Friends and Family are not your Target Market

You are the newest entrepreneur around town. You have finally started your business: you post consistently on your WhatsApp status, WhatsApp business groups and Facebook business groups but no orders are coming in. You even post in your family groups but not even one family member has reached out to buy from you. You are pretty sure that your friends and family can see your posts because some have the audacity to put in a like or two and to drop some comments. But they are not placing any orders or showing any interest in doing business with you. This feels like a betrayal. After all your family and friends were at the very forefront of egging you on to open shop. Now that you have started your business, non of them are buying!

Many a small business owner has faced similar frustrations when it comes to doing business. Of late, social media has been awash with memes and posts chronicling the struggles of small businesses who aren’t getting any support from their immediate families and friends. But the question is, are our friends and family members obligated to patronize our businesses? Should we expect them to buy our products? Are we entitled to their spending preferences?

The answer is :NO, IT’S NOT A MUST FOR YOUR FRIENDS TO BUY FROM YOU. Shocked? I know you are. Let me explain why this is so:

Your Friends/Family are Entitled to their Spending Preferences

Your friends and family have the right to choose who to buy from and who not to buy from. You cannot force them to buy from you even if you tried. At best, you can try to influence their buying decisions but there’s no guarantee that this will sway them in your favour. I will discuss how to convince your friends to buy from you in detail later on in the article.

Your Products Are Not To Their Taste

Your friends and family might genuinely desire to support your business but maybe the products or services that you have on offer are not meeting their needs or wants. Perhaps your product range is too limited or the quality of your products is not favorable. Your business should provide value to the market place. By so doing even your friends and family might become paying clients.

Sometimes, it’s not even an issue of quality but an issue of preference. You could be providing quality services or products which your friends and family do not actually need. For example, you could be selling scones but your friends would prefer to buy cakes, or you could be selling thrifted clothes (second hand clothes) but your family members prefer to buy brand new clothes.

Buying Is Not The Only Form Of Support

Support for your business can be shown in various ways. This could be through sharing your posts, word of mouth marketing or giving you advice when needed. Support cannot only be monetary. Try to appreciate the various ways in which your friends show up for you and your business.

As business owners, our target market should not be limited to the people that we know. This is too small a market size to make business sense. For a business to be viable, it has to have a clearly defined target market. When it comes to finding a target market, you need to think locally, regionally, nationally and even internationally. Your current geographical location should not be a limitation. Utilizing digital marketing and courier services can broaden your target market.

Just because your social circles are not placing orders should not be the reason why your business is not a success. By developing well thought out marketing strategies, you can expand your clientele base and start turning a profit.

These are by no means the only reasons why our friends and family members don’t buy from us, but I’ll stop here for now. I will share more reasons in future articles.

Instead of focusing on whether or not your friends buy from you, you should focus on your business. Your focus should be on growing your business beyond your close circle. Be thankful for whatever form of support your circle can give to you whilst realizing that there is a bigger market segment out there which is ready to take up your products.

Most importantly, do not feel defeated when your sales are low or when your attempts at advertising are blueticked. Keep on going on. Every day is a new opportunity to try again. In business, it’s important to understand that growth takes time. You need to put in the effort consistently in order to reap tangible results.

In my next article, I will be sharing tips on how you can find more customers for your business.