31 thoughts on “How to Write a Winning Online Business Startup Plan in Under 20 Minutes”

1. Great post Pamela. It’s important to identify your niche, where you want your business to sit in the market and who ultimately you want to work with. It’s even more important to stick to your guns as your new business develops, to ensure you stay true to those ideals. If nothing else, it will ensure your marketing message is strong rather than being diluted by trying to appeal to everybody! Alyssa.

   p.s. can I please have the abs from your lead image 😉

   • I know: I want those abs, too! Thanks for your comment, Alyssa.

2. Oh, Pam, here you go again with a great post.
   If one is to believe in serendipity (and I tend to do), the last seven days have been pushing me to work on this neglected part of my business.
   I woke up today with the goal of aggressively tacking this, and, what do you know? This shows up in my inbox.
   Thanks for the good that you do.

   • I’m glad the timing worked out, Nando! Jon’s exercise is priceless, and it’s not easy. I highly recommend making time for it in the process of thinking through your target market.

3. Hi Pamela,

   Thanks for the post! Even if you think you know already, it is great to get a reminder. You both are so right, stick to your niche, it is ok to not appeal to everybody, and find your target group. Sounds very easy, but can be a huge challenge! But I love a challenge, so I am stubornly not giving up. Thanks again for the post, I am learning a lot:)

   Those abs, sigh, a girl can dream, right?

   Maartje

   • You’re right, Maartje: it sounds easy, but it’s not. That’s why people avoid it.

     It makes such a difference to your marketing when you do this work, though. Getting the abs in that photo probably wasn’t much fun, either, right? The results are worth the effort!

4. Pamela, this is one of the most comprehensive articles on finding a “target market” that I’ve ever read! I think the “excluding” part is most important to think about and also the hardest part of the equation – for me at least. But excluding gives clarity and allows you to do your best work for the customers that remain.

   • That excluding part is really tough, and seems so counter intuitive. I mean, who wants to walk away from a slice of their prospects? But you know it works, because you’ve done it!

     Thanks for your comment, Marlene.

     • You are right Pamela it is tough to decide which customers you AREN’T going to serve. It can feel like you are missing out on something. That is until you consider what you are REALLY walking away from. Those excluded clients are cut out for many reasons: They can be harder to work with because they don’t quite resonate with what you are about at your core. They can be resistant to your offer, which means they don’t get the results they desire because they don’t follow the program. That means they didn’t fully receive the value they could have from you. Less perceived value means price resistance, less referrals, and generally less happy customers. We often end up feel drained and demotivated after working with a less than ideal client. Bottom line is choosing to work with the wrong customer can COST you. Big time.
       Great post!

       • Great points, Charles, especially about how less-than-ideal clients are harder to work with. We don’t often think about the non-financial aspects of the transactions we do in business, but they may be more important than the money we exchange. Who wants to work with a resistant customer? It’s no fun.

5. Pamela – thank you very much for including a section for new people starting out who don’t have any customers yet. I have lost count of how many people write about this but base the information on the assumption you have some historical information on which to basis your analysis on.
   What I find curious is that so many people go on about how important defining your market is, but very few give practical steps on how to do so. So, I thank you again, for including some very practical advice on how to start.

   Caroline

   • You’re welcome: it was your question on my earlier post that inspired that section, so thank YOU. 🙂

6. “I” am my target market. By that I mean, someone just like me. I have been on the user end of the service I am now providing so I am intimately acquainted with my target market. So, I have begun to keep a lengthy list of the things I enjoy, places I go, sites I visit, comments that grab me, tags I search for etc…
   Thanks the the very helpful information.
   -C

   • That’s a great position to be in, Cherol. And it sounds like you’re taking advantage of it!

7. “Are you avoiding it because it seems impossible?”

   Yup.
   How do you find the hidden people?
   The ones that are not emerging from their lairs because they are fed up with all the b/s that’s published out there.

   • What do you know about them, Birdy?

     You might want to try Jon’s exercise. Rather than try to describe them, try to get inside their heads and think about their fears and desires. That may give you enough information to start speaking in a way that helps them realize you’re one of them, and they can trust you.

8. Hi Pam,

   Great post on a great topic. I’ve gotten so much out of thinking about my ideal customer.

   A big thing to look at is attitudes, and what polarizes people. Knowing this can help you know what to avoid and what really fires them up in a good way. I also love to think about “who would I really like to work with”, in the way that Michael Port teaches in “Book Yourself Solid”.

   I find myself preferring the word “client” or “customer” more than “market”. After all, we never speak to markets, we speak to people. This makes a mental shift that helps me communicate more freely.

   Thanks again!

   -DB

   • It’s fascinating how a slight shift in semantics frees up our thinking!

     I love the idea of thinking about what polarizes people, too. Thanks for the comment, David.

