Trying to be all things to all people and attempting to reach them with a shotgun approach puts your career and business in jeopardy.

Your objective should be to focus on specific niches or groups of people within your territory or market. This will allow you to focus on key prospects and build the quality relationships with them necessary to gain favorable access.

When I ask salespeople, “Who is your customer?” or “What is your market?” most respond, “The world is my market.” Taking a whole-world approach shows customers that you are trying to be all things to all people when they want to do business with people who specialize in people like them.

Rather than skip from market to market and from prospect to prospect, focus on specific niche or target markets and then work those markets.

On a personal level, a lack of focus not only increases your frustration, it reduces your effectiveness as a prospector. By focusing on specific niche or target markets, you obtain a clear vision of where you are, where you are going, and how to get there.

Your prospecting energy, when focused, gives you a new set of results. If you’re spread all over the market, you diffuse your energy.

Gaining focus means uncovering hidden markets and relational prospecting opportunities within your current business activities. It means defining your best markets early and focusing on building the quality one-on-one relationships necessary to open closed doors. Achieving focus is the first step in reaching those hard-to-reach, skeptical buyers and gaining access to the people within your market.

Ask yourself: What are my best markets? How do I select them? How can I take the markets we have to the next step so I can prospect more effectively one-on-one? How can I qualify these markets to be sure they have enough potential?

As you learn to select your best markets, you will make better decisions about the right niches for you. You can then put into practice all other relationship marketing and prospecting ideas to open closed doors. SME

C. Richard Weylman is the president of the Achievement Group, Inc. He is the author of Opening Closed Doors. (Irwin) 800-535-4332.

ACTION: How can you best open doors in your market?