Declare Your Major.
One of our members runs a firm with a clear, compelling, and outstanding service. They are masters at this craft. The market for it, though, was wide open. Anyone could be a customer, which meant no one was or knew they should be.
Growth was incremental to flat year over year. Word of mouth was thin. Visibility was limited. The firm was doing master craftsman-level work, just not work anyone could point to and say, "that's the firm for this."
We talked through it over several sessions. What did he actually care about or was passionate about? Where did his firm's skills line up with a real, specific need and gap in the market? Eventually he landed on an area he had genuine passion and knowledge in, a niche where the need was obvious, and his firm was uniquely built to serve it.
He declared his major. Said no to the wide-open version of the business and leaned all the way into the narrow one.
Two years later, traction is real. Referrals are coming in. He's being asked to speak, to weigh in, to be the expert in the room. Their social strategy and communications speak directly now to their core audience. They are building process, capability, efficiency, and repeatability in their team to lessen the load on the founder. None of that existed when he was everything to everyone.
Being a mile wide and an inch deep feels safer. But it rarely builds a business anyone remembers.
Lesson Learned: Decide what you're going deep on (the 20%) and let everything else go (the 80%).