Many firms have reached a point in the evolution of their practice where they realize that in order to compete successfully, they need to find a niche market for their services. The concept is often referred to as "differentiation," and it requires a certain amount of research and introspection to accomplish. It may also require doing some soul searching on what the goals are for your practice and your life.

Some years ago, a book by Renee Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim entitled Blue Ocean Strategy (2005, Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation) caught my attention by outlining a methodology to find differentiation through a combination of value innovation, fair process and tipping point leadership. Of the three, by far the most difficult to achieve is value innovation, as it requires a fair amount of research and labor (not to mention creativity) to accomplish. In essence, value innovation is the simultaneous goal of achieving a new approach, service or offering combined with exceptional value for what is offered. This does not necessarily mean that the offering must be cheap, just an exceptional value. Fair process is offering the service with the recognition that it is done with fairness to those who are served. And tipping point leadership merely states that once the service or offering is designed and offered to clients, a continuous effort will then be made to promote it, even in the face of initial resistance.

Examples of blue ocean strategy abound, but one in particular is the case of a financial advisory firm that was searching for such a solution. When confronted with the concept of differentiation, research was done and it was discovered that the owner had a special-needs child. He had joined support groups for families with special needs children and had even begun to gain some of those families as clients. Yet, despite this, he had not explored pursuing this as a marketing niche or as a differentiation strategy.
Once the decision was made, the Web site was retooled to reflect this specialization, and marketing materials and advertising were refocused on this concept. Within 18 months, the firm experienced a remarkable growth from families who had long searched for a financial advisor who specialized in this area and had, up to that point, been unable to locate one. And while this is an isolated case, it is an excellent example of how differentiation can make a substantial difference in a financial practice.
So the question is: What steps need to be taken to develop and implement this type of differentiation strategy? The first step is to do a certain amount of soul-searching and introspection. Exploring your passions and your strengths/weaknesses can go a long way toward uncovering where your niche may lie.

A relatively simple blue ocean exercise to uncover your value innovation is called "ERRC," which stands for "Eliminate, Raise, Reduce and Create." The steps are in this order:

1. Eliminate: Write down those aspects of your profession that could be eliminated that are those factors that the financial services profession have long competed on. This might include parts of your service offerings, fee structure, marketing methods, etc.

2. Raise: Write down those factors of your practice that could be raised well above industry standards, such as communication methods, frequency, etc.

3. Reduce: Write down those things that could be reduced well below industry standards (obviously without violating compliance rules, B-D requirements, etc.)

4. Create: Write down a list of things that could be offered to your clients and prospects that the financial services profession has never offered. This might involve specialization in untraditional areas such as the aforementioned "families with special needs children," or working with high-net-worth single executive women nearing retirement. (The point is to seek out your niche, based on working with groups of potential clients in other unique professions/lifestyles in which you may possess a unique knowledge.)

What lies at the center of these four lists should be your unique value innovation, that aspect of your profession you may be able to retool your firm to specialize or capitalize on.

Once identified, the next step is to implement a strategy that not only delivers the new innovation, but provides a fair process in delivery. Fair process simply means delivery of products and services in a way that ensures fair value and recognition by the recipient of the quality of those products and/or services.

To provide this, one way to start is to develop a value proposition or statement of the value and fair process. An example of such a statement might be as follows:

"XYZ Company provides financial security through a unique use of expertise in non-traditional investments diversified in a multi-asset-class portfolio to provide stability in the value and growth of a client's investments consistent with their current financial needs and future goals."

The purpose of such a statement is to be able to articulate the unique value innovation that can be delivered to the client and to do so clearly and succinctly.

The final step is to retool your Web site, marketing and promotional materials to align with this message and to then deliver that message using Tipping Point Leadership.

Based on the book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (first published by Little Brown in 2000), the tipping point is an examination of how change happens all at once, as the result of a consistent reinforcing element, such as a consistent and continuous message.

By that, the message is delivered to clients and prospects through a variety of venues and is consistently pushed out there over time. In other words, this is not a "try it for a little while to see what happens" approach. We are talking about a long-term consistent approach to deliver that unique value innovation that is far more likely to yield substantial results than any other method.

Examples of this can be found everywhere, but one in particular involved a financial planner that placed a 2 inch advertisement in a local newspaper's once-a-week business section. The ad showed her photo and the simple phrase "thorough and resourceful financial planning" along with the phone number. This ad was run for probably 20 years. And it fueled the substantial growth of this very successful firm over those years. In preparation for retirement, the ad was pulled and then changed later with the new firm's principal, her son. Yet people would still see her on the street and remark that they just saw the ad in the paper. It was so consistent; it was embedded in the memory of any and all who read that publication.

And while newspapers may or may not be the most popular advertising medium with financial advisors, the same approach can be taken with Web sites, social media, e-mail campaigns, radio and television spots and a variety of other venues.
In short, using the value innovation approach will not only help you identify your niche, but also provide a highly efficient and easy-to-maintain system to dramatically increase the influx of new clients to your practice.

David L. Lawrence, Ph.D., is founder and president of Efficient Practice, a consulting firm that provides financial practices, broker-dealers and independent firms with comprehensive, profit-driven efficiency consulting and resources. For details, visit www.efficientpractice.com.