Don’t Boil the Ocean: The Paradox of Focus, Specialization, and Positioning

Turn your firm into a trusted and respected leader in your niche.

In this episode, John and Mark explore how firms can not only effectively differentiate against competitors, but actually how to apply that differentiation in their marketing and sales activities. In this conversation, we cover:

• The nuanced differences between focus, specialization, and positioning
• Reasons why firms should embrace specialization
• How to identify the right area of specialization
• How to align your specialization with long-term goals for sustained success

Real-world examples of firms with focus, specialization and excellent positioning:

• TBSP (tablespoon) — accounting solutions specifically for restaurants: https://tbsp.com/
• Driving Transactions — M&A advisory services specifically for chauffeured transportation companies: https://www.drivingtransactions.com/
• Jaffe Holden — acoustic design services for Performing Arts, Educational and Cultural Spaces Worldwide: https://www.jaffeholden.com/
• Lloyd Sports + Engineering — Lloyd Sports + Engineering has focused on the planning, design and construction of sports facilities since coining the term “sports engineering” in 1987: https://www.lloydengineers.com/
• Friedman Tax — accounting services specifically for tattoo parlors: https://friedmantax.com/

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhwainwright/
Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johntyreman/

www.breakingbizdev.com

Transcript

John Tyreman: 0:19

Welcome business developers to another episode of Breaking Biz Dev. And today, Mark, we're going to break down what it means to specialize.

Mark Wainwright: 0:27

This is a fantastic episode. Oh, and by the way, welcome all the other people who don't sort of self identify as a business developer. You're welcome here too. We want to make sure that, we have a big tent, as you've said in the past, John, that we invite everybody, including myself. Who have, you know, in one way or another rejected that whole sort of identification of business developer. Cause you know, John, it is fraught with problems and that's why we are here. That's why we are breaking down and beating up biz dev. So, welcome. And yes, we're going to talk about specialization focus positioning. And honestly, John, I think for a long time, I've just sort of thrown those. Concepts, those words kind of in one big pile and I love how you've kind of teased them apart a little bit and we're going to talk about that and some other stuff. So, um, good,

John Tyreman: 1:13

Yeah. I'm, I'm excited to dig into this one too, especially because of the reasons you just mentioned. And it was an interesting thought exercise to kind of go through this and really break that apart just kind of understanding the differences between focus, specialization and positioning. And then we're going to explore, you know, why should firms position their brands around an area of specialization? It's kind of this paradox that is counterintuitive. And so that'll be good to explore. And then, what are the different ways that firms can specialize? on the back end of this episode, we've got some examples of firms with. Good focus, good specialization, good positioning. So we'll give you some real examples of firms that maybe you can emulate or model yourself after

Mark Wainwright: 1:55

good, good. Yeah. And you know, we're not the only ones shouting from the mountaintop about, focus and specialization and positioning. And there is some other fantastic voices on podcasts and just out there in the world and, in professional services firms. So, this is critical. And like you said, it's a bit of a paradox. It's a bit counterintuitive. but I think you and I in our own ways have been successful in. These things in positioning ourselves and focusing, specializing, developing some really focused expertise. So we've been successful with that. So we're not just pontificating and speculating here, right? We've experienced the benefits of it. I have observed other, Professional services firms who do the same thing, who have, reaped the rewards. and on the other end of the spectrum, I know and deal with firms all the time who, all but reject this concept of, narrowing down, focusing on a niche, being focused experts, that kind of thing. So hopefully, this turns a few of the naysayers. Towards more focus, more specialization and reinforces how beneficial this can be, for those who believe in it.

John Tyreman: 3:13

a hundred percent, a hundred percent. I've done a lot of research on firms in the professional services space. And one common theme that's associated with high growth has been specialization. And so I've seen it quantifiably, if I've been able to quantify that in research, that specialization is definitely a key to growth. So let's, let's dig into it. Mark, let's talk about the difference between focus, specialization and positioning. I'll go ahead and define each one and then we can just talk about it. Does that sound good?

