Specialization is 30% decision making and 70% implementation. This investment and learning leads them to focus. Q: How do I know for sure that specialization/my specialization approach will work? You’ll have more clarity about who you need to reach, and you’ll have better ideas about how to reach them. I don’t know if you’ll believe me when I say that no matter how much of an expert you are now, there is a lot more expertise you can cultivate. Implementing Your Specialization Decision. I share the problems that specialization can solve for you, how specialization works, the emotional barriers to specialization, and how to make a good specialization decision. If you know what, you can see beyond first-order relationships into second and third-order effects in the context of a system. Many of us have a low-level imposter syndrome that flares up when we think about claiming that we have real expertise. More than anything, The Fear is a normal response to moving into the unknown. You can combine vertical and horizontal specializations to tighten your focus. It takes years for a specialization decision to become a market position/reputation/brand, and choosing a different beachhead is. My guest on this episode of The Unstoppable CEO Podcast is Philip Morgan, and he’s an expert at specialization. I'm Jonathan Stark. How Permanent is a Specialization Decision? This leads to consistent presence with the market you’re focused on, and this consistency helps you earn visibility and trust more effectively. $1,200 So much more. Specialization guru Philip Morgan joins me to talk about when to niche down and what to do about the fear of doing so. And you can’t. Q: Are there any prerequisites to specialization? You’ve probably heard the labels for some of these small ideas: lead generation, reach, audience size, stages of awareness, and so on. El Prado, NM 87529, Specialization Makes Marketing Work and Helps Us Earn Visibility and Trust, Specialization is a Beachhead, Not Permanent. (How quickly have you forgotten just the name of a person you’ve just met?). My name is Jonathan Stark and I’m on a mission to rid the earth of hourly billing. And if you master one domain, you can scale that mastery into more profitable intellectual property, or you can move up the value chain within your domain. Specializing (choosing a beachhead) offers many advantages: Specialization is a force multiplier. Visibility — being seen by your market — is the precondition to every downstream necessity in marketing. Favor simple, low-tech tools wherever possible. The practitioner's primary taxonomy code is 208VP0000X with license number G56468 (CA). They cannot answer the foundational questions of visibility (who, what, why) if they do not focus in some way. Most of us are intentional practitioners and accidental business owners. There’s no single recipe you can follow that will work for every independent consultant. Buyers can’t buy from you if they don’t know you exist. January 26, 2021 • 45 minutes Joel Pilger - Fostering a Community of Clients. If who is everybody, and what is everything, then the answer to “Why would buyers want to know about you?” is: they won’t. Dictionary.com defines a beachhead as “a secure initial position that has been gained and can be used for further advancement; foothold”. – Listen to Emily Omier - Finding Clients On LinkedIn by Ditching Hourly instantly on your tablet, phone or browser - no downloads needed. Specialization guru Philip Morgan joins me to talk about when to niche down and what to do about the fear of doing so. By: Philip Morgan | October 16, 2019 | 0. They can’t trust you if they don’t know you exist. For most of us, this means choosing a more narrow focus for our business. Once they’ve achieved their purpose, you move on from them to pursue your larger goals. – Listen to Philip Morgan - Specialization Is Never Boring by Ditching Hourly instantly on your tablet, phone or browser - no downloads needed. Most are specialized in some way, and I hope these examples help you better understand how to market your specialized services.A few of these are clients of mine; most are not. It’s free (no opt-in required) and useful. Morgan Philips Group, a public limited company under Luxembourg law with registered office in 74, avenue de la Faïencerie, L-1510 Luxembourg, registered with the Company Trade Register of Luxembourg under the number B 177 178. The first step towards really thriving as an indie consultant is specialization. Those who are successful at earning visibility have invested in learning about who (they are trying to connect with), what (is relevant to them), and why (buyers will care enough to take action). Specialization also increases your revenue through what we might think of as mechanical means. In this interview, Philip Morgan talks about specialization and positioning. Read more about expertise and specialization, Inventory your areas of relative advantage, Use #1 and #2 to develop a shortlist of reasonable specialization options, Apply guardrails to eliminate long-shot specialization options, (Optional) Conduct a live market test to get feedback on your specialization decision. Method: Structured challenges and experiential learning. Specialization is simply deciding to focus (and then actually doing it). You can tweak, refine, or change your specialization decision with ease. Most of you are solopreneurs, and your specialization is a beachhead (Normandy), not the ultimate goal (Europe). Conversations are critical. The rising popularity of the platform attracts talent from lower cost of living areas. Join Facebook to connect with Philip Morgan and others you may know. I subscribe to an awesome email newsletter from Philip Morgan, who specializes in helping technical firms, well… Specialize! How Much Expertise do You Have to Have to Specialize? It’s like making a fast, sharp turn in a sports car vs. trying to make that same fast, sharp turn in a big passenger bus. There might be some small differences between market position, reputation, and brand, but they are truly minor differences. The default response of a human being to hearing what you do for a living is to quickly forget it. That