The strength of many little customers
Many small entrepreneurs think, “If we could just land Apple, Google, or the government as a client, we’d be all set!”
Software companies often do this. They hope to make some technology that a huge company will want to build into every product, or install at every employee’s desk.
But this approach has many problems:
- You have to custom-tailor your product to please very few specific people.
- Those people may change their mind or leave the company.
- Who are you really working for? Are you self-employed or is this client your boss?
- If you do land the big client, they practically own you.
- By trying so hard to please the big client, you lose touch with what the rest of the world wants.
Instead, imagine if you designed your business to have no big clients, just lots of little clients.
- You don’t need to change what you do to please one client — only the majority (or yourself).
- If one client needs to leave, it’s OK. You can sincerely wish them well.
- Because no one client can demand you do what they say, you are your own boss. Just keep clients happy in general.
- You hear hundreds of people’s opinions, and stay in touch with what the majority of people want.
So much of the music business is actually the star business — people hoping to catch the coattails of a huge mega-star. But I wanted nothing to do with that, for these same reasons.
When you build your business on serving thousands of customers, not dozens, you don’t have to worry about any one customer leaving or making special demands. If most of your customers love what you do, but one doesn’t, you can just say goodbye and wish him the best, with no hard feelings.
It's the long tail baby!
Very True. But there are those few artists on major labels who manage to keep doing things exactly the way they want to (as if they where indie) Beck, one of my favorites, comes to mind.
Still though, thinking of all your fans as "lot's of little clients" is a good way to look at it.
Andrew Dubber has definately bought this idea of the "long tail" across really well. Selling a bit of more is the key, the internet sure breaks the traditional rules of economics, and with that musicians have to think of reframing the way they think of the economics of music.
Wow Derek, this so describes my day job.
This is exactly what happened with my Brother's company Blaxxun. They were working with Virtual Reality years before second Life existed. But they were trying to aim for something that would appeal to large businesses for virutal conventions. My brother said that it would be too difficult to reach lots of little customers, so they didn't try. The Result--Blaxxun is out of business and second Life did what they envisioned themselves doing.
Thank you for making a great point in differentiating big clients over little clients. It's a great point to see whom to serve and be extremely happy about it. I came across a video that talks about how you will be able to land the clients that you want to work with. It's a good video with lots of information to learn. http://marieforleo.com/2011/03/simple-tricks-approach-land-dream-clients/
I suppose for "setting your intention," one way to avoid getting excited by thinking of one big client,
or the alternative excitement of focusing on lots of small clients,
is instead to focus on "who likes this company's product, now, in our early days?"
The answer, statistically, is likely to be a few small clients at first. Focusing on value for them will lead you to improve the company and probably, as you focus on improving value, lead to lots more small clients.
Same desired result, achieved through a slightly different focus.