Mark Wainwright: 3:46

Yeah, absolutely.

John Tyreman: 3:47

All right. We'll start with focus and focus really defines where consultants spend their efforts. So I think that one's pretty straightforward. Where do you spend your time? Where do you spend your energy?

Mark Wainwright: 3:59

Yeah. So it's a picking and choosing exercise,

John Tyreman: 4:02

It is.

Mark Wainwright: 4:02

It's a filter. It's what am I going to focus on? What am I not going to focus on? Right? The exercise of focusing is as much, if not more about saying no, then it is about saying yes.

John Tyreman: 4:14

Yep. So that could bubble up in terms of like the qualification criteria that you have on opportunities in your pipeline. specialization. Let's talk about that specialization signals, a depth of understanding and relevant experience. And I like the way that we've defined this and you and I went back and forth kind of wordsmithing these to try to get them to the right definitions. And, I like that we use the word signals, a depth of understanding and relevant experience.

Mark Wainwright: 4:43

Yeah, good.

John Tyreman: 4:44

So, all right. Positioning really ensures that understanding and that experience is recognized by the target market, that you're not, a hidden gem in the industry, that the buyers understand the experience that you have and the understanding of their industry and they're able to recognize that.

Mark Wainwright: 5:01

Yeah. In the, blue ocean strategy book, the book that could have been a blog post. no offense. It's a good one, but yeah, I mean, the concept there, right. You're swimming in blue water rather than the red, shark infested waters of your competition. So yeah, that's that. And the nuance of that definition that you said there is that the market recognizes it. Yeah.

John Tyreman: 5:23

Yeah,

Mark Wainwright: 5:24

And understands that position, right? Rather than you thinking you're off on your own, but nobody really sees you or recognizes you as being good. So those are, three. Yeah. Let's stick into them. We'll circle back to focus. wanted a little bit into, focus, you know, defining where you spend your, effort. And obviously, you know, we're focused on professional services and experts. So, you know, where are experts spending their time and every single time I bring this topic up when I'm talking to someone, the main objection that comes up is, okay, so you said we have to focus, so we say yes to some things and no to other things. So does that mean that we say no to every single new client, new prospective opportunity that shows up at the front door? And, you know, my answer to that was no, you don't say no to things that show up at the front door if they're a good fits. Then you can proceed forward, right? Maybe it's a slightly outside that area of focus. You don't say no to that, but what you do say no to is the time and efforts and resources you spend in your proactive activities, right? So that's where you start to refine. And narrow down.

John Tyreman: 6:37

What are some examples of those proactive activities, Mark? does the rubber hit the road there? A

Mark Wainwright: 6:43

for referrals, when you approach people that, you know, and trust who know and trust you and you're seeking for introductions to others, you could help. You are very careful when you are a selecting those individuals to go and talk to, to make sure that they are part of this area of focus. Because obviously they're going to hopefully lead you to places, of that same area of focus if you found that you've had success working with, small municipalities doing X type of work, you want to be really careful on who you go and talk to, there. Oh, yeah, I know 2 other people at small municipalities who do this, but when you have this specific kind of a need, that sort of thing. So, we're talking about referrals, you're selective about who you approach and then when you're talking to them, you're really careful to provide them a crystal clear picture of who your ideal client is to help them filter and say, Oh yeah, okay, so I'm not going to refer. Mark to these folks, because what he just described to me is outside of his area of focus. So that's that. And then, obviously from a marketing standpoint, it's a big deal from a prospecting standpoint, it's a big deal. And prospecting is that proactive one to one outreach. So it's the simple exercise of running this filter through and saying, are the people that I am proactively reaching out to. Inside of this area of focus or are they not?

