Entrepreneurship has fundamentally changed.
It’s entirely different today than it was even a decade ago – thanks to the internet (and now AI), the fall of traditional credentials (degrees), and the rise of personal brands and individualized education.
Not only has how you become successful as an entrepreneur changed, but so has what it means to be successful as one.
We’re entering a new golden age, where success in entrepreneurship can no longer be defined solely by the traditional metrics – profit, scale, opportunity, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, these manifestations of success are still just as important as they ever were – without them, you don’t have a successful business and thus are not a successful entrepreneur.
But they are not the end-all be-all they once were, and they aren’t the only metrics of success that matter.
In the neo-renaissance, entrepreneurship is an alchemy.
It’s evolved beyond simply being a vehicle for generating cash flow. It’s a means of self-actualization, self-reflection, and self-development.
It’s a means of translating interest, passion, and purpose into something tangible that provides genuine value to the world and positively impacts the lives of others.
It’s a means of uncovering who you are and who you’re meant to be, of bringing your highest good and greatest benefit alive within the world.
This is a big idea, and one I intend to explore at length and in depth in an upcoming newsletter – but today, I want to focus on one particular aspect of this:
Customers and clients – the people you’re doing it for.
If you’re reading this, you’re likely a content creator with a service-based business (or with aspirations of building one).
And as such, the success of your business (like any business) is dependent on people.
You can have the greatest service in the world, but without anyone to serve, it doesn’t matter.
Profit is the essential component to a successful business, but people are its quintessential progenitor.
So in today’s post, I want to discuss people – specifically, how to think about demographics and (customer avatars) in this new age of entrepreneurship, so that you don’t only connect with the people who most benefit from your service – but so you connect with the customers and clients that contribute to your greater sense of purpose and fulfillment within your entrepreneurial journey.
The old demographics (and why they no longer work)
Before the internet, business was different.
The barriers to entry were much greater, and the types of businesses that could exist and be successful were much more limited.
Old demographics were predicated on physical aspects because business was done exclusively in the physical world.
Because of this, entrepreneurs would focus primarily on things like:
- age
- sex/gender
- race/ethnicity
- location
- income
But this has changed, because physical confinement no longer exists.
Business is no longer conducted exclusively, even primarily, in the physical.
It’s conducted online and over the internet, which is an ephemeral, ethereal place.
And because the nature of business and where it’s conducted has changed, the demographics need to change to match.
This is especially true when you run a content-based, education-based, and/or knowledge-based business.
Very little of what you do as an entrepreneur is physical; all of the value is provided in the form of information.
If you’re this type of entrepreneur, you need to focus more on internal demographics and aspects when defining customer avatars. Physical attributes like the ones presented above still matter, but they matter much less than they once did.
You have to expand your prospect identification process to match this shift.
You live in an age that doesn’t play by the rules of the physical world.
It plays by the rules of the non-physical, of ideas and imagination.
The new demographics (and how to define them)
The new demographics, and what you should take into deeper consideration when it comes to who you’re providing value to and why, are as follows:
- curiosities
- skill acquisition
- passions
- values
- beliefs
This is where you want to put your focus when defining your customer avatars, because these are the aspects that matter most for entrepreneurs building in the era of the internet and the age of the neo-renaissance.
The internet is borderless, accessible to nearly everyone from all walks of life, and the variety of people you can reach and who will resonate with what you create is virtually limitless.
And so, when defining who you are creating and building for, the most important questions to ask yourself and answer are all relative to the above qualities:
- What are your ideal prospects curious about and interested in? What knowledge and information are they seeking to better understand themselves and the world?
- What skills are they seeking to learn, and how can you help them close the gap? What abilities have you developed that will help someone one step behind you take one more step forward in their journey?
- What passions do they have? What gets them fired up in the morning and keeps them dedicated to their journey?
- What values do they have? What’s important for them to embody and present within the world?
- What beliefs do they hold? What brings them a sense of purpose, and what do they hold to be true about themselves and the world?
These aspects of your ideal prospect or customer transcend the physical; they go beyond traditional demographics because they apply to people from all backgrounds and walks of life.
When you understand the internal aspects of whom you’re working to serve, serving them becomes much easier.
You identify who they are and/or want to be on a mental, emotional, and spiritual level, and then create and build in alignment with those attributes.
As a digital entrepreneur, you need to think about your followers, prospects, customers/clients in a way that aligns with the digital landscape.
Take the physical into consideration, but don’t prioritize it as the central focus when it comes to clarifying who your ideal audience and customer base is.
Focus more on the internal, the higher abstract aspects of a person, because that is the nature of an individual that lives online.
Approach the above questions thoughtfully and intentionally, and you’ll find much greater clarity around the content you create and the offers you build.
You’ll have an intimate understanding of who you’re creating and building for, which will make it easier for you to connect with the customers and clients who will contribute to your greater sense of purpose and fulfillment within your entrepreneurial journey.
And in turn, you’ll be able to do the same for them.
Much love and, as always, thank you for reading.
– JCS
