If you have struggled to really identify your business goals and purpose, or have found it difficult to truly identify your target market, describe your customer and what they want – try the not approach.
For some reason we can often better describe what we don’t want more easily than what we do.
We can use this to eliminate the kind of business and customers we don’t want and focus on what we do want to accomplish.
Eliminate the Negative
Just spend 10-15 minutes jotting down the answers to these questions.
Who is not your ideal customer?
Who are you not targeting? Why not? What do they want that you can’t or won’t provide?
What product / service are you not offering? Why?
Why will customers not buy this product / service?
What problem are you not solving?
What commitments have you decided not to make? Why?
What would describe the type of business you would not want to be known as?
What values would you not like to be known for?
Accentuate the Positive
After around a quarter of an hour you have a pretty good idea of the kind of business you don’t want, the kind of customers you don’t want to focus on and the products and services you cannot or don’t want to provide.
Have a look at the business you have now – are you building a business based on things you don’t want to do with customers you can’t service?
Now take the not out of the questions above and spend another 10-15 minutes describing the business you do want, the customers you would most like to service, with the products or services you can provide that customers want. Now you will have described the purpose of your business and helped answer the crucial question
Why will customers buy from me?
Try it and let me know how you get on.
Your comments would be most welcome and if you have found this blog useful please share this with your followers.
Need help planning your business? For starters, I can listen, carefully, and we can exchange and develop ideas – no charge, no strings. If you are willing to invest an hour of your time in revitalising your business then please contact me.