Be Known for One Thing

Imagine a private chef named Odile Brennan who does a little of everything. She cooks meals for the week for two families. She teaches a cooking class on Saturdays, bakes the odd birthday cake, and cooks a dinner party when one comes up. Her website shows all four. For a dinner party, she charges $1,300, about what she earns on her other days.

Mrs. Lindqvist is giving a dinner for 14 for her husband’s business partners. At a lunch, a friend mentions Odile. “She cooked at the Okafors’ once,” the friend says. “I think she does a bit of everything.” That evening, Mrs. Lindqvist opens Odile’s website and finds cakes, a class, and meals in containers. She writes to a chef whose website shows only dinners at home, and she pays him $2,400 for the evening.

Suppose instead that a year earlier, Odile decided dinner parties are the work she wants to be known for. Her website now shows only dinners. Its first sentence says that she cooks dinners for 8 to 20 guests in clients’ homes. Her price for a dinner for up to 14 is now $2,200, close to what the chefs who cook only dinners charge.

She still cooks for her two families on Mondays and Wednesdays, because that money pays her rent while the dinners build. She stopped the Saturday class in the spring, once dinners began to fill her Saturdays. She stopped baking cakes for anyone new.

At the lunch, the friend says, “She’s the one who does dinners at home. She cooked the Okafors’ dinner for 20.” Mrs. Lindqvist writes to Odile that evening and books her at $2,200. She does not ask for a lower price.

Odile cooked the same food both times. What changed was what people could say about her. In the first version, the friend could only say that she does a bit of everything, and her website said the same. Mrs. Lindqvist wanted a chef who cooks dinners like hers all the time, and Odile did not look like one.

In the second version, the friend had one sentence to pass on, and the website agreed with it. Odile priced her dinners against the chefs who cook only dinners. She also kept her Monday and Wednesday families while the change happened.

So choose the one kind of work you want to be known for. Show only that to people who do not know you yet. Keep your other work for the clients who already hire you for it. Let it go as the new work takes its place. Here is why a specialist is trusted and paid more, and what three photographers found. Then you will see how to change over without giving up the work that pays your bills.

Work that spans several kinds is harder for a client to place

In 2009, Greta Hsu, Michael Hannan, and Özgecan Koçak published a study on products that belong to more than one category. They tested their ideas in two markets that have little in common, eBay auctions and American feature films. In both, the products that spanned categories paid a price, in money and in how people saw them.

The researchers give two reasons, and they say both matter. The first is on the buyer’s side. Buyers use the categories they already know to make sense of what they are looking at. A product that mixes several categories seems a poor fit for each one, and less appealing than a specialist’s product.

The second reason is on the seller’s side. A seller spread across several categories has a harder time reaching the buyers in each of them.

Those were auctions and films, and the step to a private chef is the course’s own. Here is the step. Mrs. Lindqvist was looking for a chef who cooks dinners like hers. A website with cakes, a class, and meals in containers was a poor fit for that, the way a mixed product is. Odile’s one website was also trying to speak to four kinds of client at once.

An elopement photographer priced elopements like weddings, and earns more

Maddie Mae is an elopement photographer based in Colorado. In 2020, she wrote in Rangefinder that she started out with a wedding photography company. Over the next five years, she narrowed it to elopements only and became a full-time elopement photographer.

Most photographers, she wrote, still price elopements lower than weddings. Maddie Mae does not. “I don’t think your elopement photography packages should be any cheaper than your wedding photography packages,” she wrote.

“I make more money photographing elopements now than I ever made photographing traditional weddings,” she wrote, “and I actually shoot fewer celebrations each year too.”

She explains it with doctors. “Surgeons who specialize in a specific procedure make much more than general physicians,” she wrote. Patients do not question that, she added, “because niching down in your field is a sign of expertise, which is worth paying for.”

So price your one kind of work by what people who do only that work charge. Odile did that with her dinners. A client compares you with them, and not with what you used to charge for everything.

A newborn photographer lists who she leaves out, and families come back with second babies

Ally Stuart-Ross is a newborn photographer in the United Kingdom. She photographed weddings years ago. In 2023, she told Rangefinder that her biggest breakthrough was narrowing her work to a small corner of the newborn market.

She takes photos of babies from birth to 18 months, in her studio, with their parents and young brothers and sisters. The list of people she leaves out is longer. It includes grandparents, cousins, older children, dogs, and Mum’s “best friends since kindergarten.” Each person in the session wears white.

