{"id":260,"date":"2011-11-28T12:14:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-28T12:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=260"},"modified":"2016-09-27T14:00:35","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T19:00:35","slug":"you-are-not-your-target-market-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2011\/11\/you-are-not-your-target-market-part-3.html","title":{"rendered":"You are not your target market Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"My<\/a>

The same experience that makes you valuable, makes you no longer like your target market.<\/p><\/div>\n

You are not your target market:\u00a0You know too much. \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

You’re pretty smart. You’ve been around your industry or subject area for several years, maybe longer. You have studied, learned, tried, failed, learned some more, succeeded, and learned some more. In short, you are no longer the same as your customers.<\/p>\n

Now, this is good because you have something to teach them. Now, this is also bad, because you don’t know what it’s like to be a beginner anymore. You think you remember, but that is tempered by looking back through your own experiences. Your customers are at the other end of the experience. They are looking ahead, but can’t see very far. It’s not really possible for you to really understand that anymore, because you know too much.<\/p>\n

So you have to listen, deeply, to the questions customers ask. You have to think, deeply, about the questions they aren’t asking.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

See also:\u00a0<\/b>
\nYou are not your target market Part 1: Quit hanging around with your own people. Go find the customers.<\/a><\/p>\n

You are not your target market Part 2:\u00a0What you like doesn’t equate into what customers like.<\/a><\/p>\n

You are not your target market: How to get more volunteer participation.<\/a><\/p>\n

New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour<\/a>. Like what you see? Get our updates<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You are not your target market:\u00a0You know too much. \u00a0 You’re pretty smart. You’ve been around your industry or subject area for several years, maybe longer. You have studied, learned, tried, failed, learned some more, succeeded, and learned some more. In short, you are no longer the same as your customers. Now, this is good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[104],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4819,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions\/4819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}