Today I was on a call with one of my mentors and was reminded of a few key factors in determining your target market. Often I have heard him say you would never go to a church of X religion to find people of Y religion – that would be crazy right? However a lot of businesses out there do just that – they go to places where their ideal client does not hang out. Imagine looking for “Gazelles” in a watering hole where all the “lions” hang out….are there many Gazelles there? NO!! (unless they are stupid Gazelles – which I am sure you don’t want anyway!)
Further, having an ideal client in mind would really help as well – most businesses do not have this very well defined either. The common thought is that EVERYONE can benefit from my product! The fact is that most people do not want it or even know how it could help them. This leads me to the critical point that this mentor made: what are so many businesses doing the DOUBLE SALE?
This process means you are finding someone who does not know the value of the product or service and isn’t thinking about it or how it can help them at all. However these people do fit the demographic that can afford/will benefit from the product.
Now, with a loose target market you can do decent – with a highly defined market you can really thrive and reduce the work it takes to close a sale. If you are putting messages out there that attract clients that are already thinking about the problem your product solves then it will be MUCH faster of a sales process which is great because you get to serve more people faster – notice I didn’t say make more money! The making money part in business is simply helping people solve a problem/serving them and the money+profits are a nifty side effect!
Having to educate/sell someone on why they need your product/service and THEN sell them on the product itself is a lot of work! Why would any sane business owner do that? Well generally because their marketing, messaging, positioning, is not attracting IDEAL clients. I need to reference the 80/20 rule here which states that 20% of your clients generate the most revenue/profit for your company – those are the ideal customers. The other 80% take up a lot of time and energy and they do not refer, and will leave for the competition if they smell a better deal. Which category would you rather focus on? It is OK to FIRE customers that are not in alignment with your core values. Dial in your target market or “niche” and you will dramatically improve your results.
To your success.
Tim Reid
-Respect The Hustle
