Who Is Your Ideal Client?

I meet many business owners who are growth-minded and eager to scale up their companies. To understand where they are in their business development, I ask a basic but important question early in the conversation: 

Who are your clients? 

I am always a bit surprised when there’s a pause or hesitation in the answer. To be sure, some owners have done their research and know exactly who their clients are. But many don’t. I hear variations of, “Great question!” “It depends.” Or, my clients are a, b, c, d, e, f, g . . . (i.e., nearly everybody). 

To help the owner focus, I then follow up with, “well, who is your ideal client?” But that tends to be even more challenging to capture.

We then move on to a discussion of the services the business offers. Sometimes, apparent confusion about the target market of the business goes hand in hand with an extensive list of service offerings and products offered for sale. You can clearly see the passion, creativity, and effort the owner has put into developing their service palette and the disappointment in their eyes that the business is not growing as expected.

Now the plot is thickening. 

What are you doing to promote and sell your services? is my next question. 

By now, I already know what the likely answers will be: “Not enough.” “It’s not working.” “I don’t really know how to market my company.” And the like.

There are no surprises here. Marketing and advertising cannot work if we don’t know whom we are marketing to and how our services and products can benefit that market. 

Without total clarity of our target market, any advertising efforts are akin to throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks. For a business owner with limited resources, that is wasted money and effort.

How to get unstuck

To reverse the situation and put you in a much stronger position to scale up your company, I am suggesting a series of 7 systematic steps for you to implement:

1. Align your true passion with what your business does

I am starting with you, the Owner of your business, to make sure you are taking care of yourself first. For your long-term happiness, confidence, and success, it is important that your business does what you firmly believe in, and only what you believe in. 

2. Clearly define the benefits of your offerings

This is invaluable for messaging to your market and for internal sales conversations with prospective clients.

3. Zoom in on your market and market niche

What do you help WHOM achieve with your offerings? The more specific you can get here, the better your ultimate results will be.Who is your ideal client?

Ideally, who is that person who would be over the moon to discover your services and their benefits? Wouldn’t you want all of your clients to be like that? What are their needs? What are their goals and aspirations? What is important to them in life? What is their lifestyle? Where do they hang out physically or online? What social media groups might they be in? Are they entrepreneurs, C-level Executives, Moms of teenagers, etc.? How do they talk to each other? 

All of this information helps you not only target your ideal clients wherever they are, but also helps you customize your marketing and sales messaging specifically to your Ideal Client. 

4. Closely Align your products and services with the needs and aspirations of your Ideal Client

This should be fun for you! You are now fine tuning the service or product you are truly passionate about to the needs of your Ideal Client. 

5. Develop marketing and sales

Armed with a great product and a thorough understanding of the needs, wants, and behaviors of your Ideal Client, develop marketing and sales messaging that speaks to their heart! If you need to, get professional help to launch campaigns, which will help you get great new customers. Rinse and repeat to refine this process on an ongoing basis.

6. Get rid of distractions

More products and services usually don’t mean more growth. Ditch all the products and services you think you should sell or you think you can find a buyer for, and focus exclusively on the things you truly believe it–the products and services that serve your ideal clients.

Finally, get really good at what you do, and see your company take off!

Schedule a Free Strategy Call!