9. Pamela, thanks for the sound advice. I am trying to narrow down my business writing offerings, and trying to specify what an ideal customer for me might be, but it’s difficult, because I like variety in my writing assignments, so I write web content, press releases, occasional tech stuff, all kinds of marketing collateral, and offer editing services as well in those areas. (I also write journalistic pieces and fiction, but we can ignore those for the moment.)

   A big trouble for me is that I don’t want to specialize in something—say, white papers—because I know that I become bored with sameness in writing and writing assignments. But there is strong logic in what you say regarding focus and audience. Thoughts?

   • Tom, focus on who you help, not what you do to help them, first off. Your versatility doesn’t need to be hampered by clarity about your target market.

     It’s great you can do all those things, and you obviously have existing clients. Take a good look at the people you work with now, especially the ones you enjoy working with. What traits do they have in common? What attitudes/philosophies/approaches to they share?

     If you can figure that out, you’ll be well on your way to painting a clear picture of who they are. Good luck.

     • Pamela, I appreciate the reply. That does help me begin to refine the picture of the “right” client. And emphasizing how they should be someone I enjoy working with is key, because work that’s pleasurable keeps both parties coming back, and I believe it positively colors the quality of the labor.

10. Great work – I love the composition! And you’re definitely hitting your Target Market to boot!

    • Thank you 🙂

11. G’Day Pamela,
    Back in the early 90s “Positioning, The Battle For The Mind” by Al Ries and Jack Trout was recommended to me. I’d already been in business for 13 years. It was an absolute revelation. That’s where I first found out about the absolute necessity for a crystal clear business focus and a narrow specific target market.

    Almost 20 years later, I still see these two things as the essential basis for any successful business.

    In their second book, “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing,” Al and Jack also discussed the Law of Sacrifice……what are going to give up to concentrate on focus and target market.

    Every day in the blogosphere I read people going on endlessly about branding and niches and other trendy marketing buzzwords without a mention of the crucial importance of focus and target market.

    Incidentally, did you know that last year, in 2011, the readers of “Advertising Age” voted “Positioning” the “Most Important Marketing Book Ever.”

    Thanks for emphasising such an important issue.

    Have great 2012.
    Best Wishes
    Leon

    • Hi Leon – thank you very much for posting your book suggestions.

      As I previously mentioned here, everyone states how important getting clear who your target market is, but I have failed to find practical guidance on this, to a new business.
      I’ve just ordered the ‘Positioning’ book from Amazon and look forward to reading it. Thanks again.
      Caroline

    • Thanks for this recommendation, Leon.

      I agree: focusing your efforts and determining your target market isn’t “sexy.” People would rather forge ahead and start marketing their businesses without doing this thinking. It’s like shooting in the dark, though: you can’t hit what you’re not aiming for.

    • Fancy meeting you here Leon! 🙂 (And touting Ries + Trout, yet :D)

      Anyway, I’d like to second your “focus on focus” 🙂

      It changes everything.

      It’s a world-shaking stance. Focus helps everything, especially target markets + business success 🙂 (Though Johnny B. Truant, who actually chats with John Morrow all the time lol… might disagree :D)

12. I like the 4 questions. Everyone should ask themselves those questions at some point in their life.

13. Awesome post, Pamela 🙂 One of the best I’ve read on target markets (bringing back John’s exercise is fantastic!)

    Everything you said is spot on, and I know that I was afraid to Repel Customers. I changed tho, and now I … well… kinda love it 😀 Everything I create auto-filters my clientele.

    My materials have some swearing in them because a) It’s authentically how I talk sometimes, for emphasis, it’s my ‘voice’ and b) I’m really not interested in attracting people who have issues with other people’s speech patterns.

    I teach success, and NOT nit-picking over words is a pre-requisite. Anyway, I hear ya, and looks like everyone else does too 😀

    –

    I’d like to add the flipside, which, is not the majority at all, and not necessarily recommended (I teach people to find their target market too :D), but there do exist successful people (mainly celebrity artists) who put relatively little thought into their target market.

    They simply, ‘get in the zone’ and ‘sing from the heart’ and somehow resonate strongly with a particular group (usually a group ‘like them’)

    Anyway, just a minor 2cents of fresh perspective.

14. Pamela hi,

    The niche you find yourself in will determine who your target market will be.

    I am assuming that before you start a business, you are aware of what you have to offer potential clients. I think it is more a question of developing a client-base than of determining a target market.

    If you have developed a solution, through experience, for problems within your niche, even better. You then operate from a position of strength; you have something that someone else in the same niche may not have.

    Be yourself, and your market will be drawn to you. And be patient!

    A client-base takes time to develop.

    Just remember not to be so rigid in your thinking that potential clients may have difficulty in working with you.

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