Do one thing and do it better than anyone – Orville Redenbacher

In The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk!, law #5 is the law of Focus.  It states the most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’s mind.  Narrow the focus to a single word or concept. It is always better to focus on one benefit, rather than two or three.  Examples are FedEx - overnight delivery and Domino’s Pizza -home delivery.

Companies trying to offer too many services spread themselves too thin.  They can easily be beaten by companies who specialize in just one service.

I applied this law to marketing my wife’s property management company.  We noticed most of the competition were not just property managers, but also realtors.  By focusing only on property management, we gained an advantage over the realtor/property management companies.

Most of our clients say they chose us because we are not realtors.  If you are looking for a property manager, why would you hire a realtor?

The targeted anti-realtor message is on all of the marketing for the company.  We have branded ourselves as an alternative to the realtor/property management companies, and occasionally take a few jabs at the competition.

Now that the company has grown to a significant size, it is tempting to add realtors, mortgage, title or other services to create new revenue streams, but this would weaken our message and we would just blend in with everyone else.