The other day, I was talking with a woman who claimed that, her product is for everybody. In her own words, “Everybody needs this product…”

News Flash: NO product is for everybody.

Her comment was the result of having been ’sold’ on the validity of her product. (FYI – if you haven’t already guessed, she was in network marketing)

Nothing against network marketing, but most people think that traditional marketing rules don’t apply.

They don’t.

Her product was a health product that claimed to cure everything from stress to cancer.

Sounds great but here’s the thing: Everyone isn’t interested in living a healthy lifestyle. Don’t believe me?? Just look around.

The people who MIGHT be interested in her product are the people who are interested in a healthy lifestyle…specifically, people who may be dealing the ailments her product claims to cure or want to prevent these ailments.

In fact, if you wanted to get even more specific, it would be people who are interested in taking daily supplements to improve their health.

My point?

Unless you have a virtually unlimited marketing budget, you have to be diligent in finding the people who want what you have…no one else!

Because not matter how great your marketing is, you will NOT sell to the people who don’t want your stuff.

I’m a vegetarian…a strict vegetarian. So no matter how great the marketing is for your hotdogs…I’ll never buy them from you. I’d have to be close to death before buying your hotdogs…and probably then I’d just find some other alternative.

So, running your ad in Veg Atlanta magazine would be a “bad” idea.

Now this may seem like an ‘extreme’ example, but it is what a lot of business owners do – indirectly. Just by thinking ‘everyone needs your product’ you’re trying to sell to people who might not be interested in your stuff.

When you narrow your marketing efforts to only your target market, you’re doing two powerful things for yourself that will have an exponential impact on your business.

1) Your marketing costs go DOWN. When you focus on a niche market, you can access them faster, easier and more cost effectively.

2) When you’re marketing to the right audience your conversions go UP. Since you’re only speaking to people who want your stuff, there’s an exponentially higher chance of them actually buying from you.

So, you end up spending LESS and selling MORE…. just by focusing your efforts on the people who matter – the people who WANT your stuff.

Money Mouth Marketing Lesson:

Ask yourself, “who REALLY wants what you have to sell…?”

Identify them, and sell ONLY to them.

A really good friend of mine once told me, “You can’t catch one rabbit chasing five”. Well being a ‘city boy’ I never chased rabbits…so the lesson didn’t hit me like I’m sure he intended it.

So, I just figured something out about multi-tasking. We can’t truly do it. (Yeah, I know I can be slow sometimes), but these are some of the things small businesses entrepreneurs deal with.

There was a study done that scientifically proved that the human brain can only consciously think one thought at a time. Therefore, we can really only do ‘one thing at a time’ that requires thought. Like a computer, you brain can switch back and forth between two tasks (thoughts) quickly..creating the appearance of multitasking; but just as a computer, it can only process one thing at a time.

Now you may be sitting there saying, “Hey, I can watch the tele and read a book; or talk on the phone and make a cup of coffee…etc.” And you can do these things, but here’s something to consider: You’re only consciously concentrating on one thing at a time. Making coffee is most likely a ’subconscious/non-conscious’ activity burned into your subconscious that you could do with your eyes closed. Same as watching tele.

Here’s how this impacts projects, jobs, etc.

Think about this:
If you’re working on 5 projects simultaneously, you’re giving each project 20% of your time, 20% of your effort, 20% of your energy, and you’re getting about 20% momentum.

Even if you work on one project per day (in a 5 day week), you’re still not giving each project the time it deserves to be as successful as it could be. Why?

Momentum and creative intelligence.

Before you think I’m going off into left field, let me explain what I mean:

Think about a car. Even the fastest car takes at least 4 second to get from 0-60mph. Well, what if that car went from 0-20, then stopped. Then started again. Then got to 30mph, then stopped. Then started again.

The car never reached it’s full potential. Especially in the same time that it would have it just went from 0-60.

So imagine things operating at 20%. Your oven, your lights, your computer…the list goes on. Think about that for a moment, what of you car only started 20% of the time. What if the bank’s computer only worked 20% of the time (if you’re with BOA, you know how this feels already)… Or you go to deposit your money and the teller says, “sorry, only 20% of your deposit went through”.

This is exactly what we’re trying to do when we ‘multi-task’ by doing 4 or 5 projects at the same time. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a great idea to diversify your revenue streams, but the key is to get one thing going at 100% (or as close to it as possible) then move on to the next thing.

Another reason this is detrimental to peak productivity is creative ‘universal’ intelligence.

Have you ever been working on a project and you were stuck on something, then 3-4 days later, you sitting somewhere, eating ice cream or something totally non-related, then “BAM” the idea hits you that solves the problem you were working on?

Well this is a creative intelligence that’s in all of us. It works when our conscious mind is distracted doing other things – on a sub conscious level. Unfortunately, when we’re working on 5 things at the same time, that subconscious intelligence is working at 20% as well and only gives you 20% of the ideas, 20% of the problem-solving ability, 20% of the inspiration it normally would.

The moral of the story: Do one thing at a time.

Unless you’re able to tap into the other 90% of the brain that most people don’t have use of and you can truly multi-task, then do one thing at a time. Get it done, and move on to the next thing.