Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 22 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Proudly exclude people
— From Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur, by Derek Sivers.
“You know you can’t please everyone, right?” Asks Derek Sivers, musician and entrepreneurship guru, in his book Anything You Want.
If we instinctively answer YES to his question, agreeing that we know it’s impossible to please everyone, why do most businesses try to be everything to everybody? No wonder they can’t get people’s attention!
What to do about this?
Sivers says, “You need to confidently exclude people, and proudly say what you’re not. By doing so, you will win the hearts of the people you want.”
The author shares the example of The Hotel Café, a music venue in Los Angeles that is a no-talking club.
Yes, you read that right: “Big signs read, NO TALKING DURING PERFORMANCES! Performers are encouraged to stop the show if someone is talking, and let the person know that he can go to any other club in town to talk over the music. This is the one place in L.A. where you can sit and really listen to the music, which, of course, makes it the most popular music venue in town.”
Sivers also shares his own experience with CD Baby (the company he founded and later sold for millions):
When CD Baby got popular, I’d get calls from record labels wanting to feature their newest, hottest acts on our site.
I’d say, “Nope. They’re not allowed here.”
The record label guys would say, “Huh? What do you mean not allowed? You’re a record store! We’re a record label.”
I’d say, “You can sell anywhere else. This is a place for independents only: musicians who chose not to sign their rights over to a corporation. To make sure these musicians get the maximum exposure they deserve, no major-label acts are allowed.”
He goes on to say, “It’s a big world. You can loudly leave out 99 percent of it.” And he encourages us, “Have the confidence to know that when your target 1 percent hears you excluding the other 99 percent, the people in that 1 percent will come to you because you’ve shown how much you value them.”
They will value you as the best in the world.
ACTION
TODAY: Think of your audience: whether you have a business, work in one, or do volunteer work for an organization. What can you do to—purposefully and intentionally—niche down and focus solely on your target?
FUTURE: Every time you come up with a new project, product, service, idea, etc., make it a habit to define who your audience is and who is not. Share it out loud in the planning and promotions, and once established, keep sharing it. This will act as a filter so that you don’t have to spend as much time and energy later on explaining or excluding.
Know someone who needs to niche down and proudly and loudly exclude? Please share this post: Email, Facebook, Twitter. Thank you!