Your Natural Market

When a lot of people get into a sales role — especially in insurance and financial services — someone hands them a piece of advice that sounds smart and quietly wrecks relationships. "Make a list of everyone you know," they're told. "Family, friends, neighbors, old coworkers. That's your low-hanging fruit. Go call them." The new rep dutifully works down the phone book, pitching everyone who ever loaned them a lawnmower, and burns through a lifetime of goodwill in about ninety days.

The advice isn't entirely wrong. It's just crude, and it confuses two different things. Yes, the people you already know are the right place to begin. But not because they're fruit to be picked. They're the right place to begin because of two things you already share with them: affinity and access. That's what actually makes a group your natural market — and understanding it is the difference between starting strong and torching your Christmas-card list.

What a natural market actually is

A natural market is a group of people with whom you have a natural affinity and access, thanks to similar values, lifestyles, beliefs, or affiliations. Two words are doing the work there, so let's take them one at a time.

Affinity means you have something in common. It might be as simple as living in the same neighborhood or belonging to the same professional association. It might be a shared stage of life — being parents of young kids, or parents of grown ones. It might be a common profession, or the same alma mater. The point is that you naturally like and feel comfortable around people who share your values, concerns, and interests — and, just as importantly, they feel comfortable around you. That mutual comfort is the soil relationships grow in.

Access means you can reach that group with less friction — and step into their world with a real understanding of it. If you taught school before you became a financial advisor, you have access to other teachers. Not just because you know some, but because you know what it's like to be one. You can speak to their concerns from the inside. That understanding opens doors that a cold outsider has to pry at.

Why you start here

Ask almost any accomplished professional where to begin, and you'll hear a version of the same answer: start with who and what you know. Those people are your natural market, and you can approach them with the least resistance. What this means to you, practically, is a whole list of advantages you don't get anywhere else:

• You understand the market's needs, wants, and concerns — because you're one of them.
• You feel more comfortable, which shows up as confidence.
• You face less rejection and less frustration.
• You enter with built-in credibility and a head start on trust.
• You serve better, because you understand the need from personal experience.
• You do less cold calling and get more referrals and introductions.
• And frankly, the work is more personal, more sincere, and more fun — you make actual friends.

The caveat that keeps you from blowing it

Now, here's where I have to be direct, because this is exactly where the low-hanging-fruit crowd goes wrong. Starting with your natural market does not mean pitching every family member, friend, and former colleague in your contacts.

There's a world of difference between the two, and the people who love you can feel it instantly. It is completely appropriate — encouraged, even — to let the people in your life know what you do professionally, especially if it's a recent change. But do it the way you'd want it done to you: as someone sharing news and staying connected, not as someone working an angle at Thanksgiving dinner. Get that distinction wrong and your natural market becomes the fastest way to make prospecting harder, because you've taught the people closest to you to brace whenever you call.

How to find yours

Here's the part that surprises people: the first step to identifying your natural market isn't to look outward. It's to look inward. You're really examining two things — your own attributes, and your track record with others.

Start with your personal attributes. If you've never spent time around corporate CEOs, that group probably isn't your best starting point — your unfamiliarity will show and get in the way of rapport. So take an honest inventory. A few questions worth answering:

• What occupations have I worked well with in the past?
• In what social organizations or associations have I been successful?
• What types of people do I actually enjoy being around?
• What businesses or industries do I genuinely understand?
• Where am I already known or recognized?

Then look at your previous experience with others. Pull your records and ask: who are the top twenty clients I've most enjoyed working with? Note that this isn't your biggest buyers — it's the ones you had the best rapport with. For that group, gather the demographics: age, income, occupation, family status, interests, affiliations, and the real emotional reason they bought. Then look for the trends — the common age range, income range, occupations, and interests — while setting the oddball exceptions aside.

And don't skip your misses. The people you've historically struggled to connect with tell you as much as your successes do. Failure isn't a dirty word if you learn from it; it's just data. Where the two lists overlap — the attributes you bring and the people you serve best — that's your natural market. That's your starting point on the path of least resistance.

How Prospect & Flourish approaches this

In the program, this is Module I, Unit 2 — and it comes with a downloadable Natural Market Worksheet that walks you through both inventories (your attributes and your best clients) and helps you spot where they intersect. It's deliberately placed early, right after the work of getting sold on your own value, because a natural market is where that conviction gets its first real audience. From here, the curriculum sharpens the focus further — narrowing a natural market into a defined niche, and then into a customer persona specific enough to actually write to. But it all starts with looking honestly at the ground you already stand on.

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