A client came to me recently with a challenge I see quite often with consultants. She's pursuing a market she's genuinely passionate about – one that actually inspired her to start consulting in the first place. The issue? She's so invested in making it work that she might be overlooking some important signals. She's emphasizing the positive signs while minimizing the red flags, and smart people are really good at rationalizing things that don't align with what they want to believe. In this episode, I share the advice I gave her about staying objective with your target market, and why sometimes the smartest move is stepping back from what you want most to build stability first.
Show Notes:
- The common challenge of being too emotionally invested in a specific target market
- Why passion for your market can sometimes cloud your business judgment
- How to recognize when you're rationalizing away important warning signs
- The "too early" market position – when it's an advantage and when it's a problem
- Why stabilizing your business with easier wins can give you runway to pursue passion projects later
- The foundation-level risk strategy: Solving problems for revenue first, building the ideal business second
- How to expand a smaller market by identifying adjacent opportunities
- Why big markets with focused positioning usually beat small niche markets
- The framework for finding different viable problems to solve within a market you care about
- How to stay aware of your bias without abandoning markets you're excited about