How to Triple Your Business in One Month: The Power of Niching and Positioning With Claire M Davis

As a female founder, are you exhausted from constant social media and marketing efforts that just don't seem to pay off?

If that's you, it might be because your strategy is too broad. It could be time to hone in on your niche, sharpen your positioning, and fine-tune your messaging. This can be your key to shifting from blending in to standing out.

This week's episode features Claire M. Davis, who faced a similar challenge. Guided by her mentor to niche down for scaling up, Claire was hesitant but gave it a try. The results? Rapid and remarkable. 

Tune in to hear how she transformed her hobby business into tripling her sales in just three weeks. That’s not a typo. 

This is a perfect case study  on the call "narrow lane" approach I speak often about.  Yes, specificity and focus can propel you and your business. 💯

What You'll Learn:

• Niche Down Like a Pro: Claire shows how focusing on one area can boost your business.
• Brand Yourself Differently: Get tips on standing out in your field.
• Practical Steps for Growth: Claire shares how to turn theory into action for business success.

For female founders wanting to sharpen their branding and positioning skills, this episode is a must. Claire's journey and insights are both inspiring and practical.

Links
Connect with Claire M Davis on LinkedIn

TractionResume.com

Michelle B Griffin is a thought leadership-focused personal brand and PR strategist and founder of Standout Women Media who positions established women experts and authors into visible industry authorities.

If you're ready to up-level, a powerful personal & PR brand foundation are key. Become clear, confident, and cohesive in your branding, positioning, messaging, LinkedIn, and PR strategy in 30 days with my Visible Brand Authority Accelerator™.

Learn more MichelleBGriffin.com

WORK WITH ME: Launch Your Authority Brand in 30 Days
SPEAKING: Thought Leadership & Empowerment for Women
MY NEW BOOK: Sign Up for VIP Updates (Oct 15, 2024)
READ MY BOOK: The LinkedIn Branding Book
JOIN: My LinkedIn Branding Community
LISTEN: The LinkedIn Branding Show
CONNECT: With Me on LinkedIn

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey there, it's the brand therapist, michelle B Griffin, and welcome to your weekly personal brand therapy session. As a certified personal brand and PR strategist, speaker and author, I'm here to empower you to put yourself out there so you can find clarity, build visibility and grow your industry authority. I'm super excited you're here. Now let's get going with today's session.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Welcome everybody to this week's session of Ask the Brand Therapist's Personal Branding Talk Show. We all want to stand out, but let's see, there's now 8 billion people in the world and on LinkedIn there's a billion people. So how do you stand out when you do a Google search and there's probably hundreds of thousands of you? I guess today it's going to exactly tell us how to go from blending in to standing out and really soaring by the power of niching and positioning. So welcome to the show, claire and Davis.

Speaker 3: 0:58

Hey, Michelle, thank you so much for having me. You're one of my favorite people on this planet and I have your book right over there. I should have grabbed it before we started recording.

Speaker 2: 1:07

After this is recording, we're going to take a picture and put you on the global good wall of readers. But you're one of my favorites too. You're one of my OG members in my community, back almost three years ago in 2021, where we hit it off. I bet on your podcast and today, your story. I've written about it. I tell a lot of people about it as an example. The power of niche Now, I don't even like to say the word niche, but that's the catch. All I like to call it narrow lane. Tell us your story, your proof positive, of how to really position and differentiate yourself and attract those opportunities and, as you do for your clients, become the obvious choice.

Speaker 3: 1:43

Where to begin. I think that part of building your business is to learn as you go, and my story is when I was young I started in my family's recruiting business and for anybody who is in or touching the medical sales or healthcare industry, we had a business helping pharmaceutical sales representatives get jobs. So we had a great recruiting agency and Michelle I'm pretty sure as a young adult I was the only person I knew who went to her first interview as a 13 year old for the volunteer job at the city with the brand book. So I've been speaking the career conversation from when I was very young. In fact, I remember my mother. She owned the business, so my mom and dad and I all worked together in it and I remember we'd go out to dinner and we'd be sitting at like PFJs or something and we'd be huddled at this little table and all the other little tables would be talking about, oh, summer plans, or how did baseball go, or what's going on at school. And here we, the McVickers, would be like huddled and saying, oh, did Sarah, did she close the interview? Yeah, okay, so which round is she on? I guess all that is to say.

