How to Stand Out in a Crowded World – In Just 7 Minutes with John Williams

Resources/Links:

• John William’s 3- Part Mini Video Series: Creative Niching for Entrepreneurs: visit theideaslab.org/creativeniching

Summary

John Williams is the founder of The Ideas Lab and author of best-selling books Screw Work Let’s Play & Screw Work Break Free. He is formerly a creative technologies expert, and then senior managing consultant at Deloitte. John helps entrepreneurs turn their ideas and expertise into #1 businesses, books, and brands.

In this episode, John shares a method of creative niching to help guide entrepreneur and experts overcome roadblocks so they can get on track with their business and to stand-out and be #1 in the crowded business world.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:44 – John’s ideal client: one is somebody who has some real scale in their subject but they want to turn their ideas and expertise into a number one business, book, or brand, as you mentioned. But also, people right in the beginning account in a corporate job.
• 02:10 – Problem he helps solve: Struggle to standout.
• 02:52 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to John: They’re going to notice that there’s a lot more competition around in pretty much every market. They’re going to see that people are quibbling about their price.
• 03:40 – Common mistakes people make when trying to solve that problem: I think when people first feel that kind of price pressure or the scarcity of work, they go more general.
• 04:25 – John’s Valuable Free Action(VFA): I would recommend thinking about your super niche. So, it’s not just enough to say I niche into this industry or into women between 30 and 50. That’s what people describe to me as a niche. It’s not a real niche. You need a super niche which is something really specific.
• 05:10 – John’s Valuable Free Resource(VFR): http://theideaslab.org/creativeniching

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“People are finding themselves commoditized. Even if you got lots of skills, you're finding that people are just buying you on price instead of comparing you against the next person who does X or Y.” -@johnsw Click To Tweet “You need a super niche which is something really specific...And then once you’ve got really successful in that area where you could do that have the most impact then you can expand from there.”-@johnsw Click To Tweet

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland: Hello everyone. A very warm welcome to another edition of Market The Invisible. My name is Tom Poland. Beaming out to as always from on the sand next to the waves a little Castaways Beach in Queensland, Australia. Joined today by John Williams. John a very warm welcome. Where are you…where are you hanging out?

John Williams: Hi Tom. I’m in London. I’m in east London at the moment and this is quite early for me to get started.

Tom Poland: Hope you had a strong espresso and enjoying the cricket. Cricket World Cup.

John Williams: I pay no attention to sports, I’m afraid. That’s dead and dry…

TTom Poland: That’s a very short conversation. Excellent.

John Williams: I’ve had a very strong coffee just to…good to go.

Tom Poland: Excellent. You’re good to go. You got some caffeine in the veins; we are good to go. Folks for those of you who don’t know John, he’s a very interesting person. He’s the founder of the Ideas Lab. Works with a lot of creative people. He’s the author of “Screw Work, Let’s Play” and “Screw Work, Break Free”.

John Williams: Yeah.

Tom Poland: Great titles. Now translated into 10 languages. So, John is a former creative technologies expert which is a fascinating combination. Then senior consultant at Deloitte, one of the big ones. Now helps entrepreneurs turn their ideas and expertise into a number one bestselling books, brands, and businesses. Fabulous. Can’t wait. John our title is, I’m going to ask you to tell folks, “How to Stand Out in a Crowded World”. I’m going to ask you to do that in just seven minutes and our time is going to start now. Question number one is who’s your ideal client?

John Williams: I have a couple of different people, one is somebody who has some real scale in their subject but they want to turn their ideas and expertise into a number one business, book, or brand, as you mentioned. But also, people right in the beginning account in a corporate job. They want to get out, they want to get started, and they want to make sure it works.

Tom Poland: Perfect. Thank you. Question number two, six and a half minutes left. What’s the problem you solve for them?

John Williams: The problem is really on how to stand out. I think people are finding themselves commoditized. Even if you got lots of skills, you’re finding that people are just buying you on price instead of comparing you against the next person who does X or Y. So, I’m helping people to get around that and actually stand out.

Tom Poland: Perfect. Six minutes left, question three. We’ve got this person who’s probably very very good at what they do. But feels like the kind of the world’s best-kept secret because they’re perceived to be pretty much the same as their competitors, which is not true. How do they know that their fitting into that category? If someone’s listening to this right now, what are some of the symptoms they’re going to be experiencing?

