Strengthening Your Roots With Focus: Wrapping Up Stage 1

This month wraps up our journey through Stage 1: establishing and strengthening the roots of your business. Focus is the key word here. Without focus on who you serve and what you offer, you don’t have a foundation to grow from.

Here’s an example from Seth Godin’s book This is Marketing. We all remember 10+ years ago when Nigerian princes were stumbling over fortunes left and right, needing our help to liberate that money if only we would share our personal and banking information with them.

Few of you were tricked by those emails, with all their glaring spelling errors and obvious mistakes. You probably thought you’d outsmarted these scammers. Maybe you even patted yourself on the back for being so savvy.

Which is exactly what they wanted.

You weren’t their target audience, and they wanted you to self-select out. You cost them too much time, energy, and trouble.

According to Godin, those emails were designed for a very specific group. The rest of us? We were filtered out. That’s clarity. That’s focus.

Back to You

At this point, you should have a clearer picture of who you serve and why they should choose you. You’ve aligned your offers around solving their problems. And you’ve developed criteria to decide who’s in, and who isn’t.

That’s the beginning of a root structure. Enough clarity, enough focus, enough of the right clients to start building a business that can grow.

The Rewards of Focus

I spoke with a consultant a few months back about his business. We walked through all the questions from this stage. I asked if there was a subgroup of his audience he really loved working with, whose problems he enjoyed solving.

There was. (There usually is.)

He realized that if he focused there, he could streamline his work significantly. Most of what they needed could be templatized. His instinct was to lower prices since it would take him less time.

My response was simple: “Why should your customers be the ones to capture the value of your efficiency?”

That pause changed the conversation. Because here’s the real reward: focus gives you power. You can choose. You can build efficiency, improve profitability, and deepen your expertise without scattering yourself.

The Customer Journey

When you focus, every step of your customer journey becomes easier:

1. Awareness – You know where your audience spends time, who they trust, and where they get their information. Finding them becomes simple.
2. Like – Because you’re consistent and visible in their world, they feel like you “get” them.
3. Trust – You speak their language, name their problems, and highlight the outcomes they want. Trust builds faster.
4. Try – They’re more willing to dip a toe in (a call, a resource, an event) because it feels designed for them.
5. Buy – The decision is easier. You’ve made it obvious you’re the right fit.
6. Repeat – Because your offer is tuned to their needs, they get results that matter. They come back.
7. Refer – They know exactly who else needs you and how to describe you clearly.

Focus creates momentum. Your roots deepen and growth becomes natural.

The Reality Check

Of course, this isn’t instantaneous. Alignment happens gradually … experiment by experiment, decision by decision. Imperfections remain. But with focus, you know what you’re aiming for. You’re no longer reacting.

Stage 1 isn’t about grand strategy. It’s about clarity and fit. It’s about having enough of the right clients, the roots you need to survive today and grow tomorrow.

What’s Next

Stage 1 of the Business Evolution Blueprint is about establishing those roots: clarity, clients, and focus.

The next stage comes when you’ve got some momentum. Stage 2 is Profit Focus. I wrote extensively about profit back in July and August, so we’re going to jump ahead.

October will be all about Stage 3: Cash Flow Confidence.
We’ll start with visibility — building clarity into what’s actually happening financially. Then we’ll move into simple forecasting so you can predict what to expect. We’ll talk about smoothing the feast-or-famine cycle. And finally, we’ll cover safety nets and how to build stability in a chaotic marketplace.

Taking Action

If this month stirred up ideas about where your business could use more focus and stronger roots, let’s talk. Reach out, reference this post, and we’ll find time to connect whether that’s a coffee or a walk.