Did You Say My Mom's A Customer?

Who is your customer? If you're launching a business and haven't defined that, you're in trouble.

Most entrepreneurs, when asked this simple question, offer up a general answer: we're targeting single women in their mid-forties, college age students with some discretionary income, or businesses in the big data space. But why are we so general? Why do we assume that a general audience is the equivalent to big profits? What most business don't realize is that a general customer translates to a poor vision, poor product, and poor execution.

What if you targeted a small audience instead? I'm talking super small...like one person at a time. And not just any person, but someone in your life that falls into your thought-out customer segment and believes in your product or service.

Last week, I had the chance to chat with Steven K. Scott, founder of Max International. Steve mentioned a conversation he had early on in his career that profoundly changed his business and his life. Fairfax Cone, co-founder of Foote Cone and Belding, told him, "Steve, stop thinking of your customer as the idiot lady doing her grocery shopping. Instead pretend she's your wife who recognizes when one of her regular buys goes up by five cents."

From that point on, he viewed his customer as someone that he knew and, even more important, someone that he loved. He built the why, the what, and the how of his company around that person. Why does this work? And how can you make money building a product or service for just one person? Contrary to common belief, no one is a snowflake in our society, especially from a business perspective. In fact, millions of people from around the world are just like you and me. They have the same socioeconomic background, rock the same haircut, and may even wear the same brand of clothing.

This is a huge plus as you start a business because when you nail down the pain point, value proposition, and channel for a customer that you know well, you'll inevitably reach the million or so other people exactly like him or her. If you're creating a new video game, your customer profile could be your video-game-addict son, Eric. If you're making a new brand of health bars, your customer profile could be your health-nut sister-in-law, Jamie. As you assign your customer a familiar name, you'll see that a profitable business model flows naturally from your mind and then into practice.

What have you done to nail down your customer profile? Let me know in the comments below!