John Tyreman: 8:06

hundred percent. And you mentioned marketing and I'll just give a couple examples, you know, where you spend your time creating content and what content you spend your time creating around. if you're going after the manufacturing industry, maybe you shouldn't be talking about sports and entertainment, right? I love that focus is where you spend your time and where do you spend your efforts, your resources. And then specialization, we talked about this signal of a depth of understanding and relevant experience. And so I would say that that's a result of where you put your focus and effort. Becomes that specialization, the clients that you actively pursue, the types of work that you do, the types of services that you offer, and, and then eventually the market understands and recognizes that specialization. And then you can kind of shape that and that's the positioning angle of it. And you can shape that with your marketing, with your sales efforts.

Mark Wainwright: 9:02

right. And the specialization comes with time and effort., it comes with, this continual pursuit of deeper and deeper insight. and knowledge in a specific area, and I truly do not believe that it is, limiting. there is almost endless depth to, any area of focus. So I think if people are thinking, Oh, we can't specialize because we're going to get bored, or I want to do all these different types of things. It's like, I think there is nearly endless opportunity to learn more, to gain deeper and deeper expertise, and then, Be recognized for that. It opens up the possibility of the outside world recognizing that you are a visible expert, in this area. So it takes time and then lo and behold, you find that you're positioned well away from others. If you've done all this, right.

John Tyreman: 9:54

Mark, we often say don't boil the ocean on this podcast. Right. And I think there's this counterintuitive nature where, I've experienced this business owners, firm owners, they're reluctant to specialize because they, they have this fear of missing out. on other segments of the market that maybe they've had experience with in the past. Maybe they've had success with in the past, but it's scary to them. risk associated with narrowing your target addressable market, right?

Mark Wainwright: 10:25

Right. And that's the obvious downside. Absolutely.

John Tyreman: 10:29

But

Mark Wainwright: 10:31

there's a bunch of fantastic reasons why you would you bring up the good point in that you have to look at the scale. You have to balance this. You have to go back and forth. You have to do your pros and cons. For us, there's a number of really fantastic benefits of this that, we'll talk about here that outweigh all the negative stuff. So let's dig into those, benefits. You had a bunch written down here.

John Tyreman: 10:53

Yeah, there's, there's four bullet points that I've got here, in terms of why firms should position their brand and around an area of specialization, number one, it enhances the trust that your clients have within you. So demonstrating a level of mastery or expertise in a specific industry or in a specific service offering, it builds credibility around. You and it builds trust and deepens the relationship that you have with your clients. So that's number one,

Mark Wainwright: 11:22

Yeah. the trust equation, right. From Charlie green, right. One of the major components about that is, credibility and credibility is, the one that says talking to an expert here. Right. So the more focused expertise you can show, the increase you show in that whole said credibility thing.

John Tyreman: 11:37

reason number two, why you should position your brand around an area of specialization is it gives you operational efficiency. Right. So if you're able to specialize in a specific industry and you understand the nuances of that industry and how they operate, you're able to develop more streamlined processes around and anticipate behaviors of clients so that you can allocate your resources more effectively so that you can deliver, more value to your clients. so that's another benefit of specialization is you get more repeatable processes.

Mark Wainwright: 12:10

Yeah. And you know, that, Holy grail that we're all chasing is that process improvement thing where we're constantly experimenting and improving, with time. And I experienced that. I know that you experienced it. we try things. I mean, even is, large organizations all the way down to small solo practitioners. Experience this, whether we do it consciously or overtly or not, but we are constantly, doing things we've done for a while, testing, improving them and testing out new things to see if that work as well. So absolutely.

John Tyreman: 12:37

All right. Reason number three, why you should position your brand around an area of specialization. And here's this word that you love, Mark, the V word. So you have a clear value proposition and I love your take on value. And I think it had a light bulb moment for me the other day, but a narrow focus really makes it easier to communicate your offering and value to potential clients. What's your take on value?

