. Just like you're saying that, it's like, "No, my kid will not take a nap," this kind of stuff, "They won't eat their food," or whatever it is. It's a very specific thing, and then we've all had that where we bond with people who have similar problems.
You know what I mean? That's so much of what friendships and relationships and stuff are. It's like, "Dude, that stresses me out too." Mine is it drives me crazy when my kids are picky about a certain type of food, and I know I've bonded with other parents about it. It's like, "Yeah, they won't eat their whatevers too," and it's like, "What is up with that? They used to love this."
Raj Lulla:
Even if the parent doesn't have that problem, it's sometimes like, "My kids are freak. They love broccoli."
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, but it's still specific though, and that's the thing is it's just interesting that these things are so specific and yet we still can have a tendency to try to be so unspecific.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, because I mean, even take a problem that seems really broad, "I need money." Okay. That problem is actually a lot more specific than you think because, is it I need $10 or I need $10,000 or $10 million?
Ben Lueders:
$10 million.
Raj Lulla:
... and by when? In my lifetime, by tomorrow, and for what purpose? For a surgery or for a candy bar or-
Ben Lueders:
Right. Well, and as you know, anyone who's worked on their own personal finances, I've had times I'm like, "Man, I need to be making more money," and then I look at it's like, "No, I need to be spending less money. I need to be saving more money," or, "I need to stop eating out so much." You start getting much more specific where it's like, "Oh, actually, we just need to be on a budget. We have enough money." So yeah, it's funny how we start really broad and then it's like, "Oh, you start dissecting it," and what happens? It starts getting more clear.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, and in what manner do I need this money? Is it I need it from inheritance through stocks, through work, through a side gig? How do I intend to come about this problem? Whereas let's use an example that's hopefully not too close to home, but it's like, "I need 10% more money from my job before my next child is born."
Ben Lueders:
My wife is due in six days. So yeah, if you could put that in hundred dollars bills in the briefcase and set it on my desk in 30 minutes, that'd be great. Problem solved.
Raj Lulla:
That is a much more specific problem. So if you're a career coach out there and you know that you've helped somebody do that, you've helped a guy named Ben go get a 10% raise-
Ben Lueders:
Very specific.
Raj Lulla:
... right before his next kid was born, then that's the kind of thing that you should put out there online is, "Hey, have you ever had this problem? You're about to have a life change that you know is going to cost you money and you don't know how to go to work and ask for the raise that you really need? I help people get those raises," and then you direct them to a resource of some kind as opposed to, "I'm a career coach."
"Cool, I already have a career, I don't know that I need that right now. Maybe if I lose my job or something, I'll call you."
"No, no, no. I help people who are in the middle of their careers."
"Okay. Well, with what?"
"To make more money."
"In what way? Do you send customers to me?"
So again, get really super specific with those examples. Repeat them online and then measure what works. Measure what's bringing you business and it's like, "You know what? When I wrote that article about how to get a raise, then somebody came in and they hired me for my coaching services and I got that person a raise. So now I've got two of those that I can say almost identical situations. That person's baby was three months out, not six days out," but it's like you get to that point and that's really good brand refinement, and then you can just continue to tell those stories, continue to get those examples so that people like that will come to you.
Doesn't mean you never do anything else. It means that you have to tell people what you do. You have to tell them specifically how you've helped other people be successful because they don't know. They weren't there when you did it, and even if you feel like you've talked about it until you're blue in the face, you haven't. People don't know, they haven't paid attention, and you have to lead with those really specific things that help them understand if they're in the right place.
Ben Lueders:
Okay, Raj, so after our listeners, they've identified this niche, they've really focused in, they've put it online on their website. What else can they do to really help improve their sales?
Raj Lulla:
Have your employees memorize what problem your company solves? So for us, several weeks ago, part of where this came from was we were thinking, "It's been a little while since we've refreshed our website. We should look into that," and that allowed me the occasion to ask our marketing team here point blank, "What does Fruitful do?" I got looks a lot like that.
