How to choose the right market

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Looking for the secret to success in business? Like most things in life, the secret is quite simple. The best precursor to success in business is being able to match your passion and your purpose with people who are willing to pay you for it.

To tip the odds in your favor, if you want to have an extraordinary business, you need to attract people who are looking for the service that ONLY YOU can provide to them.

This is why the very first steps I ask business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs to take when creating a new business or rejuvenating an old one are to think about their ideal workstyles, lifestyles, and clients. After that, we start to put the structure around what the business can look like – for example, types of products and services – and who the market will be.

Of course there are other factors, like packaging and pricing your products and services in a way that make you money – meaning, adequate profit. But before you can do that you need to decide what you’re selling and who you’re selling it to.

The most successful business owners can clearly identify their ideal clients and offer them a range of products and services. They also make it easy for their potential customers to see the results they will get by working together and give them simple choices that allow them to graduate to higher and higher levels of service.

Popular marketing theory advises that you choose a very specific group of people that you can market your services to. This is called your target market, or niche. Many business owners struggle with choosing one because they fear that they’ll miss out on potential sales, and that the wider the net is, the more they’ll catch. Other business owners like to think of themselves as “multi-preneurs” or entrepreneurs with multiple passions and multiple markets and so resist the need to choose one.

Either way, you need to pick a market. There’s simply no other way to be able to effectively market your services. To be able to attract those clients in a way that makes you the absolute clear choice above all others, you need to be able to stand out and connect with them.

The more you can put yourself in their places, feel their pleasure and pain, relate to what keeps them up at night and show that you deeply understand their needs, the clearer your message will be. And the more sales you’ll make!

Even if you are a multi-preneur, how you present yourself to your various markets needs to be distinct. For example if you own a travel agency, and you are also an interior decorator, you would have separate websites and marketing materials for each, focused on different audiences and containing the messages that apply to each of them. It wouldn’t make sense to your clients, and they could think you are less than serious, if you marketed yourself as a jack-of-all-trades.

To pick a niche, the best way to start is to brainstorm the problems you solve and the results you deliver through your product or service. Then begin to list all of the kinds of people who could benefit. Think about who they are, where they live, what they do, how much money they make, and the circumstances they are in that would lead them to wanting your service.

Then look at your own goals for your lifestyle, how you prefer to work, and your financial objectives. Seek patterns that fit, for example, connections or affinities you feel for certain potential markets. You’ll be able to narrow down your list even further.

Finally, look at where these people are, where and when they would be likely to look for someone like you, and how you would find them. This is really important, because for a market to be viable for you, a small business owner with limited marketing funds and time, you need to be sure that your ideal client is actively looking for your type of service or product, and that you can easily get your message out to them en masse in some way.

Here are some clues that you’re on to a good market:

• There is a trigger event that causes them to start looking for a solution.
• You can define what they’re looking for and relate it to the problems you solve.
• You can identify individuals but find places they gather – for example, professional associations, clubs, online forums, member associations, online communities.

Voila! You’re on your way. Now you can match your message and your marketing to the people who matter – your potential clients.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it:  Sherri Garrity is the Chief Corporate Fugitive and creator of the Five Keys Success System^TM for ex-corporate employees and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their corporate experience and  unlock their business potential for greater  personal freedom and prosperity. The Corporate Fugitive system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing and growing a successful entrepreneurial adventure. Visit www.corporatefugitive.com for free tips on how to unlock the business in you.