Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Sherry Auble Founder of Savvy Women & Wealth -Selecting the Best Niche to Market To

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

Sherry grew up in a struggling blue-collar family where money was scarce and at times, nonexistent. But she was determined to create a better and more fulfilling life for herself and she had been able to do that with the gift of perseverance and resilience. She had her share of knocks, but she always get up and push on. Sherry thinks it’s that kind of determination that enabled me to work for Premier Wall.Street firms and Fortune 500 companies in business development. In fact, one of her greatest accomplishments was growing a financial advisory practice from the ground up to a $25 million portfolio of high-net-worth clients. She learned a lot about the fundamentals of building a successful online business and that’s what she wants to do for today’s women entrepreneurs through my new Savvy Women’s Business Academy.Today, her mission is to take all my training, experience, talents, and gifts to help women professionals to escape their 9-5 and start their dream business and grow it to 6 figures and beyond!Learn More:https://savvywomenandwealth.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-sherry-auble-founder-of-savvy-women-wealth-selecting-the-best-niche-to-market-to

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have back with us Sherry Obel, who's the founder of Savvy Women and Wealth. and we're talking today about selecting the best niche to market two. Sherry, welcome back to the program. Thank you, Mike.

You know, we're just kind of continuing in our series here of your work with your clients. And it's just really amazing that so many people fall into the trap of, I do this thing, this service, this product, and certainly the whole world needs it or certainly this huge mass audience needs it. And it's a struggle. I think that a lot of people, feel like everyone needs my widget, my thing. But that becomes a trap because when you try to be all things to all people, you're nothing to nobody. So talk a little bit about your approach to

helping your clients understand how to really dial in and attract the right target audience. Well, thank you for having me again. You kind of stole my one liner that I was going to start with. But the reason why I wanted to kind of talk about this is there's so much. confusion out there about marketing and all the different terminology and sometimes they're used interchangeably. And I think that's where some of the confusion comes up. And I just hope to be able to clear a little bit of that up today. So there is an old saying that, you know, it still holds true today. If you're selling to everyone, then you're selling to no one. And when business, you can't possibly be all things to all people or you're not going to be running a very profitable business.

business. So just to give an example, if say you were selling fitness apparel and you have a limited marketing budget, we all do. So to reach and try to convert those people who need workout clothes, you wouldn't say want to spend a whole lot of your marketing budget on couch potatoes that have little to no interest in working out, let alone buying specific clothes for it. The better way is to focus your dollars on the people who are the most interested in buying from you. That's a huge point because, yes, the couch potato might feel like, oh, I'll buy that piece of workout apparel to make me feel a little bit better about myself. But that's going to be once in a blue moon.

But the fitness enthusiast is going to be more attracted to that. And then what about going even deeper than that? How might grow should you niche? because in that example, I'm thinking, well, yes, fitness oriented people, that still is really broad. So what if it's male fitness oriented people? And that could be really broad. What if it's male fitness oriented people that do CrossFit? So I mean, how deep do you go? So it's like you're reading my mind again. So think of it. I like to think of it like an upside down triangle where the very top is the biggest opening. So at the very top, that is what you want to think of as your target market. The most broad group of people who you think would be interested in your brand,

that you can then use your targeting marketing dollars to focus on. So let's take the fitness apparel example. Say you might decide to include some different segments of the market like fitness enthusiasts or athletes or people who like to lead an active lifestyle. So by identifying those specific segments of the much bigger, broader market, you can actually be more efficient and effective with your time, your money, and your efforts by focusing your messages directly to those people. Huge, huge point there, because why do we want to waste our time and spin our wheels? And it's like the old saying, you know, you're a master of all tree, or you're a Jack of Altrey's

master of none. And if you try to speak the same message to all the people, that male fitness enthusiast who does CrossFit isn't going to resonate with the broad message. And it saves you money. It saves you energy because the energy could be, I'm so frustrated that my marketing campaign isn't working. Well, it's not working because you're not tapping the right person on the shoulder. That's right. So then you want to think of just below where it starts to get narrower on that upside down. triangle, then just below that is your target audience. That's an even narrower approach where you're

looking at specific segments, again, to focus your marketing on, where you can use more personalized messaging. Because by identifying these particular people, you're going to find the ones that are most likely to respond positively and to your marketing and actually become customers. So again, in the fitness apparel example, say your target audience is female athletes and maybe you want to just target between the ages of 25 and 35. So that's going to be a very different message to say the marketing message than it would be if you were targeting, you know, 45 to 65. So you can start to see like they're going to have specific performance wear that they want to buy and that they're interested in and maybe even brands that

