Positioning for Profit

In his book Positioning for Professionals, Tim Williams discusses how professional firms are more profitable if they focus on specific skills. They become true experts in their chosen field and are able to reduce the competition, increase pricing, and simply make more money.

As the book says: “There is no such thing as full service.” How is it possible to be great at all things? We don’t want to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Someone once said that you can’t ride two horses at the same time.

Do we want to be good or great?

If we are the masters of a focused area how can the competition keep up? When you have a heart problem do you go to a general practitioner or a heart specialist?

If we focus:

• We are able to have clear criteria for identifying the type of customers we want.
• We are able to reduce the win ratio when marketing and soliciting new business.
• We are able to set a clear direction for spending by focusing on improving our specific skills.

There is an old saying that says: “Dominate or drop out.” Let’s stop marketing ourselves as full, complete, or end-to-end service. Let’s focus on becoming true experts who dominate our area of expertise, and increase our profits.