By: Edison R. Guzman�
A&E Advertising and Web Design�

There are many factors to consider when growing a successful business. However, without customers, your business will wither away and feed your competition.

The definition of a costumer, according to the dictionary, is someone who pays for goods or services. This post is dedicated to every individual who is in business attempting to attract enough prospects in order to turn them into customers.

Naturally, attracting customers is not enough. You must be able to implement the 21 Secrets to Business Success that will virtually ensure achieving your goals if studied and applied correctly.

I have outlined 10 steps that you can take in order to attract maximum customers with minimum effort. Within this post, I will show you all the steps, as well as share with you the tools I use to accomplish this. Not only will I tell you which tools I use effectively, but I will show you how to get them. Some tools will be free, and some you’ll have to purchase. In most cases, your investment will not be significant, but the results and the time you’ll save will make the difference between arriving at success sooner, rather than later.

First, let’s start off with your universe.

What is your product or service’s Universe?

Actually, it’s the amount of consumers available to buy your product or service. Please do not confuse your Universe, with your target market. I will go over identifying your target market later, but for now let’s discuss your universe.

Why is it important to know your universe? Simply because most business owners don’t think about this very simple part of Attracting Customers. Business owners think that everyone is a potential customer, so when they advertise, they do so poorly.

Let’s look at a few examples of a universe within specific industries:

A shoe store may have a very large universe–people who wear shoes. If it’s a ladies shoes store, naturally, the universe is women. But what happens if you only offer orthopedic shoes? Does this change your universe? Yes, it does. The universe is still women who wear shoes, but now it has been reduced to a much more defined universe. Other factors such as age, demographics, race, or gender will not be considered until you start talking about specific markets, therefore, let’s see a few other examples.

You may think that a restaurant owner has a gigantic universe, but when you look closer, you’ll see that the universe is not anyone who likes to eat. Thinking that everyone who likes to eat�is your prospective customer is a mistake. First, you must consider what type of food your restaurant offers. Then you must consider the number of people who would be willing to eat it. Does the restaurant serve meat, or is it for vegans? Is it American cuisine, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Cantonese, or other? Do you see how the type of restaurant will increase or decrease the size of the Universe?

Let’s look at a Financial Planner. Everyone needs financial planning, right? It would not be wise to assume this. There are many factors that determine the universe of the Financial Planning industry. First, how many individuals can take advantage of this service. Second, which Financial Planning services are you offering? If it’s stocks and bonds, your universe will be totally different than someone needing immediate income from their investments. If you’re offering college savings funds, it’ll be totally different than offering 401(k)s.

Look closely at your product or service. Then determine the size of your universe. Why is this important? Because before implementing any marketing strategies, you must know that your universe is large enough to support you financially. What would happen if you wanted to open a Starbucks in a town of only 1,000 poverty level consumers? Since not everyone will drink coffee to begin with, the odds that the percentage that do drink it will pay extra for their coffee is very slim. The percentage may be too small to support your business. You’ll be out of business before you know it.

Knowing your Universe also means that you’ll need to know the competition in your universe as well as the supply and demand for your product or service. This is important because you need to know how to price your product, and if the demand is large enough to support your competitors as well as your business.

This does not mean that you can’t take away market share and blow away your competition, but it helps when you do your homework and know with certainty that your Universe is large enough to successfully grow your business and deliver the wealth you deserve.

Knowing your Universe is paramount to attracting customers, but it’s only step one of many. Next, I will show you how to identify and target your specific market.

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