Mark Wainwright: 12:59

Yeah, well, not to pontificate too much on it, right. The issue have people gloss over value, the importance of it, the perception of it, just sort of like the understanding of the term value. The big thing that always the big speed bump with me when the word value comes into a conversation is that the consultants. You know, and the whole concept of the value proposition and what you offer to your prospective clients and what you offer to the marketplace, the client is in complete control of value right there. Ones who will or will not assign a certain level of value to something. So when we talk about clear value propositions, for me, that means I take it and tweak it a little bit. I say. a clear value proposition is something that comes through an effort of listening, questioning, understanding, being curious to where you can understand your client and their needs and then bring your expertise to them in a way that fits, you know, the things they value, the things that are important to them. So that's how you get to a place where someone highly values your work is that you've done a really good job of matching. What you do and your expertise to their needs, right? So it's less about our proposition because, I refer to this whole value proposition thing as a, it's a value, it's a guess, right? And we don't want to find ourselves guessing too much. So, you know, the way we avoid guessing is we approach. Our prospective clients with a really good sense of curiosity. We understand their needs and then we're able to match our work our expertise to the things they value

John Tyreman: 14:31

Love

Mark Wainwright: 14:31

Sorry, did I soapbox I soapbox too long on that. one? I just

John Tyreman: 14:34

didn't. And I wanted, I wanted you to a little bit because I thought that that's a really great perspective and I liken it to, you've played the game of battleship before, right, or you've got to get guests where the boats are. And I liken it to, it's like an in battleship. if you have a good focus, if you have a good area of specialization that you've built good positioning around, you've cut that quadrant in half. Right. And you're starting with half the board and so each shot is twice as likely to be a hit, or in other words, you're closer to getting that understanding going through that those lines of questioning and inquiry and practicing curiosity, because you have a specialization in either an offering or an industry or a market, some kind of a market or a specific segment of the market. You have that, you come to the table closer than you would if you were a generalist.

Mark Wainwright: 15:27

Yeah. I love that. I love that battleship analogy, right and so and the only way you're going to be able to hit more than you miss is by getting to know the person you're playing battleship against, right? Your opponent, right? You're like, oh yeah, I've known John for a while. I know that John does that thing where he likes to cram all his boats in one little corner, right? Me on the other hand, I like to spread them out and give them all a little bit of room and they're all moving in the same direction, right? They're all pointing up or down. That's so funny. I love that visual.

John Tyreman: 15:59

There you go. Well, that's our job, Mark, is to give our listeners, you know, something to picture in their

Mark Wainwright: 16:03

Yeah, that's funny. I like it.

John Tyreman: 16:05

All right. So we talked about clear value proposition, the other bullet point that I have and why you should. Position your brand around an area of specialization, why your firm should specialize is it gives you a competitive advantage, right? So if you differentiate your firm based on some level of specialization, it can set you apart from other firms in the market. And so you're able to command a more premium price. You're able to attract a specific kind of buyer. those are some of the advantages that come with specialization.

Mark Wainwright: 16:34

Right. The competitive advantage thing, the first word in that statement is competition is like, well, if you lessen the competition to the point where there is, you know, very little or none, then you are the choice in the marketplace. And, you know, I don't want to underscore the the premium pricing thing too much Because I think that's all a little bit relative, but I do You know on balance. I do believe that, you will have the opportunity to price your services in alignment with what the client is willing to pay i. e what they value but if you've done a good enough job, they highly value you because you are a visible expert. So the pricing will all come along with that, right? So you just get lost in a pricing competition. If there's way too many people around you that look just like you, that talk just like you, that walk just like you. So it's going to be a fight to the bottom. So yeah, premium pricing is a big deal.

John Tyreman: 17:31

Yeah. And if you're not specializing, get ready to sharpen your pencil,

Mark Wainwright: 17:35

Oh God, sharpen your pencil. You're listening to breaking biz dev

John Tyreman: 17:40

the podcast that beats up, breaks down, and redefines business development for the professional services firms of tomorrow. Your hosts are John Tyerman, founder of Red Cedar Marketing, the podcast marketing company for experts and professional services firms,

Mark Wainwright: 17:54

And Mark Wainwright, principal consultant and founder of Wainwright Insight, the fractional sales manager and sales consultant to professional services firms.

