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I’m often asked how you know if your target market is too broad. Many business owners feel that if they narrow down their target market, they will lose out on potential customers.

This can’t be any farther from the truth. What I have learned is that the narrower your niche and target market:
 
 
 
 
 
  • The easier it is to reach those people who really need your service or product,
  • The easier it is to give them what they need,
  • The easier it is to really speak to your audience in a way that gets them to say “Wow, that sounds great. I can really use that. Sign me up.”
  • The easier it is to become a known expert in your field.
  • The easier it is for people to know who to refer your way.
 
Did I say yet that it’s easier to run a business when you NARROW your niche and target market?
 
How do I know this?
 
I used to be a programmer with my own freelance business before I became a marketing coach. When I first started out as a consultant, I had no idea what I was doing. I barely even knew what a consultant was. I picked one thing that I really enjoyed doing and decided that was going to be my business. I took away all the things I didn’t like about my previous job and concentrated on the fun stuff.
 
I then decided that I was going to be very picky with who I worked with because I was starting a business so that I could be home with my son. I decided I needed to stick to   projects that allowed me to work from home and didn’t require too many phone calls or meetings.
 
I was very specific, but I managed to run a very successful consulting business for several years until the software I was programming with started becoming obsolete. Because of this I was starting to get less clients; therefore, I decided to expand my business to all kinds of programming. I was telling people that I did many different things. Once this happened, I ended up with ZERO clients.
 
Did I say ZERO? Wow! I went from a full plate to zero clients all in a year just because I changed my business model. No one really knew what it was I did anymore. No one knew whom to refer to me anymore.
 
It was then that I realized that what I was doing before when I was so narrow was actually one of the big secrets. I read a ton of business books that helped me to make this realization. Once I narrowed down my business again to one specific type of programming, I was then able to become a new expert in my new field and once again became extremely successful.
 
If you want to find the same success in your business, you need to choose a target market that has each of the following 5 conditions:
  1. A group of people that you can clearly identify that has similar needs and characteristics
  2. A group of people that you can easily find and reach
  3. A group of people that has a problem that they want to solve using a solution that you can provide
  4. A group of people that can afford and is willing to spend the money to solve that problem
  5. A group that is large enough to bring in the income that you want from your business
 
When you are deciding on a target market, make sure that your chosen market has all of these 5 conditions. If you are missing even just one element, your business may not succeed.