42% - No Market Need! This is the top reason startups fail, for according to a comprehensive research of entrepreneurs with failed companies.

Hi Reachers,

The REACH OR MISS podcast is all about being a customer focused entrepreneur. One and a half years ago, I decided to create this   podcast after I realized that most entrepreneurs failed because they didn’t understand what I call the magic of marketing. Marketing is magic; it’s all about being able to look at the market from the eye view of the potential customers.

Entrepreneurs fail for two reasons; both of which are part of not finding the     biggest opportunity in the market:

1. They didn’t find their most potential customers, those who will be the initial and secondary audience to adopt the new product.
2. They didn’t manage to clearly define their new, unfamiliar product. Let’s face it; this is a huge challenge. Among the 120 startups and entrepreneurs we worked with over the last ten years, only in one company did the two founders define their product in the same way, with the same words. Most entrepreneurs tell a different story than their colleagues and even from day to day.

My guests in the REACH OR MISS podcast are successful entrepreneurs and opinion leaders. I ask them about how they managed to find who their most potential customers are, and how it led them to reach their successes.

The issue of choosing the customers that are most likely to adopt, use, and pay for your product is one of the most important aspects of business success.

In today’s show I’ve chosen to focus on some of the most important issue my guests talked about while answering the question about “Who are your customers, and how did you figured out that these are the best customers for you?

My first guest is Lance Scoular.

For me, Lance is one of the best examples to how entrepreneurs succeed by focusing on their most potential customers. And how, listening to them led Lance to a very successful pivot.

Lance Scoular, AKA The Savvy Navigator, has been involved in International Trade and Transport for 50 years. In 2008, Lance started receiving invitations from students in his classes to connect with them on both Facebook and LinkedIn.

Over the last nine years, he has developed and expanded his social media networks exponentially (especially LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, and beBee) and those of a select group of clients in a variety of sectors, both locally and globally.

The results have been significant.

Lance is currently in the process of doing a 180-degree business pivot, refocusing away from Social Media Consulting, back to what he does best, International Trade and Transport Training.

He will soon launch an online course, “Import Export Made Easy” in video and audio, as well as the “Import Export Made Easy” Podcast.

How Lance found his customers

• Back in 2009, I got very involved in social media. I was running an Import Export