John Tyreman: 18:04

If you find this podcast helpful, please help us by following the show and leaving a review on Apple podcasts

Mark Wainwright: 18:10

and now back to the show.

John Tyreman: 18:13

All right. So now that we talked about why firms should specialize and we're making the case for it, how should you do it? So we alluded to this earlier in terms of, different industries you could target. That's certainly one way. but how do you know which one to target, right? How do you know which service you need to focus on? We've got a couple of bullet points here. We've got three. That we can go through and then we can kind of expand upon.

Mark Wainwright: 18:37

Yeah, good.

John Tyreman: 18:37

All right. So I think a good starting place is really to evaluate your strengths and your past successes. So what are the areas where you have a proven track record? And where do you have existing expertise that you can point to and maybe past clients or case studies, that's the first place to start.

Mark Wainwright: 18:57

Yep. Makes sense.

John Tyreman: 18:57

So you can group clients together in different ways, like looking at different characteristics, of your clients, looking at revenue, client lifetime value, like what are the clients that are the most profitable or have the most margin, what characteristics do they have together? And gives you kind of like the lay of the land and where to start. All right. So point number two, and how you should specialize. So if you understand what your internal strengths are, then you can go out to the market and you can pinpoint areas of demand and find where those underserved niches are

Mark Wainwright: 19:29

Yeah. Go talk to the market.

John Tyreman: 19:31

interview your clients. if you have a hunch, go talk to clients to validate that hunch, do competitive research. We talked about competitive advantage. who are the players who specialize in that niche? If you have an area of specialization, you're considering who are the other players in the market that also specialize in that? And then how are you going to be able to differentiate your firm against that set of competitors?

Mark Wainwright: 19:55

Very good. Very good.

John Tyreman: 19:56

And then finally, selecting the right niche or selecting the right area of specialization. Does it align with your long term goals? That specialization, what impact does that have on the long term projections of your company and where you want to take it and how you want to grow?

Mark Wainwright: 20:11

Write do you have the right expertise internally to continue to pursue that? Do you need to bring new people in tons of considerations there.

John Tyreman: 20:18

And then does this mean we need to get rid of all the other stuff?

Mark Wainwright: 20:21

Stuff. Yeah. Right. Yeah, it does. No, these are, these are great. the way you have these kind of laid out here it sounds to me like the first bullet point is sort of a, SWAT exercise where you're, identifying strengths and opportunities and you're, minimizing threats and weaknesses, you're trying to mitigate all that sort of stuff. So you're, doubling down. So absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. This is, a largely internal exercise on doubling down on the, things that you can really win with the things you're really, really good at. So that one's, good. Things that are profitable, things that, the marketplace needs totally. Yeah. the market research one. Yeah, there you go. Talk to your clients. No surprise. Go talk to them. So stress test it. Just get a, litmus test on your ideas and everything from the marketplace. So yeah, that's a big one.

John Tyreman: 21:09

And so once you go through that exercise and you figure out, okay, here are some potential ways that we could specialize. I think that I liken specialization to alchemy. And here's what I mean by that. on their own, each potential way that you could specialize doesn't really move the needle that much chances are that you're going to run into competition if you specialize in a industry, or if you specialize in a specific offering. However, when you combine different areas of specialization, that's really where you can stand out.

Mark Wainwright: 21:39

Yeah, I totally agree. You and I, subscribe fully to that. Others do as well. we do our little Venn diagram exercise, you know, of here's who I am. This is what I'm going to do. And this is who I'm going to do it for, and we play in that little. Overlap area in the middle and we just have to make sure that area is big enough, right? That's our total addressable market sort of size. Are there enough buyers out there for what we want to sell? but yeah, there's all those little circles here and you've got the four. I can run through the four that you've got listed here. You've got your service offering. what do you offer and what's your expertise you're offering to the marketplace. The next one is the industry. Who, right? Who are you? what industry, have you had the most success and where can you continue to grow? Client type similar to industry, but a little different as well, but client type is that small group. you noted some like startups, are they nonprofits are they very large organizations, are they, certain departments within larger organizations, municipal, whoever, and the last one is geography, which for some organizations is critical for us, like you and I less so, but for people who can do work all over the place, less of a consideration others, there's clients that I work with or, geography is massive. When I work with architects and engineers, they have to be licensed,, to work in different states and municipalities. And, if they are not, they can't play there. So that's fine. So yeah, these are four Goodwin service offering industry client type and geographic location.

