Xiao Liu is 25 years old and has just graduated from college. He has read many biographies and success stories of many entrepreneurs, and he has decided to be one of them.

After graduating, he borrowed money from his parents, found a variety of products, and began to advertise and sell online. He sells products such as cameras, sports equipment, shoes and kitchen utensils. At the beginning, everything went well and he made some money. So, he invited a group of workers to deal with customer service; he focused on acquiring more new products and even went as far as to contact with the suppliers directly. Unconsciously, he has more and more product in his online store. The strange thing is that despite that there are more types of products, sales are falling, and sometimes there are no orders for one day.

As the business began to run into deficits, in less than three months, Xiao Liu was forced to close down and give up everything that he has personally built.

In the past 10 years, as the online world has become a major trend, more and more entrepreneurial stories have sprung up, affecting this generation of entrepreneurs, especially the millennial generation.

It is a pity that many entrepreneurs have dreams and ideas, but in the end they are not realistic. Soon, they will wake up to harsh reality and be defeated by the cruel world of entrepreneurship.

In actual fact, Xiao Liu does not need to close down his business. Instead, as long as he does this one thing, his business will definitely make a comeback!

The key is to focus!

When we were young I am sure all of us did this experiment at school. We take a piece of paper and put it under the sun, but it will only turn hot and yellow. But if we put a magnifying glass to refract the light, the sun’s rays will focus all the heat at one point of the paper and start a fire.

Similarly, people who do business must learn to ‘focus’. Put all your attention at one point and ignite sales with a laser-sharp focus.

Here are some of the things you need to do to ‘focus’:

1. Product focus

We look back at Xiao Liu’s story. One of the major failures of his business is that he is not focusing on the products that he is trying to sell. He tries to sell everything but sold nothing at the end. Therefore, he should re-examine his product range. Pick the most profitable products and divide them into 3 levels – hot, good, and not good. When the product is classified, the sales strategy can be planned very clearly.

In addition, the quality of the product also plays a very important sales role. Usually, the customer will buy the first order with you without knowing it. If he finds that your product is of poor quality, you don’t expect him to come back. Therefore, you should focus on customer feedback to define superior and inferior product quality. Discarding inferior products and specializing in quality products.

2. Customer focus 

What does this means? Study your customer base carefully, your product may not be suitable for everyone, but there will always be a specific group of people who will be your potential customers. Here is an example for you:

Coca-Cola meets everyone’s needs. However, its competitor Pepsi is more focused on the customer base strategy – only targeting the consumer segment of the segment. Although Pepsi is facing a market giant like Coca-Cola, it is still able to open up its own market segmentation. Pepsi created the “Pepsi Challenge” which created a new formula for their drinks and there are a segment of people in the market who prefers the less carbonated, more citrus flavour of Pepsi. It is actually not easy, but they did it!

If you don’t focus on the customer base, you can’t cater to the different requirements of each customer. If you do too much for a certain age group or ethnic group, the other person will be left out, complaining to you, and then head to the door of your competitors. Instead of selling it to everyone, think about it: Who is the group that brings you the most revenue? What do they like? Which sales methods do they accept? These are the homework you have to do.

3. Talent focus

Next, let’s talk about talent focus. ‘people’ is the biggest asset of a company; if it is not properly managed, talent will be lost. High turnover rate for a company is unhealthy.

We know that time is most expensive. Where time is spent the most, chances are we will find success there. However, ‘people’ is the biggest asset, so the leaders should spend most of their time on ‘people’ rather than spending time doing things.

In the past, Liu Bei went to Zhuge Liang’s hut to visit him in order to recruit Zhuge Liang as his own military adviser. After two visits, he was not successful. In the third visit, Zhuge Liang was finally moved by Liu Bei’s sincerity. Therefore, he complied with Liu Bei’s request.

When managing talent, we need to focus on their strategy, performance and competence. Different levels of talents should be deployed in different positions. For example, new employees, old employees and management have different customer groups to be responsible. New employees are only responsible for ordinary customers, old employees are responsible for high-spending customer groups, and management is only responsible for the highest 1% customer base.

In an interview, Andrew Carnegie was asked: If you want to summarize your success in one sentence, what is your biggest secret?

He said: I use my life’s hard work to do only one job.

When we are in business, it is like digging oil – we need to dig one meter wide, but 1,000 meters deep in order to get oil. Learning and self-improvement are things that you should focus on your entire life.

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