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Most agencies pick a vertical and call it positioning. But "we serve dentists" is a filter, not a position. In this solocast, I break down the three layers of niching — vertical, horizontal, and problem — and show you how to combine them into positioning that actually drives demand.
Agency Forward explores the future of agencies as tech and AI drive down the cost of tactical deliverables. Topics include building competent teams, developing strategic offers, systemizing your business, and more.
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Unknown Speaker 0:00
Hey everyone. Today I'm doing a solo cast. Most agencies will pick a vertical and then call it positioning. We serve dentists, we work with SaaS companies. But that's a filter. It's not a position. It tells people who you work with, not why they should hire you. So today I'm going to break down the three layers of niching that most agencies collapse into one, and I'm going to show you why leading with the problem rather than vertical, changes everything about how clients will find you and choose you. In this episode, I cover the difference between vertical nicheing on your industry, horizontal niching on your job function, and problem based niching. Why vertical only positioning turns you into a generalist inside an industry, why problem based positioning attracts clients outside your vertical and more. Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency. For most it's unpredictable, it's slow and it's usually expensive. GF flips that. It's the all in one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline. Gia automates lead gen follow up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing. You can check it out and get some free bonuses at get gia.ai/dynamic
Unknown Speaker 1:18
agency. All right, let's talk about how to niche on the problem.
Unknown Speaker 1:23
It's easier than ever to start an agency, but it's only getting harder to stand out and keep it alive. Join me as we explore the strategies agencies are using today to secure a better tomorrow. This is agency forward,
Unknown Speaker 1:41
if your positioning statement is we serve dentists and you don't have positioning, you have a filter. Most agencies think that picking a vertical is the same as positioning, but it's not. It's a starting point, and by the end of this episode, my goal is to help you know the difference between describing who you serve and telling them exactly how you help and how that impacts your positioning, right? So there are three layers of niching, and most agencies stop at layer one. First is your vertical, right? This is based on the industry. So we work with SaaS companies. We serve Home Services.
Unknown Speaker 2:20
This is, this is who you work with, and it helps with targeting and relatability, right? If you can speak their language, reference their tools, you'll understand their sales cycle like, that's all super helpful, but it doesn't tell anyone how you help, right? Also, these examples that I just gave are, like, super high level industries. You should always go with a sub industry to get more specific, and that's something I think a lot of agencies skip out on. But second is your horizontal niche, and which is like the job function. Now, so we work with CMOS, right? We help heads of content. This is usually the person with the buying power. It could also be a champion. Now, this helps with targeting again, right? We know where to find them. We know what they care about, what they're the KPIs that they care about, and they're being judged on. Like we know all of this, but it still doesn't explain what we do for them. And now the reason I do, I just want to add this quickly, the reason we want a horizontal like to target a job function within this is because, say, your industry at some point does start failing, right? It's like it's shrinking. Then if you really know this specific job function, and you know a lot of people within those roles, it's much easier to then move to a different industry
Unknown Speaker 3:35
and continue solving the same problem for them, just somewhere else. And so let's get into the part three. This all makes sense in a second. I promise. Part three is, is your problem niche, where you can say, you know, something like, we fix a gap between content production and pipeline, right? So you know, this is exactly how you help. This influences your positioning, like, way more than the others. Because when someone hears this, they immediately know if they need you.
Unknown Speaker 4:03
So let's take you know, like we're a marketing agency for dentists versus we help multi location dental groups turn Google visibility into booked appointments. Right? The first one describes a filter, second one describes a transformation. Now both are targeting the same vertical, but there's only one of those that's going to get people to think about you in a meaningful way, and so that is our goal. Now let's talk about where these three layers will overlap, because the magic actually happens at this intersection. Right. Vertical gives you the relatability, the targeting, because you can speak their language, horizontal gives you access to to the buying power,
Unknown Speaker 4:43
because you with this, you'll know who actually signs the checks right, or at least who that champion is. And then problem gives you positioning, because they know exactly how you help.
Unknown Speaker 4:57
Now you need all three, but they serve.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
Of like, very distinct purposes, vertical and horizontal are just for targeting,
Unknown Speaker 5:06
right? It's also it's required to so that you know that these people will care about your positioning, right? Like, positioning is about how you are being seen in the mind of the buyer. And if you want to be seen as the most reliable agency. It does matter if you're working with like, a d to c, e comm company versus
Unknown Speaker 5:26
a manufacturing company, right? Do the manufacturers are going to care a lot more about reliability, because it's something like built into the industry. And so we do need this in order to know like, is the way we want to show up, going to resonate with the people,
Unknown Speaker 5:41
but it's primarily for targeting within your marketing as well.
Unknown Speaker 5:47
So okay, let's think about this as like a Venn diagram. Your vertical is one circle, your problems another, and then where they overlap, that's where you have, like, a series of problems that you can solve, and so you choose the one within that that you are the best fit to solve for, and now you have a problem for a specific person within a specific industry that you can provide the solution for, right? And so that is our goal with this.
Unknown Speaker 6:15
Let's see,
Unknown Speaker 6:17
okay, so why? Let's talk about why, like vertical only niching just doesn't work anymore.
Unknown Speaker 6:24
When you like, only pick a vertical, you essentially become a generalist inside, like an industry we we do marketing for dentists again, right? That puts you in a bucket with every other agency that serves dentists. You're competing on price, relationships, availability, but you're not competing on expertise, which is what people actually need. The vertical tells them that you understand their world, but it's not going to like it doesn't do anything to show them that you can solve a specific problem, and that's what they're buying, right? They're paying you to solve that problem, not to just be a dentist marketing agency. So I see this, I mean, really all the time on prospecting cost, where an agency will pick a vertical, they'll build a nice website around it, and then they wonder why, like people are still saying, so what do you do? And I mean, ultimately it comes down to like you're showing them who you serve, but not how you help.
