Defining Your Market Without Limiting Your Growth

Big Picture Question #2 [Defining Your Market]

Trusted Teaching [Defining Your Market]

The Problem: Defining Your Market Poorly

Pulling the glossy brochure from a neatly arranged folder, I gripped it with damp, slightly shaking hands to show an important customer what color printing could look like. My words began to drip data. The number of color dots per inch, machine speeds and feeds and finishing options–poured from my mouth.

At first, I thought my job as a copier salesperson was to show up and share loads about the latest tech. I assumed that’s what people wanted. But, defining your market by product or industry can limit your company’s growth. Thus, I learned this the hard way as a rookie sales person.

Armando my sales manager taught me a better approach. He broke the ice with humor and sincerity while casually asking questions that got to what people were trying to do early on in the meeting. Because of this, the focus shifted from products to problems. Therefore, I learned early on that most customers didn’t want the latest tech–they just wanted their copiers to “apply toner to paper” reliably and affordably.

The Real Issue: Defining Your Market by The Wrong Standard

Above all, true insight comes from understanding what people are trying to do, not selling. Therefore, this approach to markets changes everything. For instance, Tony Ulwick from Strategyn defines a market as a group of people + the job they’re trying to do. By defining your market this way, you focus on solving real problems, instead of pushing products. In short, this approach is mission critical for effective innovation.

On the contrary, broad terms like “health and wellness” don’t help us understand what our customers need. Instead, defining markets by products or industries often limits innovation.

Defining your market is either an afterthought or buried beneath a buzzword of confusing terms like “industries“, and “verticals“. But, there’s a a better way—one that helps you serve people and grow your business.

Defining Your Market Effectively: People and Jobs To Be Done

A market is a group of people and the job they’re trying to accomplish. For example, some retirees want to start a business online. Or grandparents passing on Bible lessons. Those are markets. But don’t take my word for it. Innovators such as Tony Ulwick, Bob Moesta and Clayton Christiansen all see markets this way. A clear market definition aligns your business with real needs.

Taking Shape: Defining Your Market for the Future

Think of a market as a river that shapes and supports everything around it. Does a market change quickly, once it’s defined? Some say yes. They argue that markets move fast and require constant adjustments. But if you are defining your market by the core job people want done, it actually stays steady. The Jobs to Be Done approach shows that jobs change slowly across cultures and time, even if products come and go.

The Risks of Poor Market Definition

Remember the classic ’80s game Asteroids? You piloted a spaceship, dodging and blasting asteroids while avoiding attacks from flying saucers. Once your ship was set on a path, it kept moving until you applied thrust in a new direction. Each thrust sent your ship in unexpected ways–similar to how business pivots can throw your market definition off course.

Staying Focused on Defining Your Market

A clear market definition helps businesses stay focused, solving the problems people need solved. Quick pivots can break down your defined market, forcing you to chase new needs that may not fit your original goals.

Game Over? You Can Hit Reset by Defining Your Market Right from the Start

Quick pivots can drain cash and morale, leaving businesses spinning out of control. This usually happens when you don’t take time to define your market properly. But it doesn’t have to end this way. You can start by defining your market right from the beginning.

Looking back, I realized I wasted too much energy memorizing copier features. I should have focused on the people I was serving and the job they needed done. But there’s a clear path forward. Just as rivers follow steady paths, defining your market well can give your business lasting direction.

Defining Your Market to Last

Precise language helps create a lasting market definition. When you define your market as a group of people and the job they’re trying to accomplish, you create a foundation for growth. You can build solutions around real customer needs because your market definition remains strong.

Moving Story: [God Fits Us for Good]

Just as markets have specific roles, God created rivers with specific jobs. But, what purpose did God have for all of creation? Why did he prepare the earth, the skies and the seas and plant a garden full of beautiful fruit? What was his ultimate job for creation?

God’s Purpose in Creation

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:26-28

The 6th Day of Creation

A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

In the Garden

The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Genesis 2:10-22

God’s Final Act of Creation Was A Big Job

God had a bigger job in mind for his creation. We were created to discover the beauty of God’s creation with him. We were created for adventure and exploration. However, it’s easy to be frozen by fear or simply settle for the things we build upon. Instead, we can know that God fits us for good.

We’ll explore why he must:

• Position me for good

• Direct me for good

• Give me life for good

Positioned for Good

God positions us for good by putting us where he wants us to be. God put Adam in Eden in verse eight below.

