I am going to get back to basics today. There is so much noise and energy given to all the hot business building strategies (You have heard them! Things like Facebook Ads, digital marketing, on-line launch formula, LinkedIn data mining etc.)
It is easy for many newer entrepreneurs to forget a hugely important, very basic question, and struggle as a result.
Here is arguably the most basic business building question of all:
A simple 7-word basic niche question. Which an embarrassing number of entrepreneurs making less than $250,000 in annual revenue are quite unable to answer.
It is such a basic question and if you don’t have a decent answer – I guarantee you that your business has a built-in struggle factor that will wear you out. None of the hot business building strategies I mentioned in the first paragraph will work if you can’t answer this question first.
Seriously, who wants to run a business where it is hard to find your clients? Life is too short for that in my opinion.
Why try selling a service if there is not an easy way to find a hungry audience ready to buy it? After so many years of coaching one-man businesses, I can tell you first hand, this is too discouraging and difficult for most tiny businesses.
So, very early on in your business growth, when you are choosing your niche and target market, it makes sense to answer this fundamental question.
“Where can I find my future clients? With relative ease and without spending a fortune.”
The answer may look like some of these scenarios below, or something quite different. And once you know the answer, it is surprisingly easy to find the right marketing and sales strategy to reach these future clients. Note – you can’t choose your marketing and sales strategies if you can’t answer this question. You need to know where your future clients are BEFORE you can figure out how to sell to them best.
Examples.
| Where My Future Clients Gather | Choice of Marketing Strategy |
|---|---|
| I can find them at all the chamber and entrepreneur meetups. | Networking. Becoming a speaker at these events. Starting my own meetup. |
| They all graduate from law schools | Form strategic partnerships with law schools. Provide services that these schools love so you can get access to their graduates. |
| I can search for them on LinkedIn | Create a lead research team. Get phenomenally good at mining LinkedIn and creating personalized outreach techniques for these clients. |
| They are golf-lovers; they hang out at golf clubs. | Sponsor golf events, join a golf course, start playing golf. Consider advertising in golf specific magazines, form alliances with other businesses that support the gold industry. |
As you can see, being able to answer this most basic business building question, “Where can I find my future clients?”, you can find powerful marketing avenues to reach them.
If you can’t answer the question please pause and reconsider this business idea. Stop and do research until you are confident that you can reach your potential clients relatively easily.
If you would like help working through this, please download our free Niche Secrets guide below, it will help you think about how to answer this basic business building question, “Where can I find my future clients?”