CATER TO THE MASSES, NOT THE CLASSES
One of the biggest obstacles an entrepreneur can face is believing that his or her product is the only one like it anywhere in the world. As I’ve said before, that’s completely unrealistic.
But that reality can also raise an issue that’s a problem for any business looking to grow—a product that’s too narrow to attract wide interest.
If you want your business to break out to the next level, cater to the masses, not the classes. The math behind that is simple. The broader the appeal of the products or services you sell, the more customers you will have. And that starts by doing what the customer dictates you should do.
A lot of people run their businesses according to how they think it should be done. They base their products, services, and much of the customer experience on what they like—be it food, service, or some other element. The problem is that you can’t do what you like. Granted, you may have a great idea or product you absolutely love, but whether you love it or not is largely beside the point. You may like liver, but can you build a restaurant chain around liver? Not likely. To build your business, you want to do what the masses like.
Pay close attention to the feedback you receive. Your customers will be telling you what they do and don’t like, in so many words. And by listening to what they have to say, you’re not consciously limiting your potential customer base. Instead, you’re working toward making it as large as possible.
First is the obvious question of price. Is your product or service priced to be within reach of the greatest number of people possible, while still giving you a sufficient margin? If your product is priced too high, you may be losing customers who otherwise might be attracted to what you have to offer them. That’s an unnecessarily small target.
There are all sorts of ways to identify a solid price point. Start with knowing who your competitors are. It may be surprising to learn, but many entrepreneurs don’t clearly understand who their actual competitors are. For instance, someone who’s offering a different product or service can be as challenging a competitor as someone doing the exact same thing as you. When looking at potential competitors, watch for products and services that someone may buy instead of yours, identical and otherwise. When talking with customers, take a minute to ask where else they’ve looked. Ignoring or overlooking a key competitor can be devastating.
Next, see what your competitors are selling and at what price. There are plenty of resources available regarding industry standards that you can refer to. Use them as a guide but not as gospel. By knowing your numbers—such as production costs, labor, and others—you’ll begin to see what, if any, adjustments to those prices you should make to help your business become both more profitable and accessible to the most customers.
This is as common a problem as I’ve seen in all sorts of businesses. Entrepreneurs routinely price their products higher than they should if they want to attract a wide range of customers. And that goes for wholesale as well as retail. Wholesalers expect deeply discounted prices by buying in quantity, yet entrepreneurs often ask for prices that are anything but discounts. Sometimes that’s a production issue—decreasing production costs always translates to lower prices—and sometimes an inexperienced entrepreneur hasn’t been exposed to the sorts of discounts that major wholesale buyers can command.
Price is just part of what you need to take into account. For instance, does age come into play? Is your product or service attractive to a person of a certain age, or does it appeal to customers whose ages range across the board? Does that include kids and teenagers? What about college-aged kids and postgraduate millennials?
What about gender? Is yours a male-or female-only product, or might anyone be interested? Go through these questions with an idea of expanding the appeal of your product.
One way to look at the challenge of catering to the masses is to approach it like a restaurant menu. Of course, some restaurants don’t exactly cater to the budget-minded among us—or, for that matter, don’t include children or diners with particular dietary needs among their target market. That’s perfectly okay.
But a restaurant that’s aiming for a wide audience knows how that goal should be reflected in its menu. More affordable sandwiches and small dishes can complement higher-priced items. A kid’s menu targets the younger diner, while giving mom and dad a price break. Gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan, and other options cater to customers with particular diets.
You get the idea. Offering customers a wide range of choices is one proven way to cater to the masses.
With that in mind, consider the products or services your business currently offers. What could you add to that “menu” that might attract a broader customer range? What products or services would naturally complement what you already sell? For instance, if you’re selling your grandmother’s homemade pasta recipe, can you introduce other flavors or other fillings? How about her from-scratch tomato sauce to accompany the pasta? What seems like a natural add-on?
If more products aren’t the answer, or even possible, what can you do to make what you already have more appealing to more customers? That could be as simple as broadening the range of colors or varying the material used for a particular item. Can a product be used for something other than what it was originally intended to do?
The point here is to always stretch your thinking, to see beyond the obvious. Look at what you have and explore any ways you can add to it or reframe it so that more customers will sit up and take notice.
I’m not saying that you can’t sell an exclusive product or something geared to a specific audience. That’s fine. But if you want to attract the sort of financial response you need to help your business break out, it’s always a solid idea to try to engage with the biggest audience you possibly can.
That’s because, particularly for entrepreneurs and small, emerging businesses, you want to sell to the masses, not the classes. Businesses that cater to the masses inevitably end up making more money than those that limit their scope.
TILMAN’S TARGETS
• Cater to the masses, not the classes.
• Work to make your product appealing to as broad an audience as possible.
• Understand your competition.
• Know your target audience.