040 Tad Hargrave | When the Niche is Unclear Everything is a Struggle

Marketing is a critical component to business success. In it’s simplest terms, marketing is all about awareness and attention.

Well, Tad Hargrave totally gets it and today we dive DEEP into niching. I am on a mission to interview everyone that has a book on “niching” and that includes the pending publishing of Tad’s new book “The Niching Spiral”. We go back to the time before Tad had his niche and the struggles he had. We look at how Tad discovered that he is a hippie that does marketing for hippies. Listen in to the interview as we uncover the critical elements of finding your niche.

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Tad’s Target Audience: Tad’s target market can be divided into three groups: holistic practitioners, life coaches and permaculturists. In general, Tad says he works with hippies and conscious entrepreneurs.

Tad Hargrave says he is a hippie who developed a knack for marketing and then had to learn to be a hippie again! He got his start in marketing when he took sales courses and found he was turned off by most of what they taught. At the time he was an “anarchist” who was very anti-capitalism, yet saw there was a marketing need for mom and pop retail shops and green-friendly businesses.

Though he had no retail experience, Tad gave it a shot. Through time and effort, he found these two industries were not his niche but two other groups of people continued to show up at his marketing workshops even though he never marketed to them: holistic practitioners and life coaches.

He discovered he could relate to their experiences and their stories.  Sensing an opportunity to truly serve an audience, Tad began marketing to them. At first his marketing was with the personal brand of his name. But soon he began telling people he was in the business of marketing for hippies. A light bulb went off and he grabbed the web site domain name. “Marketing for Hippies” was born and Tad has never looked back.

Tad has learned a tremendous amount about niching for himself and for his clients throughout his journey. And he shares as much of it as he can in this interview. We go into the seven steps of a niching spiral, which is a fascinating process designed to narrow down your market. Tad also talks about how who you are, what you’ve experienced in your life along with your talents combine to define the work you do in the world and how you make your mark.

In this episode, here’s what we’ll cover:

• You know you have found a good target market when _____ (fill in the blank).
• Why selling to everybody doesn’t work, in Tad’s words.
• The lesson of Sherwood Forests.
• What is the niching spiral? Tad defines it.
• An artist spiral vs. an entrepreneur spiral.
• The 7 steps of the niching spiral.
• The good, the bad, the ugly and the inspiring: their importance.
• Why niche interviews are important.

Practical & Actionable (at [29:35]):

On the practical and actionable side of things, Tad suggests that when you find your target market and your niche you make sure you can tell their stories. You have to know their experience, more so than just what you think they need.

The best way to do this is to do niching interviews. Sit down with your best offer for your ideal group and then you sit down one on one with someone who somebody who best represents that target market. And you check your assumptions, you test them.

The response you want is “Yes, I want that!”.

RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS SESSION INCLUDE:

• Tad’s web site
• Niching Spiral: Tad’s upcoming book
• Tad on Twitter
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To give Tad a shout out for being on the show, follow him and send him a message: Tad Hargrave. Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter at @genehammett and let me know what you liked about the episode!

Do you have questions about today’s episode!?!

Did you know that you can apply to chat with me by phone? This is a limited time offer to help anyone that is serious about refining their business as well as developing a clear & compelling strategy that will drive them forward. Complete the questions and our team will follow up with you to schedule time for your “Business Breakthrough Session”. These are limited to 30 minutes, completely free and oh, so valuable.  Apply Now!

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