Sundae Every Day
Most people enjoy an ice cream sundae on a hot sunny day. You walk into the ice cream parlour or café and make your choice. The list is long, each type described in detail. From the classic vanilla to such delights as a vegan cookie dough soft serve. It’s unlikely you will see a meatball sundae on the menu. The café could probably put one together if that’s what you really wanted it. However, why would they bother putting something on a menu that nobody would order.
Seth Godin’s book, Meatball Sundae, uses the title as a metaphor to explain how marketing can get bent out of shape. His simple message is that if you are selling something nobody wants then you have no customers. That’s pretty obvious, and his overall message is somewhat more profound. You will get left behind if you keep doing what you’re doing, change with the buying trends. Mass marketing no longer works. The number of marketing channels available means that you need to hone in on you target base surgically.
Your Coaching Sundae
What flavour is your coaching sundae? It doesn’t matter as long as it has a flavour. The flavours used to be sports or executive coaching. Now that has expanded hugely to cover just about anything. They range from wellness coaching through to addiction coaching which has a subset of its own. The difference between coaching and counselling or therapy around addiction coaching is a subject for another time.
It can be frightening to stand up and say “I am a career transition coach” for fear of missing out on a much larger market. Sadly that larger ‘market’ is not interested in career coaching. So any money spent on them is wasted. That smaller market, when you target it correctly, is much more likely to buy. These individuals are already looking for career transition coaching. They might even come to you if your messaging is right. It’s called the long tail. In other words, a clear targeted message will get through eventually if it meets a specific need.