With a book with as strong a title as '
Secrets to Dominate YOur Niche ', the authors of the book, Sant Qiu and Thomas Fernandez gave a fantastic preview to their book in Geek Terminal at 1.30pm. The book was launched on 22 April becoming the
3rd best-sellers list in most major bookstores in Singapore. The demand was so high that the bookstores ran out of the book.
It is with this high excitement over the book that prompted Project:Senso to invite the 2 authors of the book, Sant Qiu who happens to sit on board of Project:Senso as our Brand and Marketing Specialist and his partner Thomas Fernandez to give a free preview and seminar on their book. The crowd was bigger than anticipated, most of them entrepreneurs in their own rights from indutries like retail to even the green industry like chemical washers. The audience was vowed with the content of the seminar as they both not only covered the essense of their book but added bonuses of what was meant about the technicalities of the book.
They cover various topics from what differentiates a successful brand from a mediocre one and provided anologies that are easily applicable to the entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs. They exclaimed: If you want to think, think big! Imagine brands international brands like Starbucks and McDonalds and local brands like SIA and BreadTalk.
According to them, you can Always Create a New Niche. For example instead of white bread, niches like whole meal bread, multigrain, raisin, walnut are getting more purchases compared to ordinary white bread.
Next, they explained how Problems are Opportunities Disguised where most successful businesses are built on solving a problems. The more number of problems you solve, the more serious the problems you solve. The more value you create, the more money you make.
The majority of people purchase based on their emotions and then justify their purchase using their logic. So you must communicate to their emotions. To Dominate your niche, first capture and lead their attention. This is called the Elevator Pitch. The message you say must appeal to the target market, be relevant, meaningful and beneficial to them. When you mention a brand, what do you think of them? For example, when you mention luxury cars, which brand do you think of? Mercedez, BMW and the sorts.
Perception is reality! When there is sales, it is a perceived thought that the product is cheaper than the original price and will be over in a matter of time. An exmple of a perceived reality is the creation of queues to eat a food item or buy a luxury items makes the items more in demand and increased the value of the item. Just like they say, the more someone queues for something, the more people wants to join in the queue. Another perceived reality is if you are only selling ordinary products like rice and brown rice, the branding will not be as effective as selling rice with added Victamin E, D, etc and you will be able to target your brand to a stronger niche who is more health conscious. Dont be surpised that the volume of sales will increase just by introducing your product to a niche but loyal market. It creates a lasting impression on the customers of your product.
There was also lessons on Polarity Positioning - Finding a Niche is one, delivering the promise is another. It's all about the elevator pitch. Find your mission and deliver it. For example, what is the polarity of James Bond? With a suave and bumbling personality, and the ability to get any girls, James BOnd has sold on this winning strategy. When other movies came up with the same concept using a different actor, they did not make it big.
When you want to differentiate, be completely different! For example, when Pepsi used the same time of drink formula like Coke, they used the same color of the can of Coke. After various deliberation, the changed the color to blue to be completely different. Outwit, outperform your competitors. When you create a niche, you are not competing in a commodity. You can create a differentiation in many ways, not only in the product or service but how it is delivered and how the experience of using the product will be.
The interesting part of the seminar is there was one guy named Antoine who owns a muffin shop called
Bliss Haven who differentates his muffin by selling the world's first fortune muffins where lottery numbers or your luck for the day is inserted into the muffin. After reading the book by Thomas Fernandez, he immediatelly commented about the book in the website and when he found out about the seminar, registered and paid to attend the talk. He even brought muffins for the benefit of everyone who attended the seminar. This action of his left an indelible impression on everyone including Project:Senso who now knows about the existence of this one-of a kind muffin shop. By taking the decision and some time out to attend this seminar, he has elevated his brand to a higher level. The best part is he related a story of how by buying one of his muffin, one lady has won No. 2 in a lottery she bought. Ssant Qiu asked "Have you used this story to approach the media?" Thomas added that was a great and captivating story that will capture a niche of customers, a niche that like to gamble and by buying his muffin, they not only can enjoy his muffin but can also stand a chance to get a fortune! This will definitely create a greater impact and bigger awareness to his muffins.
Project:Senso is definitely glad that this seminar has taught the audience so much and hoped that they have added value to the lifes of these entrepreneurs. Some of the audience even bought the book 'Secret to Dominate Your Niche' personally signed by them.
