What challenges does your perfect client face?
When’s the last time you thought about your perfect client and what challenges he or she faces on a daily, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis? If you are like most small business owners, it could be when you got the idea for your business in the first place.
After that, you didn’t bother reflecting on whether those challenges were still valid or whether there were other challenges facing them because you were too busy focusing on the challenges you thought they had. And that could be a costly mistake, as many businesses who shut their doors find out.
For example, let’s say your business was video rentals. You started the business in the 90’s when people were seeking to avoid paying a lot of money to take their families to the movie theaters. You made it somewhat convenient for a family to find movies they wanted to watch and relatively easy for them to get them back to you by offering drop boxes and such. This model seemed to work well and you were happy.
Then, slowly but surely, other businesses, like Netflix, entered the picture. They were focusing on a challenge your customers were facing and you may have been ignoring: having to get in the car and drive to the rental store to get the movies and then get them back to the store so you didn’t get charged late fees.
And so, as time went on, you found out that people were coming in less to rent movies. No matter what you did, you couldn’t erase the declines. Your business was doomed.
The same thing could have happened to Netflix if it didn’t ask “What challenges do people who get movies in the mail face?” They have to wait for them so there isn’t any instant gratification. So, over the years, they have gotten better at getting movies to you instantly. They basically realized that either we are going to put ourselves out of business and profit from it or someone else is going to do it.
So, take a look at your current clients and ask whether they are facing new challenges and how you can best meet them. If you don’t do it, someone else will. And it may not be good for you.
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