Issue link: https://docs.hic.us/i/403552
NICHES TO RICHES Or Something Like That! By Jimmy Lamb You're eating dinner in that new Restaurant down the street. You know the one, it's all the rage in cities across the country and it's just now coming to your town. The first thing you notice is the embroidered shirts (of course) that the staff is wearing. Throughout your meal, you concentrate on those logo'd shirts. Your mind is whirring, "let's see, 30 employees, 4 shirts each, thats ummmm.... 120 shirts, multiplied by the number of Restaurants operated across the country, .... gee, that could be thousands of shirts" Now all you can see is green, and it's not the salad! So by the end of your meal, you have no idea what you ate, and don't really care. All you can think about is this potential account. The waiter asks if you would like anything else and you blurt out "the Manager". Now comes the moment of truth, you explain to the Manager that you have an Embroidery Company and would love to do his shirts. A spark of interest flickers in his eyes, and you begin to see dollar symbols dancing in the air as he answers you with "sure I'd be interested in talking with you, what do you charge for a shirt like this one, with our logo." You do a quick mental calculation and come up with a really great price, maybe a little low, but you don't care, not with this type of potential volume. So you confidently reply "we can do that for $16.50 per shirt". The Restaurant Manager replies "How much!!??" It dawns on you that maybe you were just a tad bit low, but you repeat the price "$16.50 per shirt". There's a brief pause, and you try to read his face for clue to his thoughts. Then his smile begins to change into a snicker and he replies "that's awfully high, we pay $9.50 per shirt". Suddenly, all interest is gone from his eyes. He quickly changes gears, thanks you for dining, then moves on. Of course, you are in shock, the words "$9.50 a shirt" echoing in your head. How did he get shirts for that? You can't even buy blanks for that low. All of those dollar signs have now changed into a black cloud over your head. You trudge out of that horrible new Restaurant, discouraged and full of doubt about your Embroidery Company's future. Has this happened to you? It has to me, so I know the feeling. Unfortunately, this is a very common occurrence with new Embroiderers. They all go after the same "highly visible" accounts, only to find that they are locked out, price-wise. Worse yet, some of them spend many fruitless hours trying to match impossible prices. My advice to this is "if you can't compete in a given market, then find another one!" While quite a few markets are saturated, there are so many more that haven't even been touched. Take the initiative and look for some of these untapped potentials, and then cultivate them into a successful Niche Market. Don't beat your head against the wall trying to compete on an uneven playing field. Work smarter, not harder! It took me a while to heed this advice, but eventually I turned my efforts toward Niche Marketing, and never looked back. In my thirteen years of business, I www.hsi.us care@hsi.us 114