Franks Red Hot has been around since 1920. That’s almost 100 years—an impressive legacy for any company.

In 1964, the sauce became the “secret ingredient” in Buffalo Chicken Wings at the now famous Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York. Thus began a new craze of flavour that has thrived ever since.

Today, people like to “put that $#!t on everything“. Myself included.

And yet, not everyone like Franks Red Hot. A large number of people have never heard of it and many people downright hate it.

But that’s okay. The point isn’t for everyone to like them. The point is never to make everyone like you.

True hot sauce aficionados would say that it’s not really hot sauce. They’d tell you it’s an embarrassment to the hot sauce industry. After all, it’s only rated 450 SHU on the Scoville scale (the hottest sauce in the world is reported at 3.5 million SHU).

But Franks doesn’t care. They’re not catering to everyone. They’re catering to people like me who will put it on practically anything.

Why? Because I like it a lot, which means I’ll use it a lot, I’ll recommend it a lot, I’ll spend more money on it than most, I’ll complain the least, and so on.

Takeaway

Just because you can technically offer coworking space to anyone who needs a desk, doesn’t mean you should try to be all things to everyone.

It won’t work. It doesn’t scale. And at best, you’ll be mediocre at it.

Marketing will be more expensive and nobody will be blown away by your service.

You’ll be in the dreaded middle zone: barely profitable and struggling to get each new member.

Getting narrow and specific with your marketing is hard, but it’s also one of the most important things you can do—especially if you’re in a competitive market.