Speaker 3: 2:53

My early foundations have been in medical builds and recruiting, and so I think when you have a piece of your life that is so steeped in one specific area, it just becomes a bit of who you are so fast forward to. I ended up going into the industry myself as a medical sales rep and then I had my kids, decided to step away but had always been helping people with their resume, and now they're late in profiles and their interview prep all the time. It found me naturally, because people would always be asking me to help them with their resume or like I'm really nervous for this interview. And at first it was friends and of course you help your friends, right. And then it was friends of friends, okay. And then it became friends of colleagues and colleagues of colleagues. When I was getting phone calls from people I had never met before and my husband finally turned to me and he goes can you just make this a business already?

Speaker 2: 3:51

Yeah, like how long was that, from helping your friends to the friends of the friends of six degrees of separation, brent.

Speaker 3: 3:58

Probably about 10 years when we started the business in 2016. It was just that it was one of those things where something you've done forever, something that comes easy to you but not to everybody else, it just organically became a business unto itself, which was awesome. So all of that is to say I jump on LinkedIn and I think, okay, I guess I should tell more people about what we do, because my friends are getting these great jobs from the interview prep and the resumes we're doing. The thing about helping your friends and your family and your colleagues and their friends is that you get all commerce. So I'm helping people who are in the tech world and someone who's going to go in for a job at like a nonprofit selling office supplies, and that I would get some people from healthcare. But it was all over the place. So the business started building, but I wasn't really getting any traction and that's where you and I, I think, started connecting in that phase, because there was this really cool, like it was 2020, I remember this.

Speaker 3: 5:00

It was like this really cool coming together of early business owners and we were helping each other, we were learning from each other. We started doing clubhouse rules, where I know you spoke for us a few times, and what was so neat about that was I was really introduced to the idea that, listen, like you said, there's 8 billion people on this earth. If I was handed 8 billion resumes to complete, could I do that? No, so why wouldn't I focus in on where I know I can get people the fastest results? Because could I write a resume for any industry under the sun? But yes, and we have, except for government. That's really kind of their own saying, they've got their own rubric. But what I recognized was the clients and the friends and the family who were getting the fastest results. It was when their target was what I was extremely familiar with, which was healthcare. So that's when I decided to niche down and I remember you and I having so many conversations about that and it was really scary at first Saying in the world and it goes against intuition.

Speaker 2: 6:06

Why would I cut off most of my business and how could that help me? That is the number one roadblock. I see and I hear, and then you and I both felt and I remember when you told me you did it and this was like early on. And then we checked in six months later and you were like this is the best move I ever made. And I saw you from afar Not even you know because I know you, but I saw you just in the feeds and then your banner would change with this Take this social, this being in the Wall Street Journal, or this and this you got really rich in social currency. Okay, because you specialize and that's why the power of niche, especially in like you wouldn't. Do you call yourself a career coach or what is your search term?

Speaker 3: 6:50

That's interesting. You ask that and I think I would say I would consider myself a career consultant, because I'm not crazy about the word coach. I feel like there's a lot of coaching that is just merged with different levels of credibility.

Speaker 3: 7:04

But what people find when they work with me is that it really doesn't stop at tell me your story, I'll write your resume. It's also like we're invested now so many times. It's okay now, what are you going to do with this? Okay? Well, let me connect you to my people. I know a guy who's in your space, I know a gal who just got hired there or left there, so there is quite a bit of coaching and consulting that goes along with it.

Speaker 2: 7:28

You need to borrow the term that. I thought I coined it but it actually appeared on Google but no one uses it much. It's called a coach-sultan. It's half-coach, half-consultant. Because I do that in some of my work, I'll swoop in and give me that coaching and powering and then the consulting part, like you do, is some of the Apple open work. It's a hybrid model.

