At recent networking meetings, I’ve heard women describe their target market as “everyone” or “anyone”.  I used to do that too because I thought I had to get product and services in front of everyone.  After all, isn’t that the way to build a successful business?

The fact is that is not the way to build a successful business.  Not “everyone” or “anyone” is going to be interested in what we have to offer.  And trying to connect with “everyone” or “anyone” is time-consuming; ineffective and inefficient.  It also costs us money to pursue “anyone” and “everyone”.

Defining a target market requires us to get really specific and strategic about our business.  What is it we really offer?  To whom is it most likely to be of more-than-passing interest?  Where will we find the folks who have that level of interest in what we offer?

The big question women ask me, when I press them to be more specific and strategic in defining the market share where they should focus their energy and attention, is “but I might lose potential business!”

Not likely!  In fact, the increased productivity you will have when focusing on a specific sector of the general market will likely increase your profitability.  Your time, and that of your referral partners, will be more focused, strategic and well-used.  Rather than attempting to turn “everyone” you meet into a client or customer, you’ll be looking for persons who fit neatly into your targeted market population.

There is simply no way we can reach out and connect with the “everyones” and the “anyones”.  Even adding the modifier “who” or “that” to the everyone or anyone isn’t target specific.  Target market refers to specific industries that have a natural affinity for what we offer. 

I call it the “micro-market”.  It’s that segment of an entire industry or market share that we specifically and strategically target as the place/folks where we’ll focus the majority of our energy, effort and referral-partner (or “success partner”) education & training.

An example might be a realtor.  Rather than saying her target market is “anyone wanting to buy or sell a home”; she could define her target market as “first-time home buyers”.  When looking for listing opportunities, her focus would be on homes that make good “starter” homes (smaller, less expensive, good school districts, reasonable taxes - even those we might call a “fixer-upper”). 

What if a more ‘chronologically mature’ couple walks in and wants to downsize their large home to something more affordable and easier to maintain?  Our ‘target-market focused’ realtor has several choices.  She can accept them as clients even though they don’t fit her target market (which is not a bad idea), but do fit the listings she “targets”.  Or she can refer them to another realtor with whom she often works whose target market is the older couple looking to downsize, etc.  Either way, if the sale is made - she wins!

That’s a fairly straight forward example and rather simplistic.  It gets stickier when we have a less common commodity to offer or there’s one of “us” on every corner in the city.  The “stickier” it gets - the more we need to define a target market.

And the more important it becomes to educate and train our connected relationships in what we offer and who’s  in our target market.  Then when they encounter a someone from our target market; they know exactly who to refer.  Better yet, they make the connection between us - for us!

I hope that’s helpful.  It can get a little tricky - defining target markets.  But taking the time to really examine our businesses and getting strategic with our networking and networking goals will pay-off over time.  Then we won’t find ourselves saying - “everyone” or “anybody”.

Have an awesome day with loads of connections that fit neatly into our target markets.

Linda, a fellow journeyer