And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Genesis 2:8

God expanded his desire to position from Adam to the nations.

And he made from one man every nation of man kind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place Acts 17:26

Because God desires us to know him, he puts us where he wants us. He positions us for good.

Put in A Homogenous Culture

Secondly, God Must Direct Me for Good

God knows where I should be, but he also knows what I should do and avoid. God must direct me for good. We see God directing Adam about what to do and avoid in verses 16 and 17.

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:16-17

God graciously directs us, warning us what to avoid, while encouraging us what to do. Without his words, we would be feasting on our own folly, eating whatever our feelings served up. But, God directs us for good because he knows left to ourselves we will surely chose death.

Fresh Bellies

There’s an interesting snack line directed towards health conscious parents who want their children to learn to eat healthy foods from a company called Fresh Bellies. It uses herbs and spices, instead of added sugar and salt in their snacks for kids. They are deliberately directing ingredients to help parents determine what their kids shall and shall not eat.

Fresh Bellies aids parents directing their kids towards things with savory flavors early on to help them resist the need for extra sugars and salt in their diets. In the long run, they feel that they can direct their children away from health problems that can lead to premature death.

Directed Away from Ourselves

When God directs me for good, he keeps me from creating and prioritizing my own self perceived beauty. This world says that we must take pride in ourselves, in our businesses and in the beauty of what we’ve created. While it’s true we were originally created to take dominion over this earth, even those things that we were to subdue were created by God to begin with.

Yes, we are created for adventure and exploration. Yes, we dare to dream. Just think about how many trees Adam had to look at and eat from in the garden. There were lands with opulent treasures just waiting to be discovered.

Made to Discover Beauty with Him

But, we err greatly when we forget that we were made to discover the beauty of everything God creates WITH him. Every season of life is meant to be discovered with God, rather than seeking to spread out a picnic of personal desires. Worshipping, walking and talking with God is what we were created for.

However, in my effort to create good things, I easily miss God’s good fit for me. God blessed mankind before giving them the dominion mandate, yet we can easily strive after significance. If you ever find yourself striving to “make your life count.” It’s the pride of life that has spread from Adam to all of us.

God Must Give Me Life for Good

The reason we can’t make our lives count is that we are not the giver of life. God gives us life for good.

Water Before Life

Just as God prepared the land with water before he brought man out of the dust, God gave Adam life. Divine life. We see him doing this in verses six and seven.

and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature Genesis 2:6-7

When a child is born into this world, there is oftentimes water, before life. But when God created the first man there was water and dust.

Life: Dust & Divine

What good is dust without life? A body without the hope of divine life? God must give us life for good. This life is not just physical. Although we are made of dust and return to dust, Adam received much more than a physical presence. He received the Spirit, as God breathed the breath or Spirit of life into Adam. God must give us life for good.

Our Life Giving God

God gives life and he didn’t stop with our own. He gave us animals. God gave us freedom to explore and discover with him.

In fact, God’s design for creation shows us the job he had in mind when he commanded mankind to fill the earth and subdue it. God formed a river to water the garden of Eden that flowed into 4 other rivers.

A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.

Genesis 2:10

God Opens the World to Man

Notice the river in verse 10 doesn’t just disappear but continues to flow. It divides becoming four different rivers flowing in four different directions. By doing so scholars argue that God actually opened the world to man through this creative job. The rivers extended beyond the paradise of Eden. How else could man survive out there without life giving water and the food sources it produced?

“He made the rivers flow outside paradise and so opened the doors of paradise for man.”
Nicolaas H. Gootjes

Life Giving Relationships

So God gave us a life free to explore good things. God gave man a woman. God gives us life-giving relationships. All of this good (families, freedom, friendships) in spite of ourselves. We can’t give the life God gives. God must give me life for good.

Created for Life Giving Water

Jesus said, “To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment” in Revelation 21:6
He is the only one who can say that because Jesus Christ paid for that life giving water with his own blood. Jesus was struck down in death for proclaiming himself the source of living waters to those who believe in him. He rose in victory. Ascending far above this earth we see his life:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. Revelation 22:1-3

God Fits Us for Good!

God fits us with good things in spite of ourselves, by his grace. He must position me, direct me and give me life, all for good. We don’t grow from our goodness to greater goodness. Instead, God fits us for good in so many ways. But most importantly, he offers us the water of life at the cost of his own. Therefore, I can stop striving after good things, because God has fit me for good.