Have you ever worked with someone who you THOUGHT would be a good client who turned out not to be?
Maybe she wasn’t exactly a client from hell but working with her drains you. She doesn’t appreciate your value, is incredibly demanding, and is just plain hard to work with.
In short…not a good fit.
One of the issues consultants, coaches, and other service-based experts resist is fully fleshing out their Ideal Client profile.
You’re thinking, “Hey, I need MORE clients, not less. I go more narrow.”
I resisted this too.
As counter-intuitive as it seems, it’s in fact what you do need to do.
While every business could benefit from help from someone who analyzes their sales process and helps them sell more of their offerings, I enjoy working with certain types of people and specific types of entrepreneurs get more benefit than others.
Let’s say you’re at least starting with a very basic profile – something as general as “speakers who want more bookings who don’t want to chase the opportunities themselves.”
We’ll look at questions to ask yourself so you can update and expand that profile.
1. What descriptors are missing? Think of adjectives that describe your best clients. Men, women…types of things they speak about…speak to corporate audiences or the general public…motivational or instructional types of messages…
See how choosing those adjectives starts to create a picture of a person in your mind?
That’s what you want.
It helps your brain understand who you want to attract and it makes it easier for you to explain who you serve. It makes you much easier to refer.
To expand the profile and get more detail, start with hard data – basic demographic data – like age, gender, etc. These are the types of things that you’d tell a police officer if they were looking to track the person down and recognize them on the street.
2. How does she think; what does she believe; what drives her?
These pieces are part of her psychographic profile and while you can’t observe them as clearly as whether she's got brown hair or blonde, psychographic elements show themselves in behaviors, decisions made, and other actions.
The psychographic data is actually the most important part of the profile.
Take the files (hard files or in your head) of a handful of your best clients who have been with you the longest.
And ask yourself these 5 additional questions…
1. How has her business (or life or whatever situation you deal with) changed?
2. How have her goals changed?
3. What new problems is she facing?
4. How has technology changed to allow me to serve her better?
5. What’s the one thing I could do that would thrill the pants off her? (figuratively of course :-])
If you can’t answer those questions right away don’t sweat it.
Let your brain stew on that for however long it takes. Just be sure you’re carrying a notebook or voice recorder with you because ideas will suddenly start flowing at the craziest times.
The real trick to creating a high quality Ideal Client Profile or Prime Suspect profile (which is just slightly different and more broad) is to mix hard data with a little imagination and stir gently.
For example, if she is 50 and lives in a big city and makes X amount of money and works in a specific industry I can then start making leaps about what problems, concerns, and core issues she has.
No Ideal Client Profile (ICP) is ever 100% complete because you’re always learning more about her and her business and industry segment.
Plan some time to repeat this exercise once or twice a year.
Your goal is to get a profile so clear you can picture her in your mind’s eye and when you launch an offering you’re almost guaranteed to have it be successful because you know what she wants from you and what type of support she needs.
An up-to-date profile also lets you keep in tune with the language she uses.
It helps you create messaging that resonates with her cognitively and emotionally. It shows her you understand her and can truly communicate with her.
1. How has your business has changed or how does it need to change?
As you think that through, consider if your current ideal client is truly who you want to serve as you move forward.
One of the painful parts of growing is leaving behind those clients who you love as individuals but who you no longer can serve because you’re going in different directions.
Whenever you find yourself stuck, ask what your Prime Suspect or Ideal Client would want you to do (these are two slightly different profiles). And trust that over time your profiles will get richer with more detail as you learn more about her, the way she thinks, and her decision influencers.
Your immediate action step: Pick your top three favorite clients and decide what you can do to learn more about them. One more thing…decide from today on you’re only going to talk to people who are Prime Suspects and will only work with Ideal Clients. Life’s too short for anything else.
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Sales Success Detective Winnie Anderson takes the mystery out of selling your services. She develops strategies that help clients buy faster and easier. Get her free videos at http://HelpClientsBuy.com
