August 30, 2020
Updated: Feb 10, 2021 Small businesses stay small either by choice, or because they start chasing growth in the wrong places. When you strip away the layers, it all comes down to darts. Imagine a dart board with a bull’s eye and around it is a series of wider and wider circles. The bull’s eye is where the people just like you hang out. They are the people (or businesses) who feel the problem your company set out to solve. They are usually your first customers and raving fans. The further you go outside of your bull’s eye, the less these prospects feel your exact pain. Why do entrepreneurs go outside their bull’s eye? When you’re a self-funded start-up, you’re scrambling — just trying to bootstrap your way to a company. You don’t have a lot of money to invest in formal marketing, so you rely on word-of-mouth and referrals, which also means you’re often talking to people outside of your bull’s eye. These prospects may experience the problem you’re trying to solve, but they are…