Lessons

Lesson Info

Creating Detailed Customer Profiles

We're going to move from broad demographics too specific profiles because what I've found is that those really broad demographics they don't help us in decision making so I mentioned that the reason that we're doing this the reason that we're identifying her ideal customer is because we want to be able to make smarter decisions what story should I be targeting what parts of the country what trade show should I be doing and when you pick these like big overarching demographics you lose all of that information and that happens when we tried to create customer profiles that identify everyone who has ever bought our product ever in history of the world right because if you do that then you're you start to get a little bit of everybody right? So what you could do is you can kind of think of this as a bull's eye so the the outside of the bull's eye is everyone who's ever bought your product anywhere any time in the world but what we're really interested in is drilling down into the center of...

the bull's eye for the people who are most likely to buy our product and what we're going to do is we're going to create these really distinctive profiles because it's going to give us mental pictures so when I'm trying to make a decision I'm not thinking like does it fit my whole profile? I'm thinking does it apply to one of my targets so if we're looking at the big picture of my bull's eye for my customer it's gonna look something like women from twenty two, seventy who live in major urban or maybe suburban areas, they're probably mostly on the east or west coast they might be in chicago gets a lot of a lot of territory to cover so instead what I've done is I've created a couple of really distinct profiles that kind of highlight the major buyers for my products s a profile number one is susan so susan is forty four years old she's an interior designer, she lives in a boston suburb she's got dark hair she tends to wear like a lot of blacks and grays she might layer upper jewellery a little bit, you know, she's definitely like designing she's, not fashionista, but she's certainly cares about style. Uh, the next profile that I bought for my jewelry is bernice bernice is what I like to call hip grandma, right? So she's like sixty three it's got the like, fun kind of gray bob she got this great red glasses, they're awesome fantastic for the record. I know these are not real people I want to emphasize this unknown thes they're not really people these air the profiles that I have created yes, oh bernice lives in the bay area but she loves to travel she's she loves art museums she's always hitting cities maybe her grandkids live somewhere else but she kind of uses that as an excuse that excuse to travel like she likes the grandkids but really she likes she wants to hit up like the museum and the great restaurant and, you know, go see a show she's all about the kind of urban travel annie is a thirty two year old professional she lives in d c so she is maybe not so like washington d c that she has to wear the really boring suits she got a little more of an interesting john there she lives in adams morgan so she's got some, you know, it's like young hip professional with money she's gonna buy but she's also she doesn't have much money in some of my other profiles. So she's also asking her family to buy for her for certain birthdays and then profile for tara this is not exactly like terror gentilly she would want you to know that because she's not thirty seven but it is loosely based on her. So no, this is an online entrepreneur kind of ah thought leader someone who's going out and she says speaking and she's got to be in public and when she's at home she wants to be in like her sweats or her yoga pants working on her computer probably an introvert but then when she goes out and has to a speaking engagement or teach a class she wants to feel really fabulous so those are my four customer profiles so my last profile is probably the only one that's mostly an online audience but my first three those air who are shopping at stores and they're shopping at three different types of stores so I can use all of this information as I'm moving forward to help me make a decision I can think okay with susan do this would you know where's bernie's shopping whisper needs his next trip like maybe you gotta get in that museum store before bernice gets there right we got it we got to do that so I'm thinking about these people and this is again the case where you want to make these profiles and then you're going to clarify them over time so you know with my susan profile when I was doing a trade show I can spot susan down the aisle there's susan ninety nine percent of the time she's gonna stop in my booth and look at my product that is like my people all the time I can see it um bernie's I actually that I didn't come up with her name I was talking to someone else who was a woodworker he was like oh my customers bernice because she's funky red glasses he's like no on that are a friend of ours was like no, no, she really does so you can actually talk to people because you might have overlapping customer profiles as well. All right, so now that you kind of see how this works, remember this is fun imagination we're going to start to work on it with you guys so you can pull this out in your workbook. I think we actually have three pages starting on page sixteen where you can start to fill in the blanks so ultimately what? You should aim for our three to five distinct customer profiles, but for our purposes right now we're just gonna deal with one and then later you can come back into your workbook and feel out a couple more. So what I want you to do right now is a mental picture of this person one person start to think about her or him if it's him start to get that picture in your mind and we're gonna run through these questions and just jot down the first