Unknown Speaker 7:18
So we want to avoid that right. And now with niching, a lot of agencies do get super nervous because, like, I get it, you're potentially saying no to a lot of business. But there's a huge benefit to niching on the problem, and that's that when you when you lead with the problem, you're going to attract people from outside your vertical as well, right? If you're positioned around
Unknown Speaker 7:45
like we fix a gap between content production and pipeline for B to B, prop tech, SaaS companies, right, you could still attract a FinTech company with the same problem, right? They might raise their hand. A health tech company could raise their hand. A martech company could raise their hand, because that problem is something that resonates with multiple but the focus of being able to say, we work with these companies means, when you get on LinkedIn, when you like, if you purchase a list, right, or if you're just talking to people going to conferences, you're very much focused on that specific vertical to make sure they can hear you. That does not stop you from taking on anyone else. This is it's a bonus of problem based positioning. It's your your vertical will keep your your marketing very focused, and you're targeting efficient, so you're not just wasting money, but the problem will open doors that you didn't have to knock on, right and in the best part like this is your decision, so you can choose to take on those cross industry clients or not, but at least you're not wasting marketing spend trying to attract everyone, right? Your targeting stays very focused,
Unknown Speaker 8:53
but the you're like, inbound from outside is still just going to be it's going to be like, gravy, right? It's the extra that you're going to get with everything. So
Unknown Speaker 9:04
finding the problem that you solve can be easy. It can also be hard. Okay, here are, let's three questions that you should ask yourself. First, what do my best clients have in common? Right? Not just, not just like in the industry, but in a specific situation, and then look at your top five clients and just what was going on when they hired you, right? What were they struggling with?
Unknown Speaker 9:28
Because if you can identify a pattern across all of them, then that is something that you could target
Unknown Speaker 9:34
to, like, what do prospects say in the first like, five minutes of the sales call? And it's not like, I mean, skip the small talk, right? Like, whether they all say the weather's great or they're eating the snow, like, okay, cool, but the what, what do they volunteer? Right? When they start talking about the actual like, purpose of the call, right? Because the words that they use to describe their frustration that, like, that's your positioning language, right? And it's like.
Unknown Speaker 10:00
It, they're telling you the exact problem. If, if three prospects in a row are going to say, like, we're creating content, but none of it converts, it's like, boom, we got a problem statement, right? We know something that we can help.
Unknown Speaker 10:12
And then number three, like, what do I fix that other agencies in my space don't even talk about this is, this is a gap, right? If every other agency in the vertical talks about traffic or, like, rankings, impressions, right? And you're the only one talking about pipeline, velocity, close, revenue, like, that's a differentiator for you, right? That's the the problem that only you are solving. And again, only it's really hard someone else can just see that it's working for you, and they'll come in and they'll copy it, and then you're you got to figure something else out. I'll put a link in the show notes for an article on building your own very strong differentiation that doesn't rely on you being the only one anywhere, but, like stacks some things. But I would definitely
Unknown Speaker 10:58
lean into that now. All right, so let's put it together with your your statement. Once you find these things, you get your vertical, horizontal and problem, right? That equals how we want to be seen by the market. So we help industry, or, sorry, we help, like this person at this industry, solve this problem, right? That's it. It's a simple formula. It's very quick.
Unknown Speaker 11:25
It is you could use that in an elevator to get someone to know whether you're the right fit for them or not. Doesn't have to be the sexiest thing, but you can always workshop it and just keep finding better ways
Unknown Speaker 11:38
to work this out.
Unknown Speaker 11:41
So
Unknown Speaker 11:43
you're you're vertical again, like just quick recap, right? Your vertical is what makes you relatable. The your horizontal is going to get you in front of the right people, but then the problem is, what's going to actually get them to hire you? So challenge today for all listeners, write down your current positioning statement, right? So again, that's vertical horizontal plus problems. So we help horizontal at vertical companies solve problems. Write that down.
Unknown Speaker 12:12
Now ask yourself, Does this the way we just went through that? Does it describe who you serve or how you can help? Right? If it only does the first one, then you've got a filter, not a position. We got to get tighter. So your next step. So look at your last like, five closed deals. If you got more, even better, like, literally, take them, put them into like AI, let it do the work for you. But like, if you had any sales calls, let it start pulling information out of these for you.
Unknown Speaker 12:41
What problem were they all trying to solve? That is your positioning, like, say it out loud, put it on your website, right? Lead, lead with that in sales calls,
Unknown Speaker 12:52
you just it's so critical. You don't need to serve everyone right. You just need the right people to hear your name and think that's exactly what I need. So hopefully this was helpful and gives you a the right framing. If you want some resources that could help you with this, check out the dynamic agency community. It's $97 a year, and we'll give you access to all the workshops that we're going to be running. We just did one for how to build your own AI chief of stuff, following the same, basically the same thing that I've now built for myself, which has saved me. It's saved me now probably six to eight hours a week, like this thing's awesome, but everybody in the community got to go to the workshop for free to see how to do it for themselves. We have a channel where we keep talking to make sure everybody's getting the actual result. And we're going to be running workshops on various things like this,
Unknown Speaker 13:45
like this podcast episode, and so if you want some of that, you want some of these resources, dynamic agency, os.com/community,
Unknown Speaker 13:53
you can check that out in the show notes. But otherwise, I will see you next week.
Unknown Speaker 14:02
That's the show everyone. You can leave a rating and review, or you can do something that benefits. You click the link in the show notes to subscribe to agency forward on substack, you'll get weekly content resources and links from around the internet to help you drive your agency forward.
Unknown Speaker 14:22
You
Transcribed by https://otter.ai