January 30, 2020
Speaking of specialization…
Sent by Jonathan Stark on January 30th, 2020
Since the topic of the week seems to be specialization, here’s an example sent in by reader Brandon Park:
Jonathan, Walked by this office after dinner the other night: https://jstark.co/2UaGTHp Being in CO they don’t have to look far to find enough clients to keep them in business.
Now that I have turned over a new leaf and use “specialization” to refer to one’s skills and “niche” to refer to one’s target market, I would say that Chalk is relatively unspecialized (i.e., brand and web development), but they have picked a fairly specific niche (i.e., the craft brewing industry).
Weirdly… if you go to Chalk’s website, their niche focus on the craft brewing industry is buried deep on unlinked pages and the visitor is greeted with a case study from the healthcare space on their home page. (screenshot)
Their Instagram account (screenshot) is clearly positioned on the brewing niche, so… maybe they’re in the middle of a transition.
It’s perhaps interesting to note that as a potential buyer (or someone who might refer them to friends in their niche), this disconnect really undermines the power of what looks like a pretty tight positioning statement.
Two takeaways:
- I’m digging the distinction between the terms specialization and niche :-)
- The cognitive dissonance created by a disjointed position (website vs instagram/door sign) really undermines the strength of the messaging and is therefore a Bad Thing™
Yours,
—J