It is very important to focus in your small business. Very often when an entrepreneur starts a business, or is trying to grow one in the early stage, he or she wants to market to the whole world. “Let’s see, there are 6 billion people in the world, if I could just get one percent market share, the numbers will be huge” – that’s how the thinking often goes. We shouldn’t kid ourselves though; the only directly relevant market size numbers are those that relate to your specific product or service offering, in the target market that you can reach given the resources you have or can get access to. Don’t try to be all things to all people. It is a sure recipe for failure. Rather, select target niches that you think have the highest probability of buying what you have to offer, at a price that makes sense for you.
Once you’ve identified this group, use a saturation approach – throw every kind of promotion and marketing you can at them, so that they know who you are and will at least consider purchasing what you have to offer. Build a relationship with them, either directly or virtually, depending which market you are in, so that they learn to trust you. This approach has been used by many companies, small and large, with great success. Be creative, of course, but realize that there are budget and resources constraints that you simply cannot ignore. If you try to be all things to all people, you are highly unlikely to succeed. This is highly related to the “if you try to please everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one” concept..
