Archives for May 12, 2020

Targeting Gazelles in the Lion’s Den

target your customer, advertising,leader, brand,change,innovation

Today I was on a call with one of my mentors and was reminded of a few key factors in determining your target market.  Often I have heard him say you would never go to a church of X religion to find people of Y religion – that would be crazy right? However a lot of businesses out there do just that – they go to places where their ideal client does not hang out. Imagine looking for “Gazelles” in a watering hole where all the “lions” hang out….are there many Gazelles there? NO!! (unless they are stupid Gazelles – which I am sure you don’t want anyway!)

Further, having an ideal client in mind would really help as well – most businesses do not have this very well defined either. The common thought is that EVERYONE can benefit from my product! The fact is that most people do not want it or even know how it could help them. This leads me to the critical point that this mentor made: what are so many businesses doing the DOUBLE SALE?

This process means you are finding someone who does not know the value of the product or service and isn’t thinking about it or how it can help them at all. However these people do fit the demographic that can afford/will benefit from the product.

Now, with a loose target market you can do decent – with a highly defined market you can really thrive and reduce the work it takes to close a sale. If you are putting messages out there that attract clients that are already thinking about the problem your product solves then it will be MUCH faster of a sales process which is great because you get to serve more people faster – notice I didn’t say make more money! The making money part in business is simply helping people solve a problem/serving them and the money+profits are a nifty side effect!

Having to educate/sell someone on why they need your product/service and THEN sell them on the product itself is a lot of work! Why would any sane business owner do that? Well generally because their marketing, messaging, positioning, is not attracting IDEAL clients.  I need to reference the 80/20 rule here which states that 20% of your clients generate the most revenue/profit for your company – those are the ideal customers.  The other 80% take up a lot of time and energy and they do not refer, and will leave for the competition if they smell a better deal.  Which category would you rather focus on? It is OK to FIRE customers that are not in alignment with your core values. Dial in your target market or “niche” and you will dramatically improve your results.

To your success.

Tim Reid

-Respect The Hustle

Comfy Is Not Where Success Lives

Man walking through giant wrecking balls, signifying stepping outside of your comfort zone

Continuing with our motivational series – today I wanted to touch on a topic that is often over looked when we thing about our success in real estate, in life, in relationships.  The comfort zone is the main enemy of success and growth, because simply put: if you are not growing your skills/knowledge/communication your results will remain fundamentally the same!

It has been said that “if you want to get something you have never had, you have to do things you have never done before – what got you to this level of success will not get you to the next level” I believe that is 100% true, when there haven challenges in our business it always traces back to something that we did not know.  Also, we never know what we don’t know – the paradox of life and business in real estate or any other.

Growth will always be uncomfortable, making the cold calls, dealing with upset customers, door knocking, figuring out social media – our mind is programmed to caution us from uncertainty, doubt, fear.  That is a normal response (from the hunter/gatherer perspective), it is how we acknowledge those thoughts and move past them that counts. We no longer live in a world where we can get eaten by a lion every day, so those old programs can be re-trained, if that sector of our brain had its way we would never do much at all!

This is why we have to develop a community of mentors, partners, associates, master mind groups to get outside of our current knowledge/abilities and push for that growth+ see within ourselves the potential that we can’t always see.  We are better together, business is a team sport and I would suggest to you that so is life in a lot of ways – having mentors/coaches for fitness, spirituality, relationships is the only shortcut to excellence/up-leveling your game.

It has been said also – I love this quote BTW “If you want to go FAST- go alone. If you want to go FAR go with others”. Often when we are going fast alone we could be headed in the wrong direction or right toward one of the pitfalls of business/life! We will fall into those no matter what, and that is how we grow – through the challenges of life.

The universe (or higher power of your understanding) gives us GIFTS they are wrapped up in challenges, and the larger the GIFT the larger the Challenge it will be wrapped up in.  I would suggest that you consider when a challenge comes up “what am I meant to learn from this challenge?” This has helped me orient my thoughts on solutions, being grateful, and moving forward.

To your success,

Tim Reid

-Respect The Hustle