If we use email marketing or other "personal" forms of marketing, we do well to remember: there are 2 markets.

There's the market that knows and trusts us.

And there's the rest of the market. I drew a picture of these two markets:

For convenience, let's call them the big and little markets.

Guess which market is easier to sell to? Guess which one will fill the seats in your new workshop the first 2 or 3 times you run it? Guess which one will easily buy your new service offering or book? (Yes, you know which one; the little one.)

Part of "scaling up" is understanding both of your markets and adapting as necessary.

Now, some mitigating ideas:

• Do we have a repeatable way for members of the big market to migrate into the little market? Great! We might be OK considering only how the little market responds to a service or product offer.
• Do people migrate from the big market to the little market and then mostly stay there long-term? Great! Our little market is getting bigger over time, and might therefore contain a growing amount of opportunity, and again we might be OK considering only how the little market responds to a service or product offer.

Overall, though, I think we do well to avoid thinking that the big market will behave exactly like the little market.

-P