No matter if you are just starting a business or if you want to rethink your current business: Serving a clear target group is probably very beneficial for you, your business and your customers!
Target Group: Don’t serve everyone!
If you don’t have a clear picture of whom you serve then you easily get trapped to serve everyone, which is probably one of the most distractive things which you can do to your business. If you run a service business, you optimally just serve one very clear type of customer. If you do good work, you’ll probably find that also people from other niches, industries and target groups will ask you to work for them. Optimally you have enough work with your perfectly defined target group – so that your aren’t reliant on these other clients.
Since you don’t want to offend anyone, you optimally know someone who does the same as you but who’s either very specialized on respective niche from which this imperfect customer comes. Or you simply know someone who delivers your service to a wider target group.
Thus you can simply facilitate the collaboration between the imperfect customer and your companioned service company. Maybe this even becomes an additional branch of business: Facilitate all imperfect customers for a commission. That way you may be able to make additional money on the side while not even having to deliver anything. But if you are just starting out, that’s nothing you should care about right now. Maybe it’s going to be an opportunity for the future.
Target Group: Clearly Defined Early On
Define a clear target group aka. niche early on and focus on it That’s actually something which makes sense to define right from the beginning (see Target Group: Why Early below).
Use Your Unfair Advantages
To define your clear target group, it may be helpful to where you personally may have a competitive advantage (or so-called unfair advantage)
Your present traits, living conditions and your past experiences may be a good starting point to find potential unfair advantages.
Here are some points which may help you to get started:
- previously acquired skills
- familial situation
- your geographical
- ethnicity
- linguistic background
- physical and mental (in-)abilities
- hobbies
Also challenges which you mastered in the past may be a basis to help others to do the same.
Final Decision Factors
In the end you’ll probably not be able to define your target group perfectly right from the beginning. And your unfair advantages will certainly not be the only basis of decisionmaking.
Other factors which may influence the final decision for your clear target group may be:
- expected profitability
- network
- (potential symbiosis with other business ideas & interests)
- …
Target Group: Why Early
There are several reasons why having a clearly defined target group will probably benefit your business.
In the beginning the best reason for having a clear target group is, that you know with whom you should and want to talk in order to get the best results (The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick).
- best results may be defined as: learn as much as possible about defined target group
- so that you eventually serve your target group as perfectly as possible and finally acquire most customers that way
Later, once your are actually running your business that clearly defined target group simply helps you to know who your customers are and where you find them. Besides it also helps you to focus on a niche in which you are simply the best (instead of just someone else).
“If you try to have everyone as a customer, you’ll end up having no one as customer.”
— common sense in business development
Suggestion
Build a service business and clearly only accept the clients which match your previously defined target group.
This may appear very counter-intuitive. But nowadays almost everyone recommends to focus on a clear target group. Because you can always broaden up your niche in the long run.
Having defined and serving a very specific target group has plenty of advantages!
Assumption Thus you’ll clearly focus on your pre-defined target group and eventually serve them perfectly. Plus you don’t have the additional work of thinking in the ways of other types of customers.