Jack of All Trades or Master of One?


If you are launching a service business, you have choices: 
  1. Be everything to everyone
  2. Be very targeted with a niche service to a small subset
  3. Be some combination of the above



There are benefits to being a generalist, but in our experiences, building a business as specialist, allows focus scaling. In fact, it is the only way to start a business.

The benefits of providing "general" services include the ability to adapt to new opportunities in a streamlined way.  Your target market is huge and endless. But it is impossible to target such a large landscape as a startup.

The benefits of providing a "specialized" service is most apparent when you get started. The focus helps you identify the target customer making it easier to grow your customer base. Very soon, you will have potential customers knocking on your door inquiring about your services. Additionally, it is very easy to say "no" to business that doesn't fit your mold and it is easy get even better in your niche.  This makes it possible to grow organically and compete with larger incumbents in your space.

Is your business providing general services or specialized services? Let us know in the comments below.

1 comment:

Christian Plaschy said...

Hi, it always depends... With our Social Music Network http://plaschymusic.com our target customers are music lovers between 16 and 30 years old. But everybody older than 16 years old is very welcome as nearly everybody likes to listen to music! When do YOU register there?

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