#7 – A Maketing Lesson from Tech Bros

by | Aug 7, 2022 | Sales Sunday | 0 comments

This is Part 2/4 of a short series, detailing the strategies we use to drive relationships with customers for clients.

What we’re covering:

  • The value of relationships in B2B
  • Hyper-focusing on a target market (today)
  • How to make cold email easier
  • Successful lead gen strategies

In this email, I’m sharing the power of hyper-focusing onto a market, so that you can get responses like this:

How Patagonia Became a Tech Stereotype

In 2020, I joined a well-known startup accelerator to becomes it’s Sr. Director, and the only team I was not managing was the Venture Fund team.

All 3 of those dudes were cool.

But I noticed something.

All Venture Capital.

Patagonia. Patagonia. Patagonia.

I used to think that tech bros wearing Patagonia vests was just a stereotype. Turns out, it was true.

Patagonia is everywhere in tech. But that’s not how that brand started.

When Patagonia started out in California in the 1950s, the founder, Yvon Chouinard, was in his early teens, hanging out with literal mountain climbers.

Entrepreneurial as hell, he started off selling climbing equipment for $1.50.

The brand hyper-focused on climbing equipment, very slowly adding product lines for the same market. When it spread to clothing, the jerseys were directly inspired by rugby jerseys from Scotland because of the durability of the rugged material, as well as North Atalantic fisherman.

It was only in the 2010s that Patagonia became the go-to vest for tech bros with Amex company cards. It took decades, and was unintentional.

The brand focused for decades on a specific target market, and became the world’s best for that.

(admittedly, I own 3 vests as well. Yes, I’m part of the problem)

What’s the principle? Going an inch wide, and a mile deep.

Go an inch wide, and a mile deep

The key to building a brand that is huge is 2 things:

1) Think long-term (years to decades) about mass market awareness
2) Think short-term and super-aggressive about niche market awareness

You must go super deep into 1-2 markets as long as you can, and become the undisputed champion for that space.

That hyper-focus generates leads at a faster and faster pace. That hyper-focus builds a brand as a faster and faster pace. That hyper-focus builds B2B relationships as a faster and faster page.

That hold over the market (and resultant financial rewards) allows you to jump into different target markets later.

Prime Example: Alex Hormizi

Alex Hormozi built a $100M company, Gym Launch, based on targeting the ~30,000 gyms (that fit his ideal customer profile) in the US. Suuppper niche.

Every Venture Capitalist is going to laugh away a Total Addressable Market (TAM) of 30,000 customers.

But along with his wife Laila, Alex (and his glorious mustache) focused on a very specific market, dominating it with ridiculous amount of content and paid ads for years and years, before selling to PE.

What the f**k does that have to do with Lead Gen?

Great question, I’m glad you asked.

I call a campaign that makes people to talk to you an insider campaign.

It’s ridiculously easy to come up with an insider campaign for a hyper-focused market.

I’ll say it again. It’s ridiculously easy to come up with an insider campaign for a hyper-focused market.

And again. It’s ridiculously easy to come up with an insider campaign for a hyper-focused market.

When you have identified a hyper-focused target market, things become easy because you can build something they want to be part of:

You can get responses like this:

Here’s a few examples of Insider campaigns that have worked really well:

Lesson: Pick a hyper-focused target market.

See you next Sunday.

 

– Moby

P.S. We only take on a strict maximum of 2 new clients per month; if you’d like that to be you this year, let’s talk.