Judge a book cover
Break the rules a little
We were told not to judge a book by its cover, right?
But that’s my day job.
And it should be yours too.
You’re a book cover to Amazon.
You’re a book cover to TikTok.
You’re a book cover to Starbucks.
Sorry to spill the beans.
It’s a reality no one tells you about.
What the heck do I mean by this?
Let’s double click into an example.
A few jobs back my team was responsible for taking a million+ users and bucketing them into categories.
We knew users who did the following were 5x more likely to make a purchase:
Created an account using a Gmail email address
Downloaded the app on an iPhone
Allowed notifications
We also knew users who did the following were 5x less likely to make a purchase
Created an account with Yahoo email address
Visited the mobile website (not the iPhone app)
In the tech world, they call this “customer segmentation”.
That’s too fancy of a term for me.
I like to call these “book covers”.
Knowing your customers, their attributes, and predicting their behavior is key to your success.
Choosing which customer segments to focus on and not focus on is mission critical.
Focusing on the wrong customers will hurt your business.
Or, at a minimum, waste your time.
Here is an example from my cleaning business.
Which one do you think I am focused on?
Book Cover #1
Customer finds me by searching on Google
Customer visits my website on their mobile phone
Customer books a monthly clean online by entering a credit card without calling me
Customer responds to my text message with a text message (not a call)
Book Cover #2
Customer calls the business number and asks 5+ questions
Customer schedules a one-time clean
Customer asks for a discount
Customer wants to pay by check or cash
Customer responds to text by calling us
Both of these “Book Covers” are perfectly fine groups of customers.
Neither one is good or bad.
But they are very different types of customers and will change how you operate your business.
And which one I choose to focus on will dramatically impact my business strategy.
I am 1000% focused on Book Cover #1.
Book Cover #1 saves me 253 hours of my time! (I talk about that here).
I’m a small business who should be trying to get any and every customer, right?
I politely disagree.
Focus is key.
One of the key restraints I have is my time.
I am running this business alongside a high demanding tech career.
I have less than ~1 hour a day to focus on day to day tasks for this business.
As a result, this restraint changes the type of customer I focus on.
I need customers who save me time.
Customers who visit my website’s FAQ page over calling me
Customers who schedule and pay online over paying in cash
Customers who respond to text over calling me back
Take a hard look at the type of customer your business needs to thrive and double down.
You’ll be glad you judged a few book covers.
Breaking the rules isn’t so bad after-all.
Fun fact
Your first type of customer (i.e. Book Cover) doesn’t always remain the same as you grow.
Starbucks opened in 1971 in Seattle Washington focused on the niche market of coffee connoisseurs.
In 1994, Starbucks opened its first location (13 years later!) with a drive-thru catering to the increasing demand for convenience and speed.
Today, there are over 6,000 drive-thru locations in the US.
Focus wisely but be open to other Book Covers to judge 😉