Ben Lueders:
Don't ask me again. I can't remember.
Raj Lulla:
This is not a knock on them or even a knock on ourselves because Donald Miller says, I think it's in building a story brand, he says, "It's difficult to read the label of the jar that you're in." So this happens to everybody. We're too close to it, but then when we break it down, we get to the heart of the problem. If you and I are the only ones who know it, then that leaves three-fourths of our team who doesn't know it, doesn't know how to articulate it, and they have networks.
Ben Lueders:
Yeah. They may not be a salesperson on your team, but we're all little salespeople. We all represent where we work.
Raj Lulla:
Again, we're trying this out. We're trying to be more clear. We'll probably change it up a little bit, refine it as we go, but I would probably have our employees memorize something like, "We help service-based businesses and nonprofits get out of identity crises so they can reach the right audience, streamline their offerings, and make more revenue."
Ben Lueders:
That's pretty good. Good job.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, thanks. It's not bad, for sure. Now, we might eventually change that to just, "We help service-based business to business organizations reach the right audience and make more sales." So we might refine this even further, but the idea is that identifying that it's really largely service-based businesses and nonprofits that we work well with, places that tend to get locked in these identity crises because of scope creep, because of service creep, and they forget how to talk to the people who really drive the main value of their organization, that's when we're great to come in.
Then talking about those really specific versions of that problem, we could say something like, "We help hospitals launch wellness programs so their providers and staff can care for patients without getting burned out." We're working with-
Ben Lueders:
That's very specific.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, well, we're working with Children's Hospital right now with their wellness program. When we help their wellness team do their job, then people who care for kids don't get burned out, and so kids are healthier, lives are saved. Even when we're talking about the folks in the cafeteria or the folks who clean, it's really important that all of those functions in the hospital work well, and those people aren't getting burned out working in a demanding environment. It should be demanding because it's hard work, but they should know that they have the support to grow and stay healthy there.
Ben Lueders:
That's very satisfying work. It's funny, it ties into some of the non-profit work and stuff that we did before, the good feelings that you get, but-
Raj Lulla:
They are a non-profit. It's funny, so we haven't left who we are. It has evolved over the years, but it really stays true to growing something good. That banner still remains, but we're getting really specific, really clear about how we can help people.
Ben Lueders:
One of the things I love about what you just said, Raj, that you just can't emphasize enough is this idea that it doesn't have to be perfect. You have to try it. Write it out, memorize it, and then tweak it as you go. It's better to get it close and then tweak it as you start testing it, but that's the way that you have to do it sometimes.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. Here are a couple of other ones that we could have our team memorize. "We help B2B service professionals like accountants and consultants rename and rebrand when the business is being handed down from one generation to the next." We've actually done several of these or when the business has been sold, that's another identity crisis moment, but a lot of B2B professional services were named after the founder, and it's often being handed down to a son or daughter who, by the way, may not have the same last name if they got married or whatever. So that could be a problem, but it could also be that the son or daughter doesn't have the same vision for, "I want this to be a family company forever." They may not have kids, so they may not have anybody to hand it down to.
So you wouldn't want to be handed down a business ... It's part of the reason we didn't name this Lueders Graphic Design because we want it to be bigger than that. We wanted to have more of an identity than that so that anybody can feel like they can come work here and not feel like your son's going to have a better chance at becoming president here than them. Although he's very good. He's very good.
Ben Lueders:
Maybe it should have been Lueders then, but it's funny because you say that and it's so specific, accountants and consultants renaming. It's being handed down from one generation to the next and half the people listening are like, "Who is this?" but then the two people listening, they're like, "Oh, that's me." It's like they're picking up the phone.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, not only that, I mean, this is ... Think about this is a huge generation that's retiring right now, huge. Now interestingly, if I'm correct, millennials are actually a larger generation, and so they're the ones inheriting these businesses, but again, they may not want to do this forever or what's happening a lot is you're seeing mergers between one company and another or the son or daughter went and started their own firm, but the parents want to hand down the other firm to them and merge them. So we got a name identity crisis here. There's all sorts of that kind of stuff that's happening, and this is happening a ton. There's so many people without exit plans. So if we just focused on that, we'd probably be like way, way successful-
Ben Lueders:
Let's do it.
