Who to connect with.

The people who want to connect with you are referred to as “your audience.” It’s important to have an idea of who your audience is. What do they believe in? What problems do they have? Why do they want to hear from me? 

But there’s also a quick way to whittle down to your audience. Start with “Who isn’t this for?”

“Who isn’t this for?” is anywhere from four to ninety-nine times more important, than who it is for. When I was connecting, I didn’t connect with accountants, interior designers, architects, or almost any other profession. I focused on engineers, engineering managers, Directors of Engineering. These people all have common problems, which makes it easier to help all of my audience at once. 

Where are those numbers coming from?

Samsung, the smartphone market leader, owns roughly 20% of the market. That means there are four times the number of smartphone owners who don’t have Samsung smartphones than those that do.

Also consider, a hugely popular blog or video getting 60,000,000-70,000,000 viewers. An overwhelming success! It also reached less than 1% of people worldwide. There are more than 99 times as many people who didn’t see it as did.

If you can bump everyone away who isn’t for what you do, then you can spend less time dealing with people who weren’t going to engage you, and care more about those who will. You can increase generosity to those interested. Recently, I started reaching out to some email subscribers asking them if they would introduce themselves to me more personally. I can invest in them, since I know they are already interested in what I have to say.  

Here’s an opportunity. If you’re “selling” something today, then carefully consider what it doesn’t do. Who it isn’t going to help. And write it out as clearly as possible.

Here are a few things to think about:

• Is there economic restrictions? If you sell a million dollar product, it isn’t for a guy that has a half million dollars in revenue.
• Is personality of the user a factor?
• Does the aesthetic not fit in some places?
• Do they need a certain education background?
• Do they need to be in a certain stage of life?

That’s not an exclusive list certainly, but it’s a starting point. Be generous, don’t waste people’s time. As a nice side effect, you’ll waste less of yours.