very often makes it easier to secure a good beachhead. ‎My name is Jonathan Stark and I’m on a mission to rid the earth of hourly billing. I’ve profiled some dev shops (as well as agencies and other types of consultants) below based on their web presence. The risk of specializing in a platform is that the platform ecosystem will evolve into a place you don’t want to specialize anymore and then you’ll have to figure out how to pivot. Morgan Philips Group, a public limited company under Luxembourg law with registered office in 74, avenue de la Faïencerie, L-1510 Luxembourg, registered with the Company Trade Register of Luxembourg under the number B 177 178. Philip Morgan is a provider established in Encino, California and his medical specialization is pain medicine (pain medicine) with more than 37 years of experience. Hi, I’m Philip Morgan. They can’t evaluate whether you are trustworthy if they don’t know you exist. Specialization makes our marketing actually work by making it easier to earn more visiblity and trust for our businesses. How Much More Money Can Specialists Make? One is to focus on solving a problem. You’re smart, so pick a good beachhead and trust yourself to figure out the rest as you go. Philip Morgan: There’s two ways of specializing that don’t involve focusing on a particular industry or vertical or even an audience. El Prado, NM 87529. Theoretically they could benefit from specialization on day one of their work as an indie consultant, but in reality if you don’t have a few years of generalist work under your belt first, you will have real difficulty deciding how to specialize because you don’t have firsthand experience with what you’re saying yes or no to. When we specialize, we are very familiar with what we are giving up (novelty) and much less familiar with what we are gaining (deep expertise), and so the loss attention bias causes us to over-focus on the loss and underappreciate the gain. About PHILIP MORGAN. A: You don’t. Today’s guest is Philip Morgan of Philip Morgan Consulting. When you experience that first win, that first move beyond your previous visibility/trust ceiling, you start to believe in and feel the possibilities that specialization unlocks. Please read that now. Better tools won’t help with this learning curve. For these reasons, you can specialize in a market that is smaller than David Baker’s lower limit of 10 competitors/2,000 prospects if you can see a viable path from that beachhead to a right-sized market. Sales will follow, but the market feedback you get from conversations is more important early on. What Size Beachhead for a Specialization? Beachheads build momentum. Every emotion and bias I’ve described above is 100% normal. Finally, the emotion of this bundle of fears (which I simply call The Fear) flares up at the worst possible time. Tweet. Specialization: Get Better Leads and Lead Quality Through Specialization This page contains the TL;DR about specialization for indie consultants. These early wins fortify you for the long haul. Morgan Philips Group, a public limited company under Luxembourg law with registered office in 74, avenue de la Faïencerie, L-1510 Luxembourg, registered with the Company Trade Register of Luxembourg under the number B 177 178. After you specialize the first time, choosing a new or refined specialization the second, third, etc. When platforms are young, they pose a very attractive deal: become an expert in understanding, customizing, implementing, fixing, and/or supporting the platform and the platform owner will help you become niche-famous. I’ve profiled some dev shops (as well as agencies and other types of consultants) below based on their web presence. I’m also fascinated by those who cultivate valuable self-made expertise outside the narrow confines of the licensed … Philip Morgan - Specialization Is Never Boring. The provider is registered as an individual and his NPI record was last updated 5 years ago. As independent consultants, we tend to start out business with above-average skill or expertise in a discipline or a craft. You can enroll in Specialization School for $500, saving you $300. The NPI number of Philip Morgan is 1548211931 and was assigned on May 2006. Imagine that you are tuning an internal combustion engine. Direct response marketing tools are the right ones for speed. Specialization (the Allied beachhead at Normandy) is how you start; a market position (the defeat of the Axis armies in Europe) is your larger goal. He sent out an awesome message today that I think really makes you think about your website content and whether it’s truly clear and effective. Specialization Examples. specialization workshop led by philip morgan. Your market position (aka: positioning) and specialization are related. More of the unknowns related to the platform get figured out, and so the platform ecosystem needs fewer “brains” and more “hands”. After you’ve decided how you will specialize, you’ll find that some of the difficult or confusing parts of building a marketing platform have become easier to figure out. What Does it Actually FEEL Like to be a Specialist? Most are specialized in some way, and I hope these examples help you better understand how to market your specialized services. They are not face tattoos. He and I discuss how to position your business to drive profit and how to … The same amount of modest, journeyman-like visibility-and-trust-earning work applied to a smaller area — fewer people in a smaller, specialized market — produces better results. About PHILIP MORGAN. Outcome: Deeper expertise in the business; more authority in the market. by Ditching Hourly instantly on your tablet, phone or browser - no downloads needed. How do I Craft a CLEAR Positioning Statement? If you have enough expertise to help the average client within your area of focus avoid some pain or make some progress towards an important purpose, you can say you’re an expert. This page contains the TL;DR about specialization for indie consultants. © 2008 – 2021 Philip Morgan Consulting, LLC, 1103 Paseo del Pueblo Norte – Suite 1 #130 A few of these are clients of mine; most are not. I am writing this article for indie consultants. As