Speaker 2: 7:47

Now your story is so great and we're here today because I know you're in the career resume space, which is really so important and such a need, but there's also a lot of people not always, you know, at the top of their game. In personal branding, people can just put up that label and that's the thing they start becoming a statistic in the search terms, unless you're out there building that brand, which is a whole other thing. You were building your brand, doing a phenomenal job showing up, but this is what you're telling me, michelle. I was in business 10 years and I got a LinkedIn getting out there, but I wasn't, ironically, getting traction, which is the name of your company traction resume. So it's extremely important to get traction right. This is such a case study. You're proof positive on why this is so important. You realize you weren't getting traction. What was the trigger, the breaking point? You were like I can't do this anymore. What's got to give? How do I get myself to a higher level?

Speaker 3: 8:41

Oh, such a great question. So the breaking point for me was somebody I admired, somebody who I really looked up to said tell me what's going on in your business. And she had achieved really great success herself. And I was like, hey, can I ask you? I just would love your perspective. She goes, okay, so tell me what's going on.

Speaker 3: 8:59

And she was listening to the effort that I was putting out all these five rooms and all of the content we're creating and all of the free guides that I love to give and all the videos I love to send people so they can get unstuck. And she was then also looking at the sales I was making and the business I was bringing in. And she goes. You want to help people, right? I said, yeah, she goes. Something's going to have to change because right now you're at hobby level and she goes. If you want to stay at hobby level, you can. Or you want to make the impact that I think I know that you want to make, you owe it to yourself and you owe it to the people that you know you can get the best and fastest results to speak just to them. And it just resonated with me, to my core. I get chills even thinking about it, because, michelle, that's terrifying to think about. Oh no, now I'm only going to be marketing to this smaller pond. What about all this other business?

Speaker 1: 10:00

I was missing.

Speaker 3: 10:02

It was interesting because what I would coach my clients on would be if you want to have a resume that sells you into the job you want, you want to skip the line, you want to stop being considered with the 400 other applications. You've got to speak specifically to what you can do for your target today. But I wasn't doing that in my business.

Speaker 2: 10:23

Isn't it that irony we tell our clients one thing, yet we neglect. I love that you say that, because I say all the times when my coined phrases specificity sells. It was like a no brainer. Was it a no brainer for you to do it, or did she have to your mentor say what about this? How did that connect?

Speaker 3: 10:39

Well, it was a no brainer in the sense that I knew she was immediately right and also I went kicking and screaming into compliance. I wasn't sure I was so nervous because I thought but if I cut out all this other opportunity for business, all of these other specialties that I could also serve, am I just wasting away opportunity? And she said listen, just give it a month. Give it a month, focus on one target. She said give it a month and give it a try and then tell me what you think. We're reconnected three weeks.

Speaker 3: 11:12

In three weeks I changed all my marketing, changed my LinkedIn banner to say Medical Sales Resumes and Interview Prep, and I changed the emails that I was sending out to people. I even invited people to unsubscribe to my emails, but I said I'm only going to be talking specifically about the relevance and the insight I have for healthcare industry. Feel free to unsubscribe, michelle. This is like taking a machete to a lot of stuff that I was straight. And then I retooled all my marketing to be speaking about medical sales, health care, my story of getting through it and all of those things, and in three weeks our business tripled, are you?

Speaker 2: 11:50

kidding me?

Speaker 3: 11:51

Oh my goodness, that's huge, and that's fast, it was, and you know what. As fun as that is like, it's so cool. It's so amazing to see your business grow, especially when you put in 12 plus hours a day to get it there. You're sacrificing some family time. You sacrifice your kids are watching you burn the mid-eyed oils sometimes. But what was even better was my clients started getting faster results because now I was focusing so hard, so intently on one specific area that all the tools I had to give them were for them and not for anybody else.

Speaker 2: 12:28

So better about the industry, what works, what doesn't seeing results. So you had a lot of data points to go by there too, so that's really smart.