thing that you think of so are they male or female? How old are they? Where do they live? What do they look like? Might be hard to jot down but at least picture them in your mind what do they look like? Are they in a relationship? Do they have kids or grandkids or nieces and nephews? If you're anna um what is their education level? Some of this is a little less critical but it just helps us to kind of fill in the blanks is we're creating this person so how much money do they make and what do they like to spend their money on you know, we talked about what other brands are they buying what other interests in their hobbies what do they do for fun? All right, this is a big one that I definitely want you to answer where did they go on vacation? I'll remember for us because we're targeting physical stores and actual locations geography is really important and sometimes people who are cautious selectors at home might be impulsive when they're on vacation so we want to know where they live but we also want to know where they go when they travel if they travel maybe they don't even have a busy mom and they never travel maybe this just doesn't happen for them um but you know, maybe in anna's case they're the aunty who because she doesn't have kids she gets the traveling out fun and then she wants to bring her niece or nephew something back from the vacation you know? What are they reading or watching or listening? Teo so what are they reading or watching or listening to um you know, what's their style if you could think about what are they wearing right now and it's what they're wearing right now, if they're sitting at home different than what they're wearing at work or what they're wearing when they go out, or do they have special needs to dress up again? Not all of this is applicable to every one of your customers, but even you know, if shayla can picture what her customers wearing when they're drinking that cup of coffee and where they bought the mug from or what the mug looks like starting to think about that, and then do they have a lot of friends? How social are they? Are they a solo shopper or a social shopper? Because that makes a difference to, um, you know, do they prefer to stay home or go out? And not all of these are gonna be totally critical for every one of you, you know, some of our anymore important depending on the category that you're in, but ultimately what we really want to dio is create these clear pictures of who are ideal customers are so we can make those decisions. All right, so what we're going to do now is we're going to do some hot seats, so we're going to help you guys really refine these customers, so who wants to start? How about we start with tiffany, all right, ready, pointed directly at your smile. Actually when I grab if you have a little more product just so that we can say what I think it helps really complete that story sure, I know I know you're wearing your product already, which is awesome er but more that way we can start to imagine like mom who's buying this and where they're wearing it this is how I carry my product I throw it all in a box and go I don't like the bag so just a couple people I think we'll get act in the sense those great we can see those fabulous hoops that we've been talking about actually that's not what I brought up shaping a pair of the way get the idea so you're making these air dearly great hearings and you got your change uncle says you got a lot of stuff going on all right, so tell us about one of your customer profiles who who is m assuming she's a she it is a shady um she's a female and she's thirty eight so, um she lives in downtown wasn't mays go? We didn't name her name's really help in this game maybe by the end will come up with their name. All right, we'll work on the name keep going okay, uh, listen, downtown san francisco actually, california is a big market for me, so um and she's fit she's professional so she's a lawyer so on her downtime she's super busy she gets up in the morning goes for a run you know comes home gets ready and is just running all day long meeting with clients probably has to go out in the evening you know go grab dinner with friends that's sort of her outlet so she wants her jewelry you know to be classic and to be easy with everything that she has to put on she's just changing at the office or something like that is she single married and she's dating she's dating? Okay um maybe a couple guys so she might literally be going from work to drinks with clients to drinks with one of those guys and she's not gonna have time to go home in between any of that right? Okay. So that's perfect? Yeah. Um yeah and so she spends her money on dinners and travel because she likes to get away when she can and she's probably traveling a little bit for work things like that and then spa appointments because she likes to go look good but she doesn't really have the time to do all that herself fantastic. Um is she buying other is she spending other money when she's at the spot like in addition teo oh yeah she's buying products so I got up she might be inclined to pick up pair of earring absolutely you know that's an untapped market for me a year's long ugly cute these earrings look with your new hair hey, why too busy to go to the store but I just got the haircut for or a big thing that's coming up and look here in my ring right right that's good. Yeah um so what else so I think she reads sort of design magazines, fitness magazines things like that and I think she likes to kind of lounge around the house when she's not like she's she's in all all honor all off kind of think so. Yeah um awesome. So so what do you guys think this sound like a customer for tiffany's jewelry right? What's her name she even named her name's danielle danielle awesome. All right, so I think that is a perfect example of a customer profile so now moving forward you can start to think about where is daniel shopping? So