John Williams: They’re going to notice that there’s a lot more competition around in pretty much every market. They’re going to see that people are quibbling about their price. They’re going to be comparing them against other people, so, they’re going to be shopping. Whereas if you actually stand out in the right way, then people come to you because you’re the only person that does what you do in the way that you do it.

Tom Poland: Oh nice. So, we’ve got question number four, just five and a quarter minutes left. So, we’ve got someone who’s become aware of the problem. They’re experiencing those symptoms and they’re going to try to find some solutions. But they’re probably going to make some mistakes before they get to you. So, question number four is, what are some of the common mistakes that people make trying to solve their issue before they find you?

John Williams: I think when people first feel that kind of price pressure or the scarcity of work, they go more general. So, it may actually go in the opposite direction. So, they say, “Well I’ll take anything”. Whereas in actual fact, the best thing to do is go the opposite way and say, “This is exactly who I will work with and who I’m most interested in”. And go and seek those people out because then you have a much stronger story to tell them.

Tom Poland: Okay. And I don’t know if that’s preempted question number five. But a question of a five, with four minutes 20 seconds left is, what’s one valuable free action that someone with this problem could take that’s going to take them a step closer? Not solve the whole problem but it’s going to take them a step closer to being perceived as being differentiated.

John Williams: I would recommend thinking about your super niche. So, it’s not just enough to say I niche into this industry or into women between 30 and 50. That’s what people describe to me as a niche. It’s not a real niche. You need a super niche which is something really specific. And if we look at how some of the biggest companies in the world started. Amazon started by only selling books. Facebook started by only being available to people at Harvard University. And then once you’ve got really successful in that area where you could do that have the most impact then you can expand from there.

Tom Poland: Perfect. Super niche. So, three and a half minutes left, question number six. What’s one valuable free resource that we could direct people to that’s going to help them even further?

John Williams: Well a lot of people bulk at the idea of niching or they’ve done it but haven’t really done it properly. That they’ve just sorted to opts. So, I put together a video series called “Creative Niching”. So particularly with people, they actually hate to focus. Or they worry that if they focus, they’re going to get bored. Or they worry that if a niche bend, they’re going to end up with something that doesn’t work. I put together a series for people which I think you’ve got linked for.

Tom Poland: Fabulous.

John Williams: Called “Creative Niching” and it’s three videos which is full of my best advice on that.

Tom Poland: So www.theideaslab.org/creativeniching. We’ll have the link under the video. But for those of you who are listening to us on podcast “the ideas lab dot org forward-slash creative niching”. Thanks for that John. I have looked at it, it looks fabulous. Question number six, and we got a little…we got the luxury of time for this. Two and a half minutes left. What’s the one question I should have asked you but didn’t?

John Williams: Well I’m fascinated by what distinguishes the people who succeed in business and the people that don’t. And I think the people who succeed, I have a couple of things, they have a clear brand and they have a clear proposition. And then they opt-in marketing. When you get those things right, marketing becomes an awful lot simpler. That doesn’t mean that you don’t have to do any as you and I know you’ve always got to market yourself. But the stronger your brand is, the stronger your proposition, the more distinctive you are. It’s like somebody once said that, “Marketing is the tax you pay for being unremarkable”. So, the more remarkable you are and the more you stand out, the more people will come to you. The more bang you’ll get for every buck you spend on marketing. So, the people who really succeed they’ve got one thing, particularly at the beginning, one thing people really really want whether that’s a service, package, products of some kind. And then they’ve got a brand which is really distinctive. And they’re willing to turn off 90 percent of people in order to have 10 percent of people (who) really love them. And I think that’s tha…so that question of that the people who get it wrong are the people who say, “Well I better just accept anybody because that will get me more results”, and in actual fact that dooms them to failure.

Tom Poland: The exact opposite. Smaller the niche, the bigger the bank account.

John Williams: Yeah.

Tom Poland: John Williams thanks so much for your time. Valuable advice.

John Williams: Thank you, Tom.

Tom Poland: Cheers.

Tom Poland: Thanks for checking out our marketing the invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.