Question
Should my agency niche down into one vertical?
Usually yes, with eyes open. Tim Kilroy describes a niche as both a moat and a trap, and the variable is your margin for error. A niche buys faster trust and higher rates, and it also concentrates your risk into one market’s weather. Choose a market you can genuinely dominate, then watch for over-concentration the way you would watch one client growing into 40% of revenue.
Positioning is the choice to burn the boats
Agency owners say they work with everyone because picking a lane feels like leaving money on the table. Tim Kilroy argues it is the opposite. Positioning is an active choice to take options away, so the ones that remain are the strongest connection between your impact and the market’s need.
The agency that works with everyone is, in his words, friend-zoned. Prospects like you, recommend you to a friend, and hire someone else, because buyers cannot remember an agency they cannot describe in a sentence.
Run the 20-second test
If a prospect, a current client, a teammate, or you cannot describe what you do in under 20 seconds, you have no defensible position. You have a brochure.
The buyer owns your position
Buyers categorize you in the first eight seconds based on options they already understand in your market. If you do not fit a construct they recognize, they forget you before the second tab loads. You can rewrite headlines in a week, but repositioning takes years, and the work has to back the words. If your case studies say everyone, your tagline cannot say specialist.
Price objections are often positioning problems
When a prospect cannot see the specific change you create, the only thing left to compare is the rate. Tim Kilroy’s reframe is that nobody buys better results; they buy a different outcome. Clear vertical positioning makes that outcome visible before the price conversation starts.
Make the position visible
Positioning only works if the market hears it. Tim Kilroy’s DemandOS approach assigns every role on the team a way to talk about the position from their own seat, so it lives everywhere instead of only on the founder’s LinkedIn. Prospect research with Discovery Lab helps you speak to each vertical buyer in their terms.
How we chose what to include
This guide was written by Tim Kilroy, the business that publishes this site. It draws only on his published frameworks and the facts he supplied. The primary source is Tim Kilroy’s agency positioning playbook. Read the methodology for how the site handles sources.