John Tyreman: 23:05

And there's many, many other ways that your firm could specialize. And so these are just four examples and I've even pulled examples of real firms out there, different kinds. We've got some accounting firms, we've got some, financial services, some architecture, design, engineering, tax. So, I'd like to just showcase each one of these and just kind of make it real. Let's give our listeners some examples. What do you say?

Mark Wainwright: 23:31

Yeah. You, came up with good list here and most of these are totally new to me. So, yeah. Great.

John Tyreman: 23:35

All right. So, this first one is. an accounting firm specifically for restaurants, and they're called Tablespoon.

Mark Wainwright: 23:43

Yeah. I love it.

John Tyreman: 23:44

So you've got the service offering accounting solutions specifically for an industry, the restaurant industry. So here's a great example of that alchemic combination of specialized service offering for specialized industry. And I think that's an example of something that Mark, you and I have both done, right? Sales management for professional services. Podcast marketing for professional services. So that's, one example or a couple examples there.

Mark Wainwright: 24:11

Yeah. Good.

John Tyreman: 24:12

let's go to the AEC world. Jaffe Holden they offer acoustic design services for performing arts, educational, and cultural spaces.

Mark Wainwright: 24:22

Yeah. Any of the, experts that I work with in that field recognize, the different specializations within each area of expertise. Thanks. But a lot of them are hesitant to really double down on it. and you know, this is a great one. Someone like this that you just mentioned this Jeffy Holden group that does acoustic design services for performing arts in order to make sure that their total addressable market, the market size is big enough. They are likely doing work all over the. Place, right? They're just, they're, they're either doing work remotely or they're shipping people all over or they have office. They're small offices all over the place. So yeah, that's a, that's a good example.

John Tyreman: 25:06

Here's another one from the AEC world, Lloyd Sports and Engineering. they focus on planning, design, and construction of sports facilities since they coined the term sports engineering in 1987.

Mark Wainwright: 25:19

Yeah. Good.

John Tyreman: 25:19

So they've been around for a while.

Mark Wainwright: 25:21

Yeah. Those big, massive venues that you're sitting and looking around thinking, how in the world did this thing come together? It requires a specific expertise, radically different from someone who, you know, is, designing and then building a single family home. It's just, different worlds, but they all started out in the same place. They all started out in school doing the same kind of stuff. And then at some point. this group said, Hey, we're going to double down in this specific area. Likely it started with a smaller project that ended up being a bigger project and their clients took them there. But, yeah, they doubled down on it.

John Tyreman: 25:58

It's also, I think a case example of category creation where they coined the term sports engineering as a category and became the leaders in

Mark Wainwright: 26:06

good example.

John Tyreman: 26:07

all right. So, let's go back to the accounting and financial services area of professional services and driving transactions. This is actually a client of mine. they offer M& A advisory services specifically for chauffeur transportation companies.

Mark Wainwright: 26:24

I love it. That is just like, we're like in a thousand years, I couldn't do the Venn diagram exercise of like, where is the market for that, but it's, you know. Okay, so it's there, apparently it's there cause they're making a, go of it. So it's merger and acquisition, consulting to chauffeured transportation companies, right? So that's crazy.

John Tyreman: 26:46

it's an industry that has, there's a lot of smaller companies and there's a lot of churn in the industry that goes on. And right now there's a lot of consolidation that's happening. So he's in a good time and place right now. but yeah, it's very, very super niche and he's chock full of clients.

