The most important question for any business is who it will serve. A practical exercise called the "firing spree" helps you eliminate all but one customer type, then build everything else around that choice: pricing, marketing, product quality, and profitability all follow.
What is the single most important question you need to ask before you start your business? That's what we'll cover today. So you've decided you're going to start a business, and, or perhaps you're already in business, and you've thought about all the questions you have to ask. What do we name this business? You know, what are we going to do and what are we going to sell and who's going to do the work and how are we going to get our products and how are we going to get paid and how are we, how are we, how are we? You haven't asked the most important question. The most important question, the single most important question that will answer all other questions in your business is who will this business serve? You see, you have to identify the client before you can answer all those other questions. It's, it's not important to know anything else until you know that, because it will determine all other points in your business development. The people you'll serve will determine the price point that you'll be at in the marketplace. The people you'll serve will be the determinant of the quality of the product or service that you deliver. The people you decide to serve will determine about how much you'll charge and how much you'll make and how hard you'll have to work and when you'll work and why you'll work and everything else about your business. The people you'll serve will determine all of that. If you haven't determined that yet, you really need to stop and identify who your ideal customer is. There's a very easy way to do that if you're already in business and you are kind of serving a lot of different people. This is the easiest way to do it. I call this the firing spree. And what we're gonna do today is we're going to fire every one of your customers except for one. Now the promise I'll make to you is that if you fire every one of your customers except for one, every one of them going forward will be just like that one. Now don't get wrapped up in the details of this. It's not gonna work out that way, but play along with me if you will. What we're trying to identify is the one customer that is best suited to be served by you and your business. So the promise is that every one of your customers going forward will be just like the one that you keep, but you've got to get rid of everyone else. So of course, immediately you're going to go ahead and eliminate all those people that are just time wasters and tire kickers and the ones that end up costing you more money than you, you really should deal with. But then it's going to start to get hard. And some of you will choose the customer that makes the most revenue for you. Some of you will choose the customer that's most profitable. Some of you will choose the customer you enjoy working with the most. Some of you will choose the customer that is easiest to work with or easiest to get to. There, there's all sorts of different parameters, but for this exercise, just pick one. Now, if you're not already in business, decide in advance who would be the best customer for who you think this business would be best serving. And once you've decided that, focus everything else on identifying attracting that ideal client. Let's say for example that you're a realtor and you've decided that you're tired of dealing with everybody in the market and you want to focus on one select group. You've determined that the best selection for you would be high-end home buyers and high-end home sellers. That's really where you fit. That's really where you do your best work. Well, once you've decided that, The idea that you would do a video for, say, a new home buyer really doesn't make any sense. You don't want to attract new home buyers. Now, does that mean you won't sell to new home buyers? Of course not. If somebody contacts you, certainly you're going to work with them and you're going to give them your very best, but you're going to be attracting the clients you want to attract. So remember, the most important question you can ask is, who will this business serve? Is it who or whom? I'm not sure. Anyway, who will this business serve? That's the most important question you'll ever ask in your business, and you need to ask it more often than you think. You don't just decide once and then stick with it forever. Your business will change. You're, you're going to grow and you're going to be exposed to new things you don't even think are possible now. But ask that question now and ask it often. Who is our ideal client? Who will this business serve? If you do, you'll be more profitable, it'll be easier to market to people, and you'll enjoy your business much more.
