Many people begin their business with stars in their eyes about how massive their business idea is going to be, how many millions they are going to make, which beach they are going to spend their early retirement on sipping Pina Coladas.
The truth for most businesses lies closer to one customer than millions.
By that I don’t mean they are limited to one customer, but that they will find the truth of the opportunity by selling and servicing clients one at a time.
In this article, I discuss the scale you should operate your business at, when you are starting out.
At this more manageable scale, you will find out one at a time, what encourages/convinces clients to do business with you, and you find out how to produce just one of your product or service. You don’t need millions in funding, and you don’t need a massive office, you don’t even need a business card or brochure.
You just need an idea of the best customer for your product, and someone in front of you who is a good example of that customer type. Then you literally have to sell that first customer on the benefits and value of your product or service.
If you can’t sell your product or service to one client, you’ll never sell it to millions.
Similarly, unless you do sell it to one, you won’t learn all that it takes to deliver on your product or service to that person.
Thinking of one delighted customer at a time is a more human scale, and it’s a much better scale for learning the good and bad about your business model.
Once you learn at this scale, then 10, 100 and even one million customers, becomes simply a numbers game; yes you’ll have to trial and tweak as you scale, but at least you’ll be doing it from a firm foundation of understanding.
Try this for yourself and experience the difference.
Enjoy your day!
Originally published on Smallville.