3 Ways to Find Your Customer That Wants What You’re Selling

You have a leathegood that you love making. It’s a wallet that you made that you’re super proud of. Making this wallet has given you nothing but pride and joy. And now you want to share that pride and joy with the world! I mean who wouldn’t want a piece of this pride and joy, right? Who wouldn’t be willing to pay for a piece of this pride and joy, right??

Wrong. Sadly, no. And actually, this kind of backward thinking can leave you feeling rejected and discouraged.

As you probably already know either from finding out the hard way or from reading my past blog posts…

if you don’t know who your customer is first and foremost, you’re going to have an uphill battle when it comes to selling your leathergoods.

This is not to say, that you can’t get lucky. Of course it happens. Maybe you created something on a wim that as it turns out, people love it and you sell out. This is rare. It just doesn’t happen like that.

Most of time, if we’re just creating without a customer in might, we might make leathergodos that we love and our friends and family love, but that don’t really attract and pique the interest of a specific group of people.

This is what makes it hard to sell to sell it afterwards. This backwards thinking. For a hobby, this is great thinking. But for a business, you have to get more strategic so you can avoid the uphill battle.

There is actually a much easier and more efficient way to find and attract the audience that wants what you’re selling and it starts with knowing your customer.

Here are 3 ways to take your existing leathergoods and find your customer that wants what you’re selling.

1 | Tweak your current leathergoods line and help your customer.

This is the easiest way to find your audience that wants what you’re selling. If you make a basic leather wallet for example, that could be for anyone it’s really hard to target a specific audience. Think about the small changes that you could make to it so that it would attract a specific audience.

It could be something as small as your color choices. What if you only used camouflage leather and marketed this simple basic wallet to men and women who love the outdoors.

Could you add a feature or benefit like a little strap so that it is multipurpose or a little clasp so that it can be clasped to the inside of a handbag and easy to find.

Small changes like these can take even the most general product from vague and uninteresting to something that helps a specific group of people!

2 | Up your marketing game to a specific group of people

This one might even be easier to do. If you don’t want to tweak your actual product line, just market it to a specific group of people. That same general leather wallet can be marketed so many different ways and to very different groups of people.

Do this through your branding and visual presentation on your social media, your website and in your email marketing.

You could market the same wallet to young lumberjack hipster guys, to people who like to travel, to the wedding gift industry. The key to doing this is knowing the specific customer that you’re trying to attract and creating the specific messaging to attract them.

3 | Tap into a secondary passion or niche market

What do I mean by secondary passion or niche market? I mean think of another passion of your and use it in conjunction with leatherwork to target a more specific customer. Think, leathergoods and…

Maybe you want to appeal to the eco-friendly market, the lumberjack hipster market or to the gift market. These are niche markets.

Maybe you have a wallet and handbags that are eco friendly - they’re made out of natural veg tan leather that sourced within your country and it’s a low impact to the environment. This is your marketing hook.

Or you have a basic wallet that is marketed to the plaid shirt wearing, bearded man lumberjack hipster guy that is neat and groomed yet looks like Paul Bunnon. You know who i’m talking about right?

Maybe you have a passion for cooking or gardening. Pair your current line of general leathergoods with this secondary passion of yours to get more specific.

Or you love cooking as well as leatherwork. Make a line of goods for the kitchen. Imagine the branding, product and photoshoot possibilities of combing your 2 passions into one. And bonus, doing so will actually benefit your business by helping you to get targeted with your marketing and make more sales.

Whats nice about using your own passion is that you still enjoy what you’re making instead of being on the hunt for a leathergoods that is a “good seller”. And when you love what you make, you’re going to be much better at selling it too.

Finding your customer that whats to buy what you have to sell comes down to getting specific with your marketing and creating clear messaging around what it is that you as a business are offering. How does what you’re selling help your customer?

When you get more specific with your leathergoods at the product level in the features and uniqueness as well at the branding level, the positive results can be immediate.

This allows you to continue making the same products with minor tweaks but having a massive “ah ha” moment now knowing the specific customer that you’re trying to attract. Sometimes this is all it takes, to take the “pride and joy” of a leather good that is otherwise basic and take it to another level.

If you want to learn my top 3 tips to creating a profitable leathergoods business, sign up to watch the free workshop, 5x Your Leathergoods Business, below.