Choosing up

A teacher in Abu Dhabi gives Arabic lessons to children whose families moved to the country from abroad. Her friends keep telling her to narrow things down. Pick a niche, they say, as if focus were a kind of retreat, a smaller shop on a quieter street.

I think the direction is the other way round.

When she chooses the smallest viable audience, in Seth Godin's phrase, she is not shrinking. Perhaps it is children between six and ten whose parents want them to read the street signs and talk to the neighbours, not pass an exam. Choosing them is a climb. She has to get better, because she can no longer hide in general competence. She has made a promise to particular people. And the chance that her work changes something for them goes up.

Choosing well means asking hard questions about that group. What do these families share? What worries them at the school gate? What would they genuinely miss if her lessons stopped next term?

It also puts her on the hook. If those parents are not happy, there is no wider market to blame and no vague audience to drift towards. The lessons have to improve.

And it makes saying no easier, and kinder. The parent who wants intensive grammar for an exam in May is not a lost sale. She can point them, warmly, to the tutor who does exactly that, and mean it.

Her friends see a smaller business. What she has chosen is a better one, built for people she can actually serve.