December 9, 2019

The Michelangelo Of Snow

Sent by Jonathan Stark on December 11th, 2019

Reader Denis Ethier wrote in with another fabulous example of a business person with a laser-focused target market (shared with permission):

Hey Jonathan, Here’s an example of a niche for an artist. This guy hand paints maps only for ski resorts and have been featured in a lot of magazines. Here’s a great video showing what he does and his website, you can share and mention my name: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umy6lyjDDdg https://jamesniehues.com/ Denis

As someone who has been skiing since a young age, watching the video of James at work triggered all sorts of positive memories and powerful emotions. I’m seriously considering buying some of his art to display in my home or office.

If he was just “a landscape painter”, or worse, “a painter”, the odds are pretty low that I ever would have heard of him. And even if I had, I doubt that his story would have moved me to purchase anything.

But James made a decisive choice. He decided consciously and with intension to create hand painted mountain maps.

Because of this decisive choice, he has been called “The Michelangelo Of Snow” by The Washington Post. He can credibly claim to be “Legendary Ski Artist, James Niehues” rather than merely “James Niehues, Painter”.

It seems obvious that having a distinction like this would be good for business.

But it does require making a choice.

Yours,

—J