MONADNOCK REGION, N.H. (MyKeeneNow) Most business owners and managers I talk to who want more new customers tend to take a similar approach.

They focus their marketing on telling people who may already want or need what they sell why they should buy it from them. Maybe they highlight how long they’ve been in business, that they’re locally owned, offer easy financing, have great service, or strong reviews. All of that is perfectly fine. It absolutely matters — especially to people who are already in the market to buy right now.

And if that approach is generating enough new customers for you, honestly, you can stop reading here and wait for my next article.

But I run into a lot of local businesses that need more customers than they’re currently getting. Not just a little more — meaningfully more. And that’s where this conversation changes.

Because the approach above really only speaks to one group of potential customers: the people who already know they want or need what you sell. They’re actively shopping, comparing options, and ready to make a decision. We’ll talk more in a future article about how to increase your chances of being the business they choose when that moment comes.

This article is about the other group.

The people who could become great customers for your business — but don’t yet realize they need or want what you sell. They’re not searching. They’re not shopping. They’re just living with a problem, an inconvenience, or a missed opportunity they haven’t connected the dots on yet.

That’s how you create more potential customers instead of just fighting over the same ones everyone else is chasing. To do that, you have to think differently about who you’re talking to and what you’re trying to accomplish with your message.

Here’s a real-world example most business owners will recognize right away.

Let’s say you’re trying to hire a great employee.

Most recruiting advertising is aimed at people who are already looking for a job. They’re on job boards. They’re filling out applications. They’re actively searching. That approach makes sense — and it’s fine as far as it goes.

But in a low-unemployment area like ours, that pool is pretty small. And more importantly, many of the best potential employees already have jobs.

They’re showing up every day, doing solid work for someone else. They’re not job hunting. They’re not scrolling job postings. But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t consider a better opportunity if one caught their attention and made them stop and think.

Now, this is where it’s worth pausing for a second.

This isn’t an article about recruitment advertising — although this way of thinking works extremely well for that. This is an example of how expanding the market actually works.

If all of your recruiting messages only speak to people who are already looking, you’re limiting yourself to a narrow slice of the workforce. The real opportunity is reaching people who aren’t actively searching and giving them a reason to start thinking differently.

That kind of messaging isn’t “Apply now.” It’s more like, “There are better work environments out there,” or “You don’t have to settle for a job that burns you out,” or “Here’s what working here actually feels like.”

Yes, that approach takes longer. It requires patience and consistency. And it doesn’t deliver instant results.

That’s the downside — and it’s also the upside.

Because when it works, it expands the number of people who might eventually raise their hand. And more often than not, it leads to a better level of candidate than just reacting to whoever happens to be looking that week.

The same exact thinking applies to growing your customer base.

If all of your marketing only talks to people who already know they want or need what you sell, you’re fighting over a small, obvious group. But when you start reaching people who aren’t actively searching yet — and help them see a problem, opportunity, or improvement they hadn’t connected to you before — you expand the pool of people who may become customers in the future.

As you’re reading this, it’s worth stepping back and applying this same line of thinking to your own business.

Who are the people in your community who could benefit from what you do — but haven’t connected the dots yet? What problem are they living with, tolerating, or working around that your business already knows how to solve? And what would you actually have to say to get them to start thinking differently about the problem they’re living with?

If you want to kick that around and talk through how this might apply to your business, I’m always happy to have that conversation. No obligation. No sales pitch. No secret handshake. Just a real discussion about where your opportunity to grow might actually be.

Getting more people to want what you sell opens the door to more new customers and helps build the future of your business.

In the next article, we’ll shift gears and talk about what happens once that interest is created — why being easy to find when people start searching matters more than most businesses realize, and how a lot of growth gets quietly lost in that gap.

You can reach me directly at:
rcable@monadnockmediagroup.com