You’ve started your own business. You are excited about having independence and taking control of your destiny. You have many skills to offer your clients, and you know you can get paid for these skills. You turn these skills into service or product offerings and attempt to market them all together under the same business. But you begin to struggle explaining what you do when you meet a prospect. You find that your elevator pitch needs 40 floors or more to get the message out. What’s the problem here?

Over the years, many of us have held a wide variety of jobs in corporate America. These jobs provided us with the opportunity to learn a vast array of skills. I know a number of lawyers who have worked in corporations at many types of jobs, none having anything to do with the law. I’ve met other folks that started in education and moved into sales or marketing. All of this makes us stronger business owners, with an assortment of talents to draw upon.

The trouble occurs when you try to take these unrelated skills, create a product or service offering, and market them as one business. I’ve met many business owners who give me 3-5 different services, none of them having anything to do with each other. The result is usually a lack of focus in your messages, difficulty in picking a target audience, and basically confusing those prospects you do get to talk with. If you find yourself with these challenges, read on.

Decide What Business You Are In

Before you can effectively develop a marketing plan, you need to know what business you are in. Define your focus or niche that you want to target by ensuring that there is a target market that makes entering this business worthwhile. Remember, as part of your market analysis, you need to determine:

• What business you are in;
• What products and services you offer;
• Who is your target market;
• Who are your competitors and how do you differentiate your business from theirs.

Once you have this information, then take a critical view of your product or services and the benefits they offer your very clearly defined target market. This will be the first indication if your products and services can be marketed together effectively.

Determine Your Discipline

Most small businesses should adopt one solid discipline. A discipline is a category, such as marketing, business coaching, IT services, legal services or financial services, to name a few. Staying within a discipline and building a reputation within that niche, enables you to develop your brand identity – that is, how customers view your business.

If your services are event planning (marketing) and computer software training (IT services), it is really difficult to draw a thread through these two offerings. Trying to do so will ultimately confuse your prospect. Put yourself in their shoes and ask, “What am I buying from this company”? Am I buying IT services or marketing services? I’m not saying that the types of skills can’t mix, but can you integrate the two disciplines in a way that you sell one thing to your prospect?

For example, a marketing person that has a strong technical background could offer marketing services that include set up and training of the infrastructure required to track and manage customers and leads, such as an appropriate Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for their business.

Other skills may be combined a bit more easily. For example, you can combine event planning and photography skills. These two skills could be part of either a marketing discipline or a discipline that provides wedding services. It depends on your target and who you enjoy working with the most – brides or corporations.

Verify if these Skills Support Your Core Business

Sometimes your skills can be supporting services of your core business, even if they are not from the same discipline. Think about whether your skills can enhance your service offerings, rather than be separate offerings. Let them help you deliver a quality service rather than separating them out. Then your marketing can express the value you offer, rather than trying to explain the bits and pieces.

For example, if you happen to be good at IT services and at business operations, use the operational aspect to provide a very project-oriented service that includes developing the technology plan with budgets, purchasing options, setting up the day-to-day operations processes, etc. You help a business get their technology working for them, and you help them develop and track the operations of the business from expense tracking, accounts payable, and other operational tasks. Marketing IT services and business operations equally under the business will confuse your prospects. Who then is your target audience – the operations manager or the IT manager? Marketing one service with the other supporting it is far more focused and allows you to provide your target market with a valuable offering.

Separate into Two Distinct Businesses

If the two businesses are truly disparate, one not really supporting the other, then maybe you should consider operating two separate businesses. If you sell real estate, keep that completely separate from your Web development firm. The questions you need to ask yourself are:

• Which is the primary business?

  It is important to determine which business you will devote the most time, money and effort running. If you feel both are primary businesses, you may want to hire a business coach and think this through before you become totally overwhelmed. People have run two separate businesses, but it may not be the right thing for you.

• Can the second business operate effectively with less attention?

  Some Internet-based businesses can operated pretty much unattended once they are established. If you have a business at this stage, then feel free to start another, more demanding business. If the second business requires a lot of attention to make it successful, then you might want to reconsider starting a second at this time.

• Are you equally as passionate about both businesses?

  Multiple streams of income is a good thing, but if you are really passionate about one of the businesses, then why aren’t you putting all of your effort into that business and ensure that it is a winner?

Focus on Your Core Competency

When you focus your business, you maximize customer value because you clearly address a critical need. You build your reputation and become known for a particular product or service. Expansion is fine as long as you offer something complementary to your current products or services. If you find it difficult to discover the thread that ties all the pieces together, then you probably have moved too far from the core of your business. If you stray too far from your core, you run the risk of diluting the brand you have worked so hard to establish.