| One of the hardest transitions you must go through when you first start your online business, is the evolution from generalist to specialist. I suspect right now you're building a generalist business. I can say this with confidence because literally every person I have coached to start a new online business can't help but start with a generalist focus. I made the same error myself with every online business I ever built. Take for example my first six figure business, an editing company called BetterEdit.com (I sold it years ago). When I started the business I thought to myself the key to making money was to appeal to as many different groups of people to sell my English editing services. I went after the corporate market, the job-seeker market, the academic market, and offered everyone 'generic editing services'. Some work trickled in, but it was hardly enough money to live off. Over time I learned that I was making a big mistake. If I wanted to grow my business I had to present a specific message to a specific client. To put it simply, I had to specialize. My gut reaction to this idea was... "No, why would I deliberately cut my business off from potentially lucrative markets?" Of course since I was making virtually no money at all, I wasn't exactly cutting myself off from anything. It took a couple of years, but eventually I saw the light and narrowed-in. I started by narrowing from 'everybody' to just academic writing. I then narrowed-in further, targeting international students coming from a non-English speaking background, studying at English universities in Australia, Canada, the USA and England. This one change made all the difference. Suddenly marketing my business became significantly easier because I could focus all my content on just one type of person. I also knew exactly what this target market wanted - better grades from the papers they wrote. This made my marketing even more powerful because I could link my service to an outcome they were desperate for. After this change my business quickly grew to over $100,000 a year in sales. It would not have happened if I didn't specialize. How You Can Find Your Speciality One of the techniques I used to begin narrowing my business to a speciality is a concept I today call 'True Empathy'. I was able to narrow in on a specific target market for my editing business because I understood what these people wanted. I was a student myself and I had partnered with international students to write group assignments. This gave me a unique insight into the problems students faced. I could empathize with them, I knew where they were coming from emotionally, and I knew why they were suffering. If you're not making money with your business now, or you're struggling to figure out what to focus your new business on, your primary job is to gain true empathy about the people you want to serve. This is the path to go from generalist to specialist. When you understand and make the deliberate choice to service just one group of people with a specialized product, your business will take off... - It will make your marketing so much more powerful because you can zero-in on exactly what one group wants
- Your products will get better and better because you focus your time and resources on helping just one group
- It will be easier to get new customers because your current customers will be so happy they will refer you to their friends
- You won't feel lost and confused about how to sell what you offer, because it will be very clear exactly what you sell and who you sell it to
The hardest part of this process is first committing to a specialty, meaning you have to say NO to a lot of other markets. Your gut will tell you that you're missing out on a ton of money by doing this. I suggest you ask yourself... Are you making any money now to justify this reaction? Once you make the commitment to specialize, you will discover that you simply don't know enough about your market yet to do so. You lack the necessary true empathy to define your market in such a specific way. That's okay, because the answers are out there, you just need to do the research. This is where I come in. My new training program just released is specifically designed to teach you how to specialize and how to find and learn about the perfect customer for you. It's called The Blog Money Finder, and it's on special for the launch week (ending this Monday). 
You can take this short introductory course right now, then go out there and apply what you learn to find the perfect customer for you. Here is the link: This is a starter program. It's not long. You can study it in one day. 50% Discount This Week Only As a special for the launch week of The Blog Money Finder I am offering the program at half price - it's just $99 instead of the regular $199 price. The 50% discount will end next Monday night at midnight Eastern USA time. Don't miss out on this training, especially if you've never turned a profit online, or you're struggling to get started. Talk to you soon, Yaro Starak
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com | 
Hi! I'm Yaro Starak. I've been living the laptop lifestyle thanks to blogging since 2005.
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