Distracted much?

How to Stay Focused on Your Wedge

Jul 23, 2024

Have you ever worn a hat to block out too much sun?

Have you ever noticed that when you take the hat off, you see things around you that the brim of the hat had been blocking? Sure, it was protecting you from too much sun, but it was also - unbeknownst to you - blocking a bunch of what’s going on around you.

Sometimes, of course, you need the hat. There’s just simply too much sun.

Other times, the hat is on, but you miss some things.

What, on earth, does this have to do with your business??

Most of the time, as a solopreneur, you are too busy ‘doing stuff’ to do market research. That makes total sense because there’s a lot to do!

Hat on/Hat off

But, market research is like taking off the hat. Sometimes, you need to take a look around because you may be missing some things…and you don’t even know it! Taking the hat off is key to knowing what products to create, what problems your customers have (that you can help solve!), and even how to talk to your customers. It’s key to continued growth in your business, to pivoting when you need to, and to having a clear sense of where to take your business next.

But, you know, that pesky sun is still there. Hello Summer! That sun is like all the things (social media, news, email…there’s a long list) that catch your attention when you are just trying to learn something about your business niche or trying to better define your wedge. Amiright? Where’s my hat?

When I do market research for clients, it’s incredibly easy for me to get side-tracked. Incredibly. So, out of necessity, I created some instructions for myself to follow to help me stay focused on the industry, topic, business - whatever it is I am actually looking for.

I need a system, a process, to help me stay on track and more quickly answer my questions. At a high level, here it is:

Understand where you are now.
Understand what’s going on in the broader marketplace.
Figure out where there’s open space.
Re-define, with greater clarity, where you want to go.

When doing research for your business, the goal is to take your hat off with intention. The goal is to see what you might be missing. But, there is frequently a point in the process where it’s easy to get off-track and it’s time to get back to focusing on answering the questions at hand. These steps help.

If I feel like I’m off-track, I can check in to see which step I’m working on (or supposed to be working on) and re-adjust my hat so that I’m learning what I need to learn in order to keep moving forward.

Here’s to keeping your hat balanced!