“Pick a market and get to know it inside and out.” 

Chasing Customers

When we become entrepreneurs, we are creating something we believe in. You hear many of us say, “There are so many customers that need our product or service.” In fact, sometimes we say, “I don’t know of anyone who wouldn’t want our product.” While this may be partly our excitement talking, or maybe just the influence of our pressure, passion pleasure or pain, it is also a dangerous path. Don’t get me wrong. Your market, product or service may be new or different. It would seem that the opportunity to attack broad markets, and to have no limits on what markets to chase, would be a good problem to have.

Problems With Chasing Every Customer

• First – you have limited resources and your scarcest resource is time. Every minute you spend on one activity is a minute you don’t spend on another
• Second – every new type of customer you chase requires you to learn the market, find those customers, create the right marketing message, hire people with market knowledge and develop credibility in that market. Doing that for one type of customer is hard enough. Trying to do it for multiple customer types is impossible.
• Third – it is natural that you will encounter resistance from customers, especially if you are doing something new. It will take time to learn how to overcome objections or to help customers understand the value of your offering. If you are not committed to a path, you are likely to turn to another path when you do encounter the resistance as opposed to creatively working through it and learning what you need to about that market segment and how to tailor your approach to the market. Going after every customer opportunity, or market segment, or responding to the inquiry of the day, seems like the fastest path to revenue, but often can be a real distraction from gaining traction in a market.