Why Your Friends Aren’t Supporting Your Business
Time for some hard truths, buckle up.
Are you frustrated with your friends’ lackluster response to your business?
Maybe they're not buying the hoodies or the jewelry the way you expected them to. Maybe they're not booking the service you offer, in fact they're not even looking at the website. And you're confused because you thought they were real ones, your ride or die people, so what gives?
It's really simple.
They aren't your target audience.
When people get frustrated that their friends, loved ones, childhood friends aren’t supporting their business, it sounds like the frustrated business owner doesn’t know who is their target audience. In other words, they don't know who the product or service is for. So they aren't making sales because they're nowhere near who wants what they're selling.
If your friends supporting your business is a priority for you, you're going to have to change the business to provide what your friends need. But I imagine that you got into the business you did because you're good at that particular thing. It’s something you're passionate about it. So the approach here is to figure out who you serve, who needs what you're selling and to start marketing to them.
There may be times when your friends do shop at your business, and there might be colleagues in your audience who eventually become friends. However placing unrealistic expectations on your friends to become devoted customers and your audience to be deeply invested in your personal life will ultimately hurt your business in the long run.
And here you might be saying "Zakkarrii, is it really unrealistic for me to expect my friends to support my business?"
And to that I say "yes". You’re getting an inaccurate view of your business if you’re only looking at how your friends are engaging with it. And when I say the business, I don't mean how much money is coming into the business. I mean this more along the lines of how effective your marketing strategy actually is or whether or not the product, the copy, the website is doing what it needs to be doing. If your friends aren't in the market for what you're selling, and you're expecting them to buy it anyway, you're essentially asking your friends to buy a memento of your resentment. And should they buy it, they might not be inclined to talk about it like a satisfied customer. You're going to have numbers in your sales report, sure, but you can't track anything or get a genuine assessment of how your business is doing, because the real problem hasn't been solved. You're still not selling to your target audience.
Photo by Kazi Mizan on Unsplash
How to Adjust Your Approach
One of the first things to look at is where you are in relation to your audience, your ideal customer. If you're only advertising on your private social media profiles, your customers (people you don't know personally) have no way to learn about your business. If your target audience mostly uses Facebook, but you're prioritizing TikTok, you're going to have to switch gears somewhere. You’re going to have to become visible to the people who need what you offer.
Once you're in the public eye you have to be able to get an accurate assessment of whether or not your approach is working. People are not obligated to buy from you just because you want them to. Are you talking to right people? Do you know how to qualify your customers? Are you giving them enough of the correct information so they understand what you're selling? When you have unrealistic expectations (or dare I say entitlement) you can't make adjustments effectively to improve because you're measuring the wrong thing.
But through all of this, you’re going to have to adjust the expectations you have your friends and your customers.
Marketing on social media is brutal, cheap but brutal. It's an incredibly competitive market overall and the learning curve is steep. I'm not going to sell you anything, I'm just going to summarize the first three steps I think a small business owner should take when they get into this arena.
Know who you are
What you're here to do
Who you serve.
Start there.