When I started my business, I chased revenue. As a result, I made a big mistake. The mistake. One message for everybody.

The scarcity mindset

What I’ve learned over the last seven years of helping entrepreneurs clarify their message is this; prospects can’t feel understood if they misunderstand what you are saying.*

For prospects to feel understood, they need messaging specifically for them.

Entrepreneurs tend to cast a wide net with our messaging and marketing. We do this for one reason; we’re afraid of missing out on opportunities.

Our brain tells us if we narrow our focus, we’ll miss opportunities because there are fewer people in a smaller audience. Logical.

However, this is scarcity thinking, and it’s costing you revenue.

Worse, you’re doing your audience a disservice by not narrowing down and focusing on them with your message because when you communicate directly with your audience, they’ll know you understand them.

However, casting a wide net with your message causes it to become muddled. So much so that your audience has to guess whether or not you’re talking to them.

To avoid this mistake, here are three things you can do to break the scarcity mindset and create messaging that identifies who your products and services are for and who they are not for, so you eliminate the guesswork.

#1. Identify a specific audience(s)

Without clearly understanding who you serve, your message becomes generic, so you need to narrow the “pool of potentials” down. If you have more than one audience, which happens often, a generic message confounds your message and makes it difficult for you audience to know if you are talking about them.

You avoid this by creating different messages for different audiences. For example, if you serve two audiences, you need two separate and distinct messages.

#2. One message pointed directly at one audience

Once you’ve created unique messages for each audience segment, use them to communicate directly with each one. For example, on your website, you’ll need different pages for each audience, and in your marketing, you’ll need to call out each audience individually.

While this may feel counterintuitive, you are doing your audience a favor. Communicating directly with each audience helps them understand you are talking to them—no more guessing.

On the flip side, anyone not in your audience will know you’re not talking to them, so they can move on and not waste their time with things not relevant to them.

#3. Use the three O’s.

To get your messaging right, use the three O’s. Then, for each audience segment, identify the objectives they want, the obstacles in their way, and the outcomes you can help them achieve.

The deeper you go into each of the O’s, the better your message will become, and your audience will begin to feel understood.