“It means I’m never chasing every newborn client,” she said. “Clients know exactly what they can expect.” Her families refer her to their friends, she said, and they “are all coming back with second babies.”

She still offers maternity sessions, which sit next to her newborn work. She said she does not have much time to book many of them.

Stuart-Ross made her commitment clear by naming what she does not do. A client who reads that list knows at once whether she is the right photographer. That client can also tell that she has done this one kind of session many times.

A Philadelphia photographer was given a nickname for his one kind of wedding

Mike Allebach is a wedding photographer in Philadelphia. In 2015, he told Rangefinder that since 2008, he has focused his business on “punk rock, offbeat and alternative weddings.”

Most of his clients have tattoos. So Rock n Roll Bride and Inked magazine gave him a nickname: “the original tattooed bride photographer.” The specialty, he said, has brought him some of the most interesting weddings, including three in historic prisons.

“I don’t think I could have gone full-time with my business unless I had a specialty,” he said.

A nickname like his is a sentence other people say about you, in a few words. That is what the friend at Mrs. Lindqvist’s lunch needed. The friend’s sentence is often what a client hears about you first, so give it one kind of work to name. Over time, the same sentence is how you become known for your results without asking anyone to pass your name on.

Your sentence names the work and who it is for

Odile’s sentence names the work, dinners for 8 to 20 guests, and where it happens, in clients’ homes. The work is the choice this lesson is about. Who the work is for is a separate choice, and it comes from which kind of wealth hires your trade.

The two choices fit together in one sentence. A sentence like that is a fact about your work, which a client believes more than an adjective such as “premium.”

Why dropping the other work all at once goes wrong

Imagine a home organizer named Fenna Roos who decides to be known for setting up homes for families who are moving in. On a Monday, she rewrites her website around moves. The same day, she stops taking closet and pantry jobs. She also tells her four monthly clients that she will not be coming back.

Moves come slowly at first. A family who might hire her has to hear her name from someone, and then has to move. By June, she has done two moves, and her savings are low. She posts that she has openings for closets and pantries again, at her old price. A woman who saw her new website wonders which kind of organizer Fenna is, and hires someone else for her move.

Fenna’s mistake was giving up the old work before the new work could replace it. The work she gave up was paying her bills while the moves built. Losing it pushed her back to her old offer, in public, at her old price.

The version that works keeps her four monthly clients. Fenna stops showing closets and pantries to anyone new. She gives up her monthly visits one at a time, as moves fill the days they used.

Choosing one kind of work does not mean turning income away

Many service professionals worry that narrowing their work means losing money. The other work may be half their income. Turning down a job can feel like handing it to a competitor.

What changes is what strangers see first. Odile kept her two families, and Stuart-Ross still offers maternity sessions. Maddie Mae took five years to become a full-time elopement photographer. Taking work off your website does not stop you taking that work from a client who asks. You let the old work go only when the new work can pay the bills it paid.

How to become known for one kind of work

1. Choose the one kind of work you want more of, from the kinds you have already done well a few times. The course suggests work you have done before, because a stranger judges you by the jobs they can see. For example, a dog walker might choose long weekday walks for young dogs that pull.
2. Write it as one sentence with a fact in it, such as how many guests, what kind of home, or what age. For example, an event planner might write, “I plan dinners and parties for 20 to 80 guests at clients’ homes.”
3. Put that sentence first on your website and in your social media bio. Say it when someone asks what you do. Then take your other kinds of work off the pages a stranger sees first.
4. Find out what a few professionals who do only this kind of work charge. Set your price for it in their range. Move current clients to the new price on a later date. For example, a caterer might charge $95 a guest for seated dinners. That is close to the two caterers in town who do only seated dinners.
5. Keep doing your other work for the clients who already hire you for it. When a past client asks for it, say yes if you have the time. For example, an interior designer who now does only kitchens can still help a longtime client choose paint for her hall.
6. Stop offering your other work to anyone new. When a new client asks for it, say that it is not what you do. Then give the name of someone who does it. For example, a personal trainer can say, “I only train runners now. For strength training, I’d call Lena Ortiz.”
7. Let the other work go one kind at a time, as your one kind of work fills the hours it used. Give each current client a date at least a month ahead and a name to call. The month is the course’s suggestion, so the client has time to find someone. For example, a florist can say, “From June 1, I’m doing only weddings. For your weekly lobby flowers, Ruth at Fernhill would do them well.”

Next: You will see how to tell your story in three sentences, saying why you do this work and what you bring.