Mark Wainwright: 27:05

I love it. That is so cool. And you had a, you had the last one, listed there, which is also kind of, you know, Financial services are Friedman tax, who is an accounting services company specifically for tattoo parlors. And, uh, you know, we say that and it's, it's fun, but there's a handful of those in there, like accounting solutions specifically for restaurants and everything else. And, you know, one side of the coin is, the marketplace, large enough. And can I. Become visible within that, marketplace, but also when these people are out looking for help, they are looking for people that they're looking for consultants, organizations, whatever else they're looking for help that gets them that they don't have to, be with an accountant, you know, has this big long learning curve. Right. They want to work with someone who's been there before. So, you know, it's like, yes, I work with tattoo parlors. That's all I do. So every tattoo parlor out there is like, I just want to work with my people. And it looks like this accountant who works with, tattoo parlors, like ours, that's our people. Right. And everybody shows up and they've got their ink and they talk about it. And, you know, so, uh, yeah, I think that's, that's great. Right. there's that two critical sides of the coin. The one we've talked about a lot is. separating yourself, specializing, focusing, everything else. And the other thing that we haven't talked about much is that the people are out there looking for you because they want to find people that they can relate to, so they're out there looking and I say this like, it's simple, but all you need to do is get yourself out there, become visible, right. And you're, driving transactions client. That's what they're trying to do. They're trying to make themselves more visible by working with you and doing the podcast stuff. So I love it. Great examples. And we can probably link to these, in the notes or whatever else, but. These are great. We'd love to hear about other organizations that people have come across out there that, are just hyper focused and really successful. And that's

John Tyreman: 29:00

Send us some examples. If you're listening to this and you have a great example of a firm that specializes really well and positions themselves really well, or if that's your firm, reach out to us and let us know. We'd love to hear from you.

Mark Wainwright: 29:12

Or if you think you're positioned really well and we don't send us a note anyway. So yeah., this is not simple. This is not simple in, in industries where the vast majority of consulting firms, professional services firms, Where the vast majority are just generalists where they're just like, we do a little bit of a lot of things and we're happy doing that. Okay, uh, you know, but this is hard and there's a little bit of a taking the plunge thing. There's definitely a little bit of editing. the analogy that I bring to this, it's maybe this is off topic, but maybe it's not, maybe it's right on is that, all these firms start off as big chunks of. Marble big blocks of marble and you right with every little chip of your chisel, you start to edit that block away to some final form, you know, some sculpture of the organization that you want to be right. And that's what this is, is, you know, with every. Every chip you make, every decision you make, every client you take on or don't take on, you continue to refine that big block till it becomes this, this form that you're incredibly proud of, that people love, that draws attention, all those things. So, yeah, that's the picture I always have in my mind when I talk about this, this subject is what do you want to look like and understand that every decision that you make, every chip you take at that block is either moving you in the right direction. Or taking you in the other direction. So it's, I don't know, John, I, I think this is almost like a, this is a deal breaker for us, John. It's just like, man, you got to specialize

John Tyreman: 30:48

I love that block of marble analogy. And so if you want your firm to look like the Statue of David by Michelangelo, Make sure that you specialize and really niche down because there's riches in the niches,

Mark Wainwright: 31:01

riches in the niches.

John Tyreman: 31:03

He thought we were going to get through without me saying that, but we

Mark Wainwright: 31:07

You nailed it. You nailed it

John Tyreman: 31:10

Well, I think we broke this one down sufficiently

Mark Wainwright: 31:12

good. It's, it's a, it's a fascinating topic. Like I said, there's a lot of great voices. Out there, that are talking about this. if people, organizations just think this is nearly impossible. I tell you, it's not, and I'll tell you, organizations of just about any size, provided the addressable marketplace is large enough. you can narrow down as, as much as you'd like, and there's tons of benefit. So, yeah, I think this is, this is a good one, John, until next time.

John Tyreman: 31:40

until next time.