Know Who Your Audiences Aren’t
There was a meme circulating the Interwebs a while back that went something like this:
Waiter: What would you like to drink?
Guest: Diet Coke
Waiter: Is Diet Pepsi okay?
Guest: Is Monopoly money okay?!
Embrace the sobering truth that not everyone likes your brand and not everyone ever will. Notice I said “embrace” not “accept.” Even the most beloved brands have detractors, but here’s the kicker: the most beloved brands don’t deal with those detractors. Instead they focus on attractors — building a tribe who introduces the brand to the most likely newcomers.
Another anecdote: I graduated from high school nearly 20 years ago. (Oof. It was easy to do the math but a little painful to type.) Like many of us in high school, I exerted a lot of energy trying to get as many people to like me as possible. What happened is that by putting my energy into a number of superficial relationships I probably missed out on building more enduring ones. With Facebook and other platforms, it’s easy to say we’re still connected. But how many of those people have my phone number? How many know what’s going on in my life outside of what I post? Not many. Those who I did make an effort to build something with 20 years ago (again, wow) have outlasted all the veneers of friendship.
The same thing goes for your brand’s audiences.
Would you rather have 500 customers for one year or 50 customers for 10 years? The same goes for employees. Would you rather have a lot of great talent early on or some key cogs of your business that will grow and stick by you for decades?
Choose the latter in each scenario. We’ve seen the studies that show how expensive it is to attract new business versus keeping it. We’ve heard about the costs of onboarding new hires compared to retention. Now factor in the ability to predict incoming revenue and overhead. Unless you’re in a race to become the next IPO, gradually building a loyal following continues to be the surest way to scale.
Beyond the dollars and cents, here are a few more reasons to know who your audiences aren’t.
The New Differentiation: The margin of differentiation between products or services continues to decline. Here’s just one example. A few years back, I worked with a manufacturer that used to have clearly differentiated features and benefits on its equipment. We’re talking, “My machine does the same thing XX% faster than the nearest competitor.” Towards the end, the message was, “Our user panel is two inches bigger.” When a company innovates, competitors catch up faster than ever before.
Knowing who your audiences aren’t and focusing on those who like your brand, helps you develop a greater following. It empowers people to say, “I belong to this brand, not those other guys.” People choose to make this statement about themselves. The emotion drives the loyalty.
The New Diversification: In their book Zero to One, Peter Thiel and Blake Masters talk about this idea that a company can have a monopoly without appearing like they do. (That’s a huge oversimplification, so go read or listen to it.) Google started as a search engine but expanded the business over time into the next logical thing. A search engine became a web browser, which eventually became a laptop to do all those activities. And that’s only a fraction of what they’ve done. Each step made sense, and over time, each step ate into the market share of different competitors.
Of course, your business won’t be the next Google. But the thinking goes, that by knowing your audience well, you’ll start to see opportunities into selling or providing something else that they will like, too. And it won’t matter if everyone else likes it because it wasn’t made for everyone else.
Bigger Risks: Two paragraphs ago, I mentioned how competitors catch up with innovation. But if you’re focusing on your audience and not the general public, your organization has the opportunity to take even greater risks. Think about the rise of your favorite indie artist - musician, filmmaker, whatever. They reached popularity by not trying to be popular. They found a core and made art for them. The core took that work and shared it.
Before you say, “That wouldn’t work for my business,” I ask, “Why not?” Are a dentist’s patients going to leave because you played rock music instead of elevator muzak? If they’re loyal enough, they probably won’t.
But You Have to Listen
A teacher once told me, “You have to listen on the balls of your feet, so you can be ready to adapt.” That’s the crux of it all. It’s fine to say, “We don’t care about them. They aren’t us,” but you have to get in tune with your audiences. Otherwise, you’ll use this advice out of context, take a huge risk, miss the mark and fall back into the rat race of beige. In other words, you’ll be doing everything you did before only with your tail between your legs.
Know who your audiences aren’t by hyper-catering to the audiences you have and want.
A Final Note: Us vs. Them is About Mindset - Nothing More
To be absolutely clear, like clear enough a bird would crash into this statement, knowing who your audiences aren’t is not a convenient way to discriminate against groups of people. Your product is not just for people who like you. Make your tribe attractive and then let anyone in — anyone — who wants to participate with your brand.
Remember that whole bit earlier about trying to get people to like me in high school. I didn’t care about approval from bullies. I still don’t. Being an asshat is not the way to scale over time. Being inclusive is.