Happy Monday!
Here’s a topic I used to hate until I saw how much it actually benefited our firm. Over the last year or so, we’ve gone from being pretty general to much more specialized, and it’s changed a lot more than just our marketing.
That’s what this one’s about.
Picking our Lane
Early on, most firms take anyone as a client.
That strategy is great if all you’re looking to do is replace your salary with self-employment income. However, it’s honestly a terrible strategy if you’re turning this into a real business long term.
One of my first clients was a small construction client who showed up an hour late to our coffee meeting, was on Quickbooks Desktop, and had like 5 random entities for no reason (one was an island on the Wisconsin River, no joke).
At the time, I said yes because I was saying yes to everyone. It was painful. Looking back, that client was the perfect example of what happens when you don’t have a lane. You’re not building a firm. You’re building a collection of random clients (and problems).
Where Being a Generalist Becomes Hard
For the first two years of my firm, I considered myself a generalist. I was good at CAS work, pretty adaptable, and confident I could figure most things out.
I didn’t think about what would happen when other people came into the equation.
It’s one thing when you can jump between industries, systems, and weird client situations. It’s another thing entirely when you’re trying to hand that work off to another person or a team.
Just thinking about that stresses me out. It involves either hiring another you OR an excessive amount of training per client because they’re all so different.
Different industries. Different systems. Different expectations. Different levels of cleanup. Different kinds of weird. It slows everything down.
Eventually, to reduce drag, you’ll need to specialize in something.
If you don’t decide what kind of work your firm should be known for, the market will decide for you. And usually, it decides based on whatever random work you keep saying yes to.
Why Specializing Actually Helps
It seems like most people think niching down is mainly a marketing decision. A way to be different as a firm.
But in my experience, it was more of an operational move.
Once your clients get more alike, your firm gets easier to run.
Onboarding gets faster, hiring gets more targeted, closing the books gets consistent, and training gets easier & repeatable.
That’s just something I’ve noticed.
When we leaned harder into NetSuite and the mid-market, things got much easier operationally for us. Our team got more confident. We could build better systems because we were solving similar problems more often instead of constantly context switching & switching between QBO, Sage, SAP, Netsuite, and Excel.
Niching makes it easier to build with intention. And when your delivery gets better, everything else starts to compound from there.
The Good Stuff
Once we leaned harder into NetSuite and the mid-market, a lot started to get easier. Here are a few examples of what I’ve been noticing since niching down:
Referrals - When my firm became known as the “Netsuite firm” to my friends & acquaintances, our pipeline went from a couple leads a month to 2-3 bigger leads a week. AND, these leads are warm & already aligned with our niche.
Ranking on Search/AI - Do you think it’s easier to rank for “dental accountant” than it is to rank for “accounting firm” on Google and AI search? I definitely notice that the more specialized your firm becomes, the more you stand out to those in that niche.
Operations are easier - Delivery improves & passing clients became easier. My team works in Netsuite 30+ hours a week, it’s easy for someone to jump in and help on a client or to pass a client because of this.
Less tech - You need fewer apps to service more consistent clients. For example, we’re implementing Karbon and replacing about 4 separate apps we needed to service different types of clients.
Hiring - Hiring becomes more targeted. You’re interviewing only those with experience with your niche vs. interviewing everyone in the world with any sort of accounting experience. There are Pros and cons to this, but you’re more intentional about who you hire & reduces some of the noise for sure.
That’s really what changed for us once we specialized more. The work doesn’t need to fit into a tiny box, but it should be intentionally aimed at something.
P.S. I’m also noticing clients also tend to trust you a lot faster when you work in their niche.
Question for you
If AI took away much of what you do day to day, what would you love to still be doing?
Have a great week & St. Patty’s day!
Tailor