Raj Lulla:
... just focusing on just even that one-
Ben Lueders:
I'm changing our website right now. Here we go.
Raj Lulla:
... even that one industry in one situation. So don't discount how much this could happen. Now, of course, pay attention to the data. Is this only one case that you've ever worked on and that there are no others out there like that? There's actually whole firms out there right now who are helping find ... They're matchmaking between accounting firms that are being handed down or that are generational and ones that didn't have an exit plan. So that data is definitely there, and if you're making a transition like that, please let us know and we're happy to help you through that branding crisis.
Ben Lueders:
Call the number at the bottom of your screen right now. All right, Raj, what's a little call to action? What's something that our audience can do right now to help focus their target audience?
Raj Lulla:
So I would say this again is more in the realm of, "Here's some content that you should write or a video that you should make," as opposed to, "I don't think I'd go flip the header on your website right away and change it based off of one client example that you've had."
Ben Lueders:
I'll change it back.
Raj Lulla:
Write down a specific example of a client that you've helped and then just take their name out of it. This is what I talked about earlier in the episode. So if you helped a football player overcome a knee injury so that they could get back to playing the sport that they loved, then, "We help-"
Ben Lueders:
You're so good with these specific examples. No idea where these come from, but anyways, back to you, Raj.
Raj Lulla:
"We help football players overcome knee injuries to get back to playing the sport they love." Saying it like that instead of, "We are a sports medicine clinic," which doesn't necessarily tell people. It's like, "Well, do you work on football players?" I know the questions seem dumb when you get them. Trust me, I know.
Ben Lueders:
Of course, I do.
Raj Lulla:
Again, we get asked 10 years into this business if we make websites and we have been making websites since day one, but it's not our client's fault. There's this book, the Design of Everyday Things, that we talk about sometimes. You know those doors that you walk up to and you push it and then you feel like an idiot because it doesn't open and you're like, "Oh, it's a pool door." This book, Design of Everyday Things, it talks about how that is the fault of the designer, not you, that an experience like opening a door, which every able-bodied adult knows how to do, that person should not feel stupid if something about the visual cues on that made them think that they should push instead of pull. If it didn't have a handle but instead had a plate on it or whatever, there's something about the design of those things that makes us think the wrong thing.
We do that in our businesses all the time. We call ourselves a sports medicine clinic, but we don't say that we work with football players and golfers and baseball players and volleyball players. We have to tell those stories and we have to tell them really specifically, and we have to tell them really often so that our audience hears it. If not, it's not their fault for not hearing it. It's our fault for not saying it and not repeating it clearly and in the right places so that they know that we can help them.
That's what we're all here for. Again, we want to grow something good. The best way that we can do that is get those specific problems that you solve out there. The more traction those things get, you might actually end up specializing in just football knee injuries as your whole practice. It might actually affect the products or services that you offer. It's okay if it doesn't, but if you want to treat every football player who has a knee injury in your town, you have to say that really clearly.
This is the medicine we're taking for ourselves. We're going to be working on this throughout this year, and if you have any issues with that, reach out. We're happy to even just, "Hey, I wrote this headline. Do you think that this is right? Do you think this is specific enough?" Shoot a contact form our way and we're happy to get back to you.
Ben Lueders:
In summary, we messed up, maybe you did too, but it's never too late to focus your attention, to niche down, and to really solve specific problems instead of just talking about your products. Thanks for joining us today on Growing A Fruitful Brand. If you found today's show helpful, don't forget to subscribe and consider sharing it with someone who might also enjoy it. If you'd like to work with Fruitful on a branding website or messaging project of your own, you can always reach out on our website, fruitful.design. So until next time, don't forget to grow something good.
