There’s a big question: What Do
You Need For Success? Most of us have thought this from time to time in some
form. So what DO you need for success?
If you were given the opportunity
to open the first and only restaurant in the largest city near where you live
what would you need? Would you need a great location? After all everyone says
that in real estate the three most important points are location, location,
location.
Would you need great food (we
hope that you already have great food or you may want to look into some cooking
classes or a new line of work)!
Would you need a great staff?
Would you need great suppliers, great friends, media coverage, etc.? All these
would be helpful BUT, what you really need is……..
A hungry crowd!
I know this seems obvious
however, let me share with you what most people and organizations do. And by
this I mean from tiny start-ups to giant corporations and yes, I have worked
with and continue to work with them all. Here is what most organizations do:
Ready, fire, aim!
You read that right and yes it is
out of order, they get ready, fire and then aim – how ridiculous!
Don’t be like them and you will
automatically be ahead of your competition. You want to clearly and
definitively state who your customers are so you can target them and go after
them with your marketing, your sales, your USP, etc.
It is not acceptable to say that
your market is the whole world because that is impossible to carry out. Let’s
look at an example of what we mean.
Let’s say that you market
diapers. Nearly every place in the world that has newborn children will need
some type of diaper. If you are in the U.S. you don’t want to say that the
entire world needs your special brand of diaper and therefore you will market
to the whole world. Your message will be so diluted it won’t land and you won’t
be able to afford to market to them.
Let’s start to look at how to
narrow down your market and focus. For the sake of this post, let’s say that
your diaper has something special about it, maybe it prevents diaper rash. In
order to do that your diaper costs a little more than your competitor. This
starts the focusing right away because you need to market to those that can
afford to pay more. This automatically will narrow your market to those that
have more available cash so this will remove part of the world that is
struggling financially. Again, if you are in the U.S. you will also need to
stay away from areas that are economically depressed.
You will begin to locate the
areas within the U.S. that have more disposable income and are increasing in
population because of newborn babies. You will then find out what their income
level is, their educational level, their prospects for future employment, etc.
Once you have this and more information you begin to formulate the exact type
of people you will go after.
Are you marketing to families,
families of a certain age, families that tend to stay where they have other
family members to support them and more.
Do you see how clearly getting
ready and making sure your aim is correct before firing is extremely important?
Nothing can guarantee your success but removing as many of the negatives before
you start is a sure fire way of putting the odds of success in your favor.
Having said all of this, please
don’t get caught in “analysis paralysis.” At some point you will have to stop
doing the research and get to work winning your customers and building your
business.
Until our next post, we wish you
all success!
