Defining Your Target Market

You may have heard the cliche phrase “You can’t be all things to all people” many times. And as is the case with most cliches, it is because it is accurate. Your clients are not hiring you to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. They are hiring you to be a master of a select few. To put it another way, if you need heart surgery, you will want a doctor that specializes in heart surgeries like the one you are in need of. Not a generalist who focuses mostly on family practice, but does the occasional heart surgery.
Since my experience is with Financial Planners, this will be using them as an example. With that being said, the principals can be easily defined for many other business models, specifically service industries.
When you meet with a client, they are opening up their financial lives to you. And other than a major health issue, there are fewer things that are more scary or important than their financial well-being. And because of that they want someone who they are confident knows what they are doing, not someone who “does that occasionally”. There are too many defined markets that need your help to not become an expert in a select few and cater specifically to their needs.
How do you choose this your market(s)? This is the most important part, because everything else you do from this point forward will revolve around this selection. The most important factor is value your services can provide. It is not about choosing markets with the most money, markets you think would be most “fun” to work with, or because you know someone in a certain field. Take an audit of your skillset and natural abilities to leverage those and find out what problems you can best solve to bring the most value to your future clients. This selection is much more about your future client’s needs than your own.
Some important factors to consider when choosing your market:
- Can you truly provide immense value to your market? Before you ever sell anything to a client, you have to first sell yourself why someone in your market should work with you. If you can convince yourself that you bring immense value to your market, reaching out will be natural. If you are not even sold yourself, how can you expect to sell others?
- Does your market congregate at conferences, social media, events, forums, etc so word of your good work can spread organically? If you work with groups that think you are the best but do not have opportunity to spread the word about you and your work, you will not be able to maximize your exposure.
- Is your market deep enough to have enough people to work with on an ongoing basis? If you market is “President of the United States”, you are going to run out of prospects quickly.
- Is your market specific enough that you will stand out to that market? If your market is “working aged Americans”, you are not going to stand out in the crowd because it is so broad of a market and someone in that market is unlikely to feel drawn to you.
- Do you have a strong “why” behind your market choice? If you get someone in that market on the phone, you better have a compelling reason that will resonate with that person as to why they should work with you and why you are uniquely qualified to help them.
It today’s loud world with competition everywhere, I’m putting my money on the advisor who works with “Dentists who have owned their own practice for more than 5 years, aged 35–50, with a family”. Not the advisor who works with “Hard Working Families”. It feels counter-intuitive to narrow your focus at first, but if you are in this for the long term you will have much more success as a specialist with a targeted approach than that of a generalist. And if you are not in this for the long term, you may want to think about a different career path because it will be tough for you to compete long term.
If this was helpful for you, please hit the heart below to help others who may benefit see this as well. And feel free to leave a comment with any thoughts or questions. I’m more than happy to answer any questions you may have.