the platform matures, the deal changes. My work on specialization, cultivating expertise, and monetizing IP helps independent consultants thrive. Share. Focus is necessary to create relevance, and relevance is the prerequisite to visibility. Additionally, we are generally bad at evaluating the actual risk of decisions like this one. 44 min; 26. A: Not really, but I have found that brand new indie consultants benefit from 2 to 3 years operating as a generalist before they specialize. Optimize your marketing to generate conversations. As a result, we are average at earning trust, and this is… fine. These are defaults that are wired into human behavior, and it’s these defaults that cause most marketing to fail. I’ve developed a reliable, repeatable process for deciding how to specialize. This detailed guide — aside from my book — is the most comprehensive description of how specialization works for indie consultants, how to specialize, and what to be prepared for along the way. Specialization guru Philip Morgan joins me to talk about when to niche down and what to do about the fear of doing so. A: This is a relative measurement. Specialization is simply choosing a beachhead. © 2008 – 2021 Philip Morgan Consulting, LLC, 1103 Paseo del Pueblo Norte – Suite 1 #130 Specialization guru Philip Morgan joins me to talk about when to niche down and what to do about the fear of doing so. The Allied forces that secured a beachhead in Normandy, France during WWII were seeking to defeat the Axis armies throughout Europe, not just the defenses at Normandy. I am joined by special guest, very special guest and old friend, Phillip Morgan, Phillip, welcome to the show. Q: How much of a detailed plan do I need to specialize? Specialization decisions are more reversible in a solo business context. If you want to transform your business and career for the better, you need to focus on getting better at earning visibility and trust. A lot of SaaS companies make good money by convincing you that the source of the vaguely sad, disappointed feeling you have when thinking about your marketing is inadequate tooling. My name is Jonathan Stark and I’m on a mission to rid the earth of hourly billing. Building a marketing platform takes time and experimentation. The ability that fundamentally transforms the career of an independent consultant is an ability to earn new visibility and trust. Critically, beachheads shorten learning curves. Philip Morgan - Specialization Is Never Boring Philip Morgan - Specialization Is Never Boring. Specialization allows you to generate more value for your clients, and you can ask for a fair share of that value via your fees. Our clients measure our expertise based on how much pain it helps them avoid or how much progress towards some important purpose is helps them make. You can move from competence to expertise to mastery. When we hit this trust-earning ceiling, we start to get more interested in understanding how trust is built. Specialization School is an $800, 4-week online workshop. It makes us feel the decision was bad (it probably wasn’t) when in reality we’re feeling The Fear right before we start implementing because implementation is what makes the decision real. You can understand the patterns that are common to these systems. Philip Morgan is a provider established in Lihue, Hawaii and his medical specialization is counselor (mental health) . That’s his ‘Previous Customer Only’ pricing. They help you keep building and investing because you have physical evidence that your investment can pay off. Attorney Licensee Search - The State Bar of California. If you’re hoping to grow your leads, you will not want to miss today’s show! Great to be here, Jonathan. Beachheads are temporary. We trundle along doing good work and then one day we decide want to do better work. If you know how, you can know why. As a special discount for you, loyal reader, I put Philip Morgan in a headlock until he agreed to give you the best pricing he could. And finally, the platform vendor often chooses to start competing against you to capture a larger slice of the revenue within the platform ecosystem. David C. Baker has some solid guidance on how big/small a market to focus on: https://www.davidcbaker.com/how-man-competitors-and-prospects-should-you-have. scheduled based on demand, so join interest list if you’re interested. That’s life, and all of life is the domain of less than (sometimes far less than) 100% certainty about what the future holds. He is a consultant at Philip Morgan Consulting who focuses on specialization and helping people find their niche. The Agency Specialization Struggle. In marketing, there is a multitude of small ideas that huddle together under the big umbrella of visibility. This video is unavailable. There is always more expertise you can cultivate. What Creates Credibility for a Specialist? The solo indie consultant is like the sports car; the multi-person team is like the big passenger bus. Q: How much expertise is required to say you’re an expert? Speed is critical. My guest for this week’s episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is Philip Morgan. Philip describes his specialization journey (03:54) When Philip realized that the generalist approach wasn’t going to work anymore (06:07) How to get clear on the audience you need to focus on (11:00) Why specializing is better than being a “jack of all trades” (13:06) Philip shares a powerful example of specialization in action (14:44) How to find your specialization sweet spot (17:00) The default response of a prospective client to hearing about what you can do for them is to not trust you. You can specialize (focus) in 5 ways, and you can combine some of these 5 ways. He and I discuss how to position your business to drive profit and how to become known as the expert in your field. Specializing in a platform can be appealing, but this contains hidden risks. JAN. 2021; Joel Pilger - Fostering a Community of Clients Positioning consultant Emily Omier shares her secrets for finding clients on LinkedIn without being an annoying spammer. This page will help you get started. Today. 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