Location Sensitive

I met recently with a startup entrepreneur who was building her business in the women’s hosiery or tights market. It was an interesting conversation because, as you might expect, I have very little experience in this area.

One of the intriguing things for me was the nuance of the market. At the first level was the seasonal winter-summer divide. Tights are usually worn to keep warm in winter and not required in summer. Then there are the splits within a country. For instance, in Australia Melbourne is a good market, Sydney less so and there is almost no demand in Perth.

For this entrepreneur it meant that she could focus on the Melbourne market primarily in Australia during our winter and then would need to address a foreign market like Europe or the US during their winter.

Location Independent

At the other end of the business location spectrum to this is a digital product like Book Rapper, which is location independent. Simply by having a website I can sell to anyone on the planet who reads in English. It doesn’t matter where you are because you can easily purchase the book summaries and log into our members area to access them via any web browser.

[Tweet “Is your business location dependent or independent? #locationsensitive”]

The Consultant Location

Another nuanced market is that of the consultant. On the one hand, some consultants work within a narrow local base like an architects practice. And, on the other, there are consultants who have built an international audience and work all over the globe.

This is generally a question of focus and reputation. If your focus is on a local audience then you’ll likely attract a local audience. Alternatively, you can attract a global audience if you build a reputation big enough to attract a worldwide following. This is not about having a large following, depending upon your niche and your expertise it may be a handful of deep fans. And, you can build this reputation through publishing and sharing your expertise via blogging, books and speaking. This is one of the great advantage of the new digital technologies.

How Location Sensitive Are You?

QUESTION: How location sensitive is your business?

For most businesses today the big question around location importance is one of choice: Where do you want to locate your business? Or more specifically who do you want to work for?

Once you’ve answered who you and where you want to work, then you can tailor your delivery mode and business model to making that work.