they're interested in and, you know, the features and the benefits of it versus a different type of audience. 100%. You know, it reminds me of the example of Nike back in the day. Nike made shoes, you know, athletic shoes, but they started targeting urban youth and basketball enthusiasts. And then they decided who would best represent that. And this was back in the day of Michael Jordan. So let's use him as the influencer. And back then they didn't even call it influencer marketing. It's just like they look up to Michael Jordan. Good. Let's let's do that. Then they created the Air Jordan. And all of a sudden now, here's a shoe company that could have created dress shoes, casual shoes, sandals, flip-bops, but they wanted to focus on urban youth and basketball enthusiasts so they

picked Michael Jordan. They named a shoe after him. And now all of a sudden, it developed that brand identity. And if we could, you know, kind of hit rewind back in time and go, look, Nike, I'm just advertise tennis shoes for people that like basketball would not have had the same impact as the Air Jordans did. That's right. And that makes such an important point because it affected everything that they were doing from the branding to the messaging to they were marketing to. And Ted Nike decided to take a different direction, completely different direction. They could be maybe a non-existent company right now and someone else take the top market share, but they focused on that very popular, well-liked icon that everybody wants to be like Mike,

and they're messaging everything out and flowed from that. And that's why they've become such a profitable company. Now, back then and even now, that does not mean that if someone came to Nike and said, oh, I need a pair of tennis shoes. Oh, I'm sorry, we don't sell tennis shoes. We only sell shoes for people that are, no. So it doesn't mean that you're abandoning your other clients or people that could use your product or service. It just means that for this specific campaign, we're taking our brand and really targeting it to whatever, fill in the blank, like the fitness enthusiast. like, but you still sell clothes and you're not going to turn people down.

It's just that you're really dialing in your messaging to really attract those people. And I think that's a fear that some people have. If I say that I only work with so-and-so of a target market, then it's going to not attract the people that, you know, I would like to work with as well. And that's not the case. I think that if anyone out there was not a basketball enthusiast and knew who Michael Jordan was, but they're like, nah, I still would like to just play basketball on the weekends, they still might buy an Air Jordan shoe or any other kind of tennis shoe.

So talk a little bit about how zeroing in on that target market is a smart strategy, but it doesn't mean you're turning your back on other people that could buy your product or service. That's exactly right. And that's one of the things I face in my business and helping women business coaches, especially new coaches, and they just want to sell their product to everyone. well, they think that they're missing out somehow on this big market share if they're not getting the word out to everyone, when in fact those other people will find you in your business.

All we're saying is you have such a limited marketing budget. Now, if you have an endless budget and want to spend millions of dollars and you have it, have at it. But this is a way to use your marketing dollars the most effective and efficient to get to the people that are most likely to buy. from you. Those other people will still buy from you. It's not like you're not going to sell to them. But that's why I think it's really important up front as well. Something I teach is to develop your ideal client profile. Now, some people might refer to it as a buyer persona. So basically what you're doing is developing a very detailed representation of what that ideal customer looks like. And you include things like demographic information, the age range you're wanting to deal with.

Why does that matter? Because when you get to the part where you're marketing, if those, if you're targeting someone again that's between the ages of, you know, 20 to 35, you're going to be in a different marketing channel than if you're, say, marketing to people that are much older than that. So it does matter. You want to look at their income range. They're income. range, their education level, their occupation. But demographics are a smaller portion of what is really important in a client profile these days. It's more about the psychographics and behavioral characteristics.

We're talking about personality traits, their lifestyle they live, their values and beliefs. What motivates them? Yeah, because knowing all of that just makes you be able to make more. focused and messaging that speaks directly to them that really resonates with them. There's a lot of competition, as you said out there in the market today. You want to be the one that they choose. And you first got to be able to attract them. And you've got to have something that attracts them to you.

And that's through your marketing messages that you're getting out there every day. And in that ideal client profile, avatar, whatever we want to call it, you're doing a lot of research. And guess what? AI and chat GPT can help with that research. But you need to guide the technology. You can't just push a button and say, tell me, you need to guide the technology. But once you have this profile, and like you said, psychographics, demographics,

geographics, what part of the country are they in if that even applies to your product? Now you figure out where do they interact online and offline. So offline might be, oh, well, I sell whatever widget. And I'm going to join the, you know, Northeastern, you know, association of because I know they have quarterly meetings. But then at the same time, those same people can congregate online in forums or social media groups, Facebook, LinkedIn, things like that. But then once you know who your target audience is, you know how to speak to them because you're listening to them. And to your point, if they're 25 to 35, they're going to use certain phraseology that a 75 year old wouldn't or 65 or 55. So you need to know that because then it's going to all feel very congruent.

