Your Techniques
You need to be clear about exactly what business you are in and everything about your business. I was amazed recently to hear a leading figure for Mcdonald’s stating that McDonald’s was in the retail business. On further thought I realized that if people stopped buying McDonald’s meals tomorrow they would still survive. Their restaurants are all placed in extremely marketable locations. 

Parker Pens had a meeting a number of years ago when they were trying to compete with cheap pens and realized they weren’t in the "pen business" at all. They understood that their main competition wasn’t Bic, but bracelets. Think about it. When did you last buy, or receive a Parker Pen? I would guess it was some kind of gift, or present. Realizing this totally transformed Parker Pen’s mindset. Instead of trying to cut costs to compete with cheap pens, they spent more and added nice boxes, ribbons, and marketing to help their products compete in the gift business. 

What business are you in? If you know what business you’re in you should know who your customers will be, shouldn’t you? Use this fun exercise with a trusted colleague to gain some interesting insights:

1) Write the name of any customers, or potential customers on Post-it® Notes. These customers can be grouped however you want: “Mr. Smith”, “students”, “men with spare money who like football”, “ex-criminals who eat chicken”, etc. List them in whatever way makes this real to you.
2) The next stage is to draw a grid as shown here, and place the Post-it® Notes in the relevant sections. This part of the exercise, in itself, often reveals some interesting insights as you discuss where certain groups of customers or potential customers sit.