Speaker 3: 12:37

It's made all the difference in the world. It's interesting too, because there are so many different ways to niche down.

Speaker 2: 12:44

Yeah, let's talk about that because I wrote today in my post about seven or eight ways because people to think, oh, demographic was the old school, then psychographics came to the mix. But there's so many different ways and I list them because I don't want people to feel like I have to pick X, y, z. And it's also too a lot of internal about you. You've made sense. It was an o-brainer for medical, but you also kind of had to like it because, no matter what, if you were spending all those years and you actually hated it, that wouldn't have served you well. So let's talk about the ways that I want to hear your input because this entire episode is how to help people really niche down narrow lane themselves so that they can seek and be a faster magnet to those opportunities they're looking for.

Speaker 3: 13:27

I think when you're really locked in on your target, things seem to flow. Call it what you will, call it manifesting, call it just super deep focus whatever term. For me, there are multiple ways to niche down and it depends on what kind of skill and what kind of expertise you really are bringing to the field. I remember when I was speaking with that friend about you need to really focus in on your target, clear of medical sales it wasn't just just medical sales For people who want this on their plate. They don't have time to fool around for 12 hours on their resume like we do for them on their resume, because they're leading teams, they're commercializing, they're launching products, they're training, they're rightsizing, they're doing all kinds of stuff. That doesn't give them an opportunity to really take a minute and flesh out their story and find through lines and draw parallels and really systematize their success. They don't have time to do that, but that's where my best client, that's where most of my success stories came from, and so I was like those are the people I want to serve, and it didn't have as much to do with demograph as it did with situation challenges.

Speaker 3: 14:43

If someone is coming to me like today, I actually thought of you yesterday, not just because of this and I was excited to be on here but because when you and I talked two years ago about this, I would get like a handful of inbound messages from people all over the map on LinkedIn and when I pivoted I started to notice that two of those five would be health care executives, and then three of those fives would be maybe health care executives and a ref.

Speaker 3: 15:12

Yesterday I got 26 inbound connection requests only from medical sales professionals and executives, and that's who I can help the most. So the different ways I've found that niching down may sense to me was not this age, this title, but the real challenge are. People come to me when their resume is not working and they've applied ad nauseum to hundreds of applications and they're about to give up. People call me when that happens. People call me also when they haven't had to write a resume in 25 years. I can almost guess what's at the top of that resume. It usually starts with I'm such and such executive with 25 years of experience.

Speaker 2: 15:57

It's more like the problem, the situation, the roadblock and, I have to say, your story, when you had to go back and rewrite the story and flush it to how it makes sense. Your story resonates. So it's a story, a problem, a roadblock. And also, not only does she do this, but she's been in the business. She had a family business, she got laid off five times. She gets us and in this deep relationship type business where they're bearing their soul to you, this is their livelihood at stake. That is very huge to find a real connection point. And your personal brand isn't an amazing thing and that's a whole topic for another conversation because you are amazing at that. But this is just the part of who am I here to serve, who am I here to support. So I'll promise for it, because even in your niche down now of medical sales healthcare that's still really broad. So you have healthcare and it's really almost like medical sales. I mean, does that include pharmaceutical too? Even the little nugget of medical sales would probably be enough business for a lifetime for you.

Speaker 3: 16:54

It's a tight knit community. It's one of those that feels small, because everybody knows everybody, which turns out to be a great thing when you're a great resume writer for those specific people.

Speaker 2: 17:05

Let's fast forward. Now It'll be two years this January. I believe that you flipped the switch, I know at some point because I was on your medical sales leader podcast, so you've got really clear on that. That's attracting a lot of people. Let's talk about the power of niche how you did it, you found it. But let's talk about not just getting clients clear. Now you are so well positioned and so niched in this industry and we haven't talked about this, but you probably are doing it. But now you're in line to these conferences, these podcasts, these media mentions, your PR and your publicity and all that is now so honed in that you are the go-to be quoted in this and that. So not only are you attracting clients, but you're attracting this, what I call your propel stage, where you're getting that mention. So can you speak to that and how that's helped you in that area as well?

