The two questions you must ask to have a successful small business

The most important questions you need to answer in your small business

Social media. Email list. A business plan. Income targets.

Planning these things will absolutely help you succeed in growing your business.

But you will seriously struggle if you don’t answer these two questions first:

“Who am I serving?” 

“What problem am I solving?” 

These instantly change your business mindset from “I am selling something” to “I am helping people solve a problem”. 

Small businesses are different. We don’t just want to be part of the rat race. The social connections you make with customers and other people in your network are so important! 

Not convinced? I’ve got three excellent reasons why these should be the first two questions you ask in your business. ​​

3 reasons you need to answer these questions to succeed in your business:

1) It gives you a very specific direction

Getting super clear on who you are serving means you have a clear direction for your business. This will make it so much easier when you make your 90 day business plan.

You might already know this, but I’m going to say it again: you can’t serve everyone.

It might seem logical that having a bigger target market means you get more sales. However, it is always better to get hyper specific for one group of people.

And I mean specific.

I don’t just work with women who own their own business. I would be trying to market to hundreds of thousands of women around the world!

I work alongside women in New Zealand who feel overwhelmed by all of the should-do’s and have-to’s of starting a small business. My community serves women who want to network, implement easy to follow growth strategies, and don’t have time or money to waste.

See the difference?

You will most likely pick up a few customers who don’t fit your exact profile, but knowing who you are serving means:

• Less marketing effort
• Reduced overwhelm of trying to serve everyone
• You get REALLY GOOD at serving a particular type of customer/client and can become an expert at it
• You can raise your prices because you are solving a specific problem that people want fixed ​

2) It makes your business more meaningful

If you start by asking yourself the question “who am I serving”, you instantly become more people-focused.

This will ultimately make your business a lot more meaningful and sustainable!

You are not just trying to make money. You are serving PEOPLE (although money will be a happy and inevitable by-product of serving a specific group of people).

It also makes it easier to communicate your offer. You are selling it based on what THEY are going to get out of it and not why you or the product itself is so great.

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3) It creates an offer that people actually want

Don’t design a product and find customers for it. Find your customers and then design the product for them.

If you know who you want to help, you can ask them what problem they want solved.

I’ll give you an example.

When I started She Owns It, I didn’t have an offer.

When I started the free Facebook community, I didn’t sell anything.

But do you know what I did do?

Talked to people. ASKED THEM WHAT THEY WANTED.

I spent about 6 months designing a Membership Club that everyone ACTUALLY wanted to be in (which lead to a $10k launch overnight!).

Taking the time to do your market research means that you are creating offers people want to pay for. You don’t need sneaky sales tactics, because you people have already said they want it!

Don’t waste precious energy by failing to answer these two simple questions first. If you make your business about the people you serve, you will have endless motivation!
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PS- Start answering these two questions RIGHT NOW! Let me know in the comments WHO you are serving and what problem you are solving for them- there might be someone in this community just waiting for you to come out of your shell.