Who Are You Selling To?

If your business is to succeed, you must have a clear idea of exactly whose problems you’re solving

You need to learn how to make things better by making better things.

I love small businesses. I've said it times without number, and I'll say it again. The main reason why I love them is because of the innate ability they have to make changes in the lives of their customers. And this is something every business owner must understand.

Your business is never about you, it's about those that patronize you.

In this digital age, your business must make a personal connection, and touch the lives of your customer for it to survive and remain sustainable.

Almost daily, I get texts, emails and calls from entrepreneurs who want to grow their businesses. And the first question I always ask is:

Who is your customer?

Unfortunately, most of them don't know, and this is the major reason that their businesses are failing. By trying to build a product for everybody, they end up building one for nobody.

In the words of Seth Godin, find a group of people that you care about and talk to them. This is the whole idea of marketing.

Find out what those special unique people want.

What drives them? What are their problems? What do they want?

It is when you can hold these conversations that you can make things better for them.

How? By building better things.

The only way your business, any business will survive in this generation is to be unashamed about they make your lives better.

Cocacola is diabetes in a bottle, but they’ve convinced the world that they’ve somehow bottled happiness. The result? They are worth more than some countries! You cannot afford to be ambiguous about whose lives you make better, and how you make it better

If I want to sell a course on time management, for example, it will be foolish of me to say, "everybody needs to manage their time better, so everyone is my customer." Yet, this the attitude that most entrepreneurs have.

They think “I sell X, and everybody needs X, so I’m going to be a millionaire in six months.” No, my dear, you’re 6 months from being broke and frustrated. (In case you don’t believe me, come back in 6 months to this post and say I was wrong)

Back to my time management example, what I need is to find a group of people that I understand and connect with the most.

Is it college students? Busy executives? Overworked Single Moms? All of these are viable market segments, but wisdom demands that I focus on the group that I personally care about the most.

In conclusion

Build to learn how to build
Build to learn what to build
Build to learn what you’re building

That is where the learning process starts.

Who do you care about? What group of people do you want to make their lives better?

When you can confidently answer this question, then you're ready to start building something better, to make the lives of your audience (and hopefully, customers) better.

P.S I’m hosting a content marketing class on the last weekend in July. There, I’ll expand on some of the strategies you can apply to find your best customers, and build a tribe. Interested in joining? Click this link and send me a message