Speaker 3: 17:52

First of all, that's very kind of you to say, and it's such an honor when people feel like they are able to learn from my story and from the success of our clients and own that and wanna talk about it and wanna share it, because I think that the more we're able to do that, more we're able to share ideas that are specifically relevant, not just advice for the masses, but information that specifically applies to your situation. I think that's where real momentum shifts can occur. It's an honor to really be mentioned by any of these groups. We've been so blessed to be in Wall Street Journal, forbes and a couple others, and I think that this phase has been really interesting because part of my marketing degree is in my ear saying okay, lean into what your brand is now supposed to be Like. Is your brand supposed to something specific? Do you need these five specific pillars that you only talk about? You get advice kind of from everywhere. What I've found is that the truth is, when it comes to publicity, you already kind of a way or a system that you go about getting results for people, so stick with that, but then also not to be afraid to let people really get to know you.

Speaker 3: 19:03

I'm always surprised about the things that people will pick up on and send me a message we'll laugh over.

Speaker 3: 19:09

Recently I mentioned that I used to be on a traveling jump rope team and my comments went wild and it wasn't even the focus of something I had written about.

Speaker 3: 19:18

But I think it's such an interesting age where we are getting to know real friends like you and I through a screen oh, you're in Florida and I'm in Washington. So I think the little ways that we're able to get to know each other when it comes to that propel phase, and the little tidbits that help people gravitate to you Because they like you and they find you interesting and endearing and they can connect with something about you Even supersede some of the career expertise or some of the expertise that we're teaching and sharing, because there are lots of career code out there Really good one. It's lots of really great resume writers out there and I'm the first one to sing their praises. And I'm still blown over by how many people will send me a message and say, hey, I've been looking around, but when I saw what you're putting out online, when I watched your video, when I got the video you sent to my email, I wanted to work with you because I felt like I knew you.

Speaker 2: 20:13

You were doing a phenomenal job. So your niche is solid, but you've always done a great job doing your personal brand. I've given you props in the DMs. I'm like Claire, you are a master at those videos and you have a way I don't know if you have a certain day of the week you're very empowering. Sometimes you'll put out messages that apply to a lot of people that just draw it in so that you have a real gift of that for sure. So, as we close out today, I always like to have an actionable tip. What's your number one tip? To go and do something. And people are like Michelle, I'm too broad, I'm all over the place, I'm scared to niche, or I want to niche. What's your next step for them?

Speaker 3: 20:45

I would say, to grab a pen and a paper and to write down one very specific problem that doesn't bother you but drives other people crazy. For me, it's writing a resume that sells you on paper, which is very different than many other ways that resume writing is taught, but it drives most people nuts to work on their resume.

Speaker 3: 21:10

You know, they're banging their head against the wall. We're too close to our own story, we're not sure how to develop metrics, all of those things, or we don't have time. I would say write down what problem there is that you know how to solve, or what challenges you like to approach, and just tackle them, and it's not a big deal for you but it drives other people crazy. That's the kind of niching that is worked for me. I would love to hear if it works for anybody else, because for us it's made all the difference and for those people who have that kind of problem, they need a hand, they need help getting through it. We hope that we're their first call. We've positioned ourselves as that kind of problem solver.

Speaker 2: 21:46

You're mentioning some of my favorite P words powerfully positioning yourself and, when in doubt, if we list all the ways to niche, go with the problem. Find the problem and one problem to one audience and just go to talent on it, much like you did. Claire, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your case study, your success story. We couldn't be happier for you. You're truly just one of the good, genuine people. I know that there are a lot, but just someone I have connected with almost three or four years now and I feel like we know each other half a country away. All right, everybody. That's it for today's personal brand therapy session. Keep putting yourself out there. You have a brand to build, a message to share and people to impact. I'll catch you next week, take care.

Speaker 1: 22:29

That's a wrap for today's brand therapy session. Are you ready to get visible and build your personal brand? Then head on over to the brandtherapistio and grab my free resources to get unstuck and get going. Today and until next time, thanks for listening.