Thursday
May082008
Finding Your Sweet Spot
Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 9:07AM
Most businesses have one of two problems. Either they don't know what their sweet spot is or they fail to spend most of their time in that sweet spot. The first part is usually pretty easy. Ask yourself "Who are the customers or types of customers that I enjoy working with." Not too long ago I had a conversation with a real estate broker who told me she really enjoyed working with commercial clients more than residential buyers and sellers. I asked why and she launched into a ten minute monologue on all the things she loved about commercial real estate deals. That confirmed it, her sweet spot was commercial real estate. A little more probing revealed that her true sweet spot was commercial deals where more than one property needed to be assembled into a portfolio to be sold to a development group. Prior to that another realtor had related his sweet spot as commercial deals where the long term business prospects of the deal needed to be proved out to a potential buy and hold real estate investor.
So here you have two examples. Both people are doing real estate, both want to do commercial, and both have vastly different sweet spots. Finding your sweet spot is simply a matter of asking the question "Who do I like working with most?" After that you need to be able to explain in detail WHY you like working with that type of client or customer. If you can't answer the WHY you probably enjoy that kind of work more as a hobby or distraction than an actual business pursuit.
A good example of a hobby pursuit as opposed to a true sweet spot came to me in the form of a client who wanted to branch out into a new product line. The client owned a furniture store and wanted to start her own line of upholstered furniture. When I started asking WHY we quickly found out that she spent her down time re-upholstering furniture at home. She was very good at it, but the demands of owning a business meant that she didn't get as much free time to enjoy her hobby. Bringing the hobby into the business was her answer.
The more we talked about the business aspects of this hobby the more she found out it probably wasn't a good fit. She didn't like the idea of building furniture to customer specifications. She didn't like the prospect of stocking a new line of inventory. And the thought of working with furniture craftsman was something she didn't feel like she would enjoy.
As it turns out her real sweet spot was interior design work. Her favorite customers were those that asked her opinion regarding the types of furnishing that would fit a particular space. She loved making house calls and often found herself accompanying the delivery staff and chatting up owners with ideas for other areas of their home. The idea of a design oriented business also helped address her loathing of inventory and purchasing generic furniture brands. What she discovered is that she enjoyed purchasing much more when she could "see" the space where the furniture would go.
So ask yourself "Who do I enjoy working with most?" and find your sweet spot. In our next blog we will address the problem of knowing your sweet spot but not spending enough time there.
So here you have two examples. Both people are doing real estate, both want to do commercial, and both have vastly different sweet spots. Finding your sweet spot is simply a matter of asking the question "Who do I like working with most?" After that you need to be able to explain in detail WHY you like working with that type of client or customer. If you can't answer the WHY you probably enjoy that kind of work more as a hobby or distraction than an actual business pursuit.
A good example of a hobby pursuit as opposed to a true sweet spot came to me in the form of a client who wanted to branch out into a new product line. The client owned a furniture store and wanted to start her own line of upholstered furniture. When I started asking WHY we quickly found out that she spent her down time re-upholstering furniture at home. She was very good at it, but the demands of owning a business meant that she didn't get as much free time to enjoy her hobby. Bringing the hobby into the business was her answer.
The more we talked about the business aspects of this hobby the more she found out it probably wasn't a good fit. She didn't like the idea of building furniture to customer specifications. She didn't like the prospect of stocking a new line of inventory. And the thought of working with furniture craftsman was something she didn't feel like she would enjoy.
As it turns out her real sweet spot was interior design work. Her favorite customers were those that asked her opinion regarding the types of furnishing that would fit a particular space. She loved making house calls and often found herself accompanying the delivery staff and chatting up owners with ideas for other areas of their home. The idea of a design oriented business also helped address her loathing of inventory and purchasing generic furniture brands. What she discovered is that she enjoyed purchasing much more when she could "see" the space where the furniture would go.
So ask yourself "Who do I enjoy working with most?" and find your sweet spot. In our next blog we will address the problem of knowing your sweet spot but not spending enough time there.
Reader Comments (1)
I found your blog on MSN Search. Nice writing. I will check back to read more.
Eric Hundin