we know that she's going to the spire the hair salon and she might be sending another where else is she shopping? Yeah, I think she's probably hitting smaller boutique same neighborhood she's in I don't think she has a car she uber's is she's in downtown san francisco uh she's like she stays within the neighborhood she might go to dinner but she might pop in the boutique next door really quick yeah, absolutely I'm cem yeah probably where she gets most of her clothing and things like that yeah perfect right? Because she's she's like she's professional but she doesn't necessarily want to be like stuffy suit it was actually like she's got a little style yes awesome maybe the sexy sexy secretary seo she's still young she's fun she wants to do all that so awesome well perfect that is excellent hank tio thank you love it do you want to go yeah I think that's perfectly all right and grab that grab that clutch that I saw you showing off I'm making some of the questions that aaron the workbook if you can't answer them does that really matter? You're trying to build a whole profile but if this thing that you're sort of in a way estimating if you like that still okay right and there are some things that might not necessarily matter for your customer so if you totally can't answer them it's okay you're not gonna hit all of them on dh it's also one of those where you're gonna fill in some pieces now and you might fill in some other ones down the road so you start to have these conversations like I said with bernice I don't know she didn't have a name she was just this hip grandma that I always pictured and then I was talking to someone else about my ideal customer and it was his ideal customer too so so you start to kind of fill in those pieces, and actually I have to say that I felt there was one day where I got an online order from someone named bernice. I felt she was in d c and not the bay area, but I was, like, still pretty close. So you do. You start to confirm some of those details over time for sure funny, but I feel compelled to change my person's name because I named her daniel, so maybe we'll go with rose. That was the other one that I was we'll know what it is if she's of that age it's recruit fairly popular so she might not be the same person but it's, not a nun. You're just not in our kind of a name. It's really? No. Yes. Alright. So let's, pull your product up while we're talking. So we've got yeah. So tell us, since you're up here, just give us a really quick rundown way. Know what? Danielle slash roses? Yeah. Daniel rosa s so this is our clutch comes in a bunch of different patterns, but the weight functions is you open it from the bottom. I'll be done with one hand, you could have a hand on baby at all times, and then it unfolds. Table extended nearly baby down over here it's nice and patted diapers right here so you literally can have a hand on baby at all times grabbing what you need wipes right here but the feature that I love most about it well, easy to use um is that when it's closed and in your purse the baby wipes air always accessible because the reality is kids air it's naughty sticky discussing little creatures on dh I'm constantly I'm not joking I like literally I'm like I hear my daughter sneeze and it's like something is dripping really aunt I can always grab a quick wipe and give it to her like I'm not fumbling around with anything I don't have to go into compartments or whatever so let's talk about how this applies to danielle rose so so she's the mom right? This is a case where the mom is the buyer yep, exactly she's a mom? Yep. So she's thirty two she lives in orange county she has long hair hey then married. So obviously she has a baby but does she have other kids? Is it is this her first kid or is she like already got one or two trouble trying to juggle? She probably already has a kid so like she needs to be like, really effective and efficient when she's out and doing her stuff so that she can like tackle a diaper before the other kid like is running off into the crowd she probably is like a stay at home all war has like a super successful job she's probably wearing like lulu lemon she does yoga or she runs so so one of the things that I would say to you is that this is a case we're gonna divide out profiles ok? One of your profiles maybe it's daniel rose maybe it's different is going to be the stay at home mom okay, but then another one is going to be the working mom because they're gonna have slightly different if not needs they're going to have a slightly different motivation sure and kind of how they want to present themselves to the world. So for daniel rose she stayed home mom or she came home all right? You're always there state home, okay? So she when the kids were in day care she has hurts nanny at home she's going to yoga or going on a job? Um she likes to go to fund vacations like hawaii and get pampered she's taking the kids on those vacations or she leave that's a fifty fifty shot really goes on a few with her husband maybe one or two with a girlfriend um she's trendy she's polish she's very brand focused she really cares about like the social scene she wants to go to all the new hot spots okay with her husband totally like subscribes to having a baby sitter come to the house so when she's out she wants to like feel really put together and like on top of her game with fantastic all right, so one of the things I see from that weren't talk about where she shopping in a minute is so if she is very brand focused I want to see the brand mark on here because she is going to want to see a brand mark on here so think about you know, that person who's buying lulu lemon so part of it when you buy lululemon is that little lulu lemon logo is everywhere, so we have it on this do you think it needs to be somewhere bigger? I think it needs I think that the actual the brand mark I'll kind of show it here needs to be what feels more prominent