And I think that now you're bringing up such huge points from a marketing perspective. People hear, oh, yeah, yeah, and this market, okay, right. But you're telling people now why to do it and how to do it. That's right. And you have to remember, too, that buyers are so much more sophisticated than they were 10, 20 years ago. Some of this, I'm telling you, if you, I hate it. working for companies where I had to read a script, Mike, I always, I was like a, you know, I always wanted to break the rules. I wanted to develop my own script because I hated how canned and how it just

sounded so bad that I always wanted to come up with my own take on it. And I think that that's even more so now. If you're talking to a buyer and you're using these catchy, salesy marketing phrases to them, they're going to spot it a mile away and you're going to turn them off. These buyers today, they know what they want, they know they have lots of choices. That's why marketing and niching is so important today more than any other time in our history. 100%. And from a marketer, as I am hearing you say these things, it is very basic and foundational that this is not some, you know, special high tech.

No, this is just basics of marketing. It makes me think what's next. And the phrase CLTV or CLV comes in, customer lifetime value. Meaning, once you have this dialed in, you don't just sell them this one product or service and go, thank you buy and go get the next one. You deliver such wonderful service and delivery and results and value that they want to come back. And again, whatever the product or service is. It might be they need to buy monthly. They might need to buy weekly.

They might need to buy a different variation of what you have. So talk a little bit about developing that relationship so that the lifetime, long-term value, starts adding up. And then you're not having to remark it and spend marketing dollars to them because you're just pleasing them and providing for their needs. Right. And, you know, again, you mentioned customer service. And both online and offline, I've seen a lot of examples. of really good client experiences and really, like, they're kind of doing a one and done and

they're not really paying enough attention to it. So I think there's a lot of room for improvement with just having that wonderful world-class red carpet client experience. That's definitely a component. But the ongoing nurturing, and this gets a little bit into using some really good, strong technology in your business. But having that ongoing relationship by gathering information about them, their likes, their dislikes, what went wrong, what went right. You know, there's a lot of wonderful data when you start delivering to the customer that you could be collecting to help not only provide a great, you know, post-sale client experience, but also develop new product offerings to be able to bring to market that they like to fit an unmet need.

So there's definitely some, you know, CRM, client relationship management software out there. That goes a long way to help streamline your processes and make it, you know, just a little bit easier to get your messaging out there and then collect the data, analyze the data. You always want to be doing that. If you're not doing that as part of your business, you're missing a huge opportunity. Because, again, the competition is so fierce now. You've got to find ways every day. Like, how can I improve?

How can I make this better? How can I get more attention? How can I close more clients? There's definitely, there's messages in the data. 100%. And sometimes you are too close to the forest to see the trees. You might know. understand these things and you might get a rough draft started, but sometimes you need an outside

perspective to come alongside you to guide you on where to get that research. And then, oh, I see what you started with that ideal client profile. So, hey, what if we tweaked it by saying this? And some of the messaging that I think would resonate with them would be, so talk a little bit about some of the benefit you bring to your clients on helping them first, like what you've said here, understand why this is important, but then make sure they get it done the right way. Well, yeah, that leads into what I do. I'm a business coach for women entrepreneurs, either new to the market, just starting their business or existing women entrepreneurs that are kind of stagnant in their sales and their income and they're trying to figure out what's going on. Having that outside source and that expertise, someone who's already done it, that that can fast track your income so quickly.

spot what the roadblocks are, what's in the way, what needs to be more streamlined, where do you need some processes? So some of the main components I try to cover when I'm going through, you know, when I'm analyzing someone's business and trying to see how I can help them is I'm looking at their marketing planning, their sales planning, their branding, is their branding consistent. Is it carried through everything that they're doing? We talk a little bit about storytelling. It's so powerful to add that to your marketing and to your business to make that strong connection with people. And then also mindset, it's so huge. You know, you can gather all the most wonderful information in the world and have it all like ready to go. But if you have these

obstacles to selling, obstacles and mindset blocks to marketing, then you're not going to move forward. There's always going to be a reason why you move a few steps forward and then it takes you back. So in my new program, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to have a comprehensive sort of like business school atmosphere where they can come get all that business acumen and upgrade their skills when it comes to business so that they can get out there and do whatever their thing is, what their dream business is. That's what they want. They want to get out there and get their customers and that's what they're doing this for, why they left corporate America or their, you know, full-time job. They want to have their dream business and ultimately have

that financial freedom. 100% and having someone to look over their shoulder, you know, them by the hand and guide them and say, look, I've made these mistakes. Here's how to avoid them. And that's invaluable. So, Sherry, it's been a real pleasure having you on here talking today about the power of target market niche marketing. So if someone is interested in learning more and also reaching out and connecting with you, what's the best way that they can do that? So I do have a free master class coming up. It's going to be online where I'll be talking about what my five-step online business profit formula is and all the strategies and techniques that the gurus are using to get their business to six figures and beyond.

And that's going to be coming up shortly. So if you want to get in on that free class, you can just email directly at savvy women and wealth at gmail.com. And you can also connect with me on my website at savvywomeninwealth.com. I love it. Well, thank you so much, Sherry. It's been a real pleasure having you back on today. And thank you, Mike. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.

www.influential Entrepreneurs Radio.com.