|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Be Neutral |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Marketing Tip: Find Your Niche and Fill It When I talk to mediator groups these days the audience is always full of people trying to build a practice doing domestic work, med-mal work, or employment work. Some of this is attributable to the case load in those areas but all too often it is because the mediator thinks that all they need to do is sign up for their local panel and they'll be overwhelmed with lucrative cases. The reality is that regardless of how well you market your practice, if there are too many competitors in the pool you're going to have a very difficult time standing out from the competition.
In reading mediation articles in the press
there are a lot of markets where mediation is just in its infancy.
Consider these that have been in the press recently:
None of these interest you and you still want to do work in a field like divorce ? Then find a niche within that market - for example you could specialize in couples over 50 (a rapidly expanding market segment) or couples of a specific faith group. Once you've done this you won't be relying on the court referral program to send you business because you will be marketing to clergy and attorneys for business in that specific niche. Think how much easier it is to mediate a case when you know something about the topic or when you can connect with the parties on some level so they'll listen to you in caucus. Then look back at your life - what experiences have you had that have provided you with knowledge in a specific area ? Did you manage a franchise for someone ? Maybe you'd be good at helping franchisee's resolve disputes in which case you should contact the franchisor or the local Chamber of Commerce to market yourself. Did you work in construction or have you suffered through the construction of your own custom home ? Perhaps you'd make a good mediator in that market and if so you should contact the builders groups. Did you teach at some point in time ? Perhaps you should contact your local university to mediate disputes between students and faculty or faculty and the administration. The possibilities are endless - you don't need to be fighting for business with hundreds of other mediators.
It doesn't
really matter what niche you find. As we all know there are disputes
all around us every day and all too often they end up in court. Your
past experiences offer you a great foundation on which to build a
mediation practice. I recommene you follow these steps to launch
yourself into marketing to a niche:
Your experience in whatever specialty market you have chosen combined with your GODR registration will make you a preferred choice to mediate a case in your niche market. Over a period of six months to a year by mediating more cases in your specialty, publishing a narrowly focused newsletter for that niche market, tailoring your website so it comes up when people search for keywords associated with this specialty, and then writing articles and giving talks will all combine to make you the recognized expert in the niche market you've chosen.
Once you are
the recognized expert in the niche market you've chosen you'll find you
have all the business that you want and probably very little competition
until someone takes notice of the fact that you're busy and
successful...and by that time you'll be too far ahead for them to catch up
- you will have found the niche and filled it !
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