as opposed to the names so like if you notice on a lot of things that are branded it's not the name it's literally just a logo so the logo starts to become a mark now this absolutely takes some time it's not like tomorrow everyone's going that's the sweet cheeks logo like but if it's got the logo just a smidge more prominent and she pulls it out of her bag and then another mom pulls it out of her bag it's like yeah, we're in the same club, right, right, we're got it we're together um so that might be something to kind of think about and play with s so where else is she shopping? Um she's going to like neiman's okay, um she also goes teo you know nordstrom she goes to target for her toiletries and like, not wall mark um she's shopping at whole foods fantastic. So I think that's a really good clear profile on then for you what you guys are gonna do is you're certainly gonna have another profile that's like that busy working mom on kind of thinking about what she's going to do because she's not gonna have so your stay at home mom even though she's got a lot going on, she might have what I would leisure time is putting it lightly because I'm sure that shopping with two or three kids is anything but leisurely but she's probably gonna have a little more time to go to a store versus like you're working mom who was maybe gonna like she wants to grab and go and she shopping for her is less of a social or experiencing more of like, crap I got to go got to go get that so you can play with kind of that profile as well awesome awesome thank you sure way have any questions coming from online about that really reacting really identifying I think in some situations where I know you didn't bring the product but would you liketo talk about your customers thie over user right so tell me about your customer what's her name heather heather she is a female she's about twenty eight and lives in the marina district of san francisco um she is not in a relationship I struggled with that one decided she wasn't no kids uh college educated she manages ah programmers team at a tech company she makes a good amount of money. This is one of her first job out of college likes the shop it lucky jeans type of stores down chestnut lululemon um really likes going out with friends aah into running working out um does vacation just got a lot of extra money she's got a good job so like europe, italy, spain type of places so places travel that is like a little more feels about like, say, a culture than relax ation you say okay, totally, um likes to watch from gums. Okay? I have like her guilty pleasure a little. I like the way you said it it's like my like this but I might not totally admitted to my friend well, I'm waiting for uber um she is dressing at work like stressed out at home and yeah loves hanging with friends so this person when she's buying your product is she buying it as like an indulgence or a stock up kind of product to me? No, I have notes on that's okay? Because you wrote made this so clear earlier and I really feel like she was the first one um kind of collector profiles a collector okay, um because it's kind of a fun brand and sashes kind of identifying herself with that still young fund kind of thing. Um I think you're right on that too, and that I also think that she is the collector tends to be someone who's a little bit more of what you would call it the connoisseur of the expert so she is someone who is aware that she doesn't want that junk in the product that she's putting on her body so she's probably done a little bit of research a little bit of reading not so hard core she's not like the selector where she has to really sit down and like research everything and read consumer reports or whatever, but she does she's aware of the issues s so that's something that she's certainly thinking about so I think yeah, that collector profile kind of hits so she's not someone who so like once she kind of hits on the product then she's going to be a regular fire totally so if she's buying this is something where I'm assuming that she's an overused doesn't have a car so there's something that she's gonna want to stock up on her local neighbourhood like she wants it to be close to where she was going to get your product yeah, so I think there's a lot of kind of, uh boutique stores along chestnut and um so she'll walk from her cute apartment some tea chest night and catch a movie and and go to you know, um gap or something and then also into this other store where she's going to spend probably little bit more on some of the clothes there then she would somewhere else but it's something that's going to keep for long term and then also see this open say, hey, that sounds like me yeah, fantastic and that's something I think is important to think about when you're when you've got these customer profiles that are maybe the collector even the accumulator but I think particularly for you and for shayla, where you've got these things that people eventually, then it becomes like their brand and they use it over and over again is, you know, how do you get them into it in the first place? So, uh, something I think both of you're gonna have to think about when you're thinking about selling two stores is your selling product, but you're also going to have to give stores a product they can use us floor samples things that people can try experiment with so you know you would love it if like one of your stores you know, if shell I did like a coffee tasting at one of her stores where people could actually come in and try it and so in your case, you're certainly going to want to have product that historic unde have unwrapped that people can kind of smell and try it and see more about because you have to crack that initial code of once they're in they're in and they're gonna love it but how do we get them in in the first place and a big part of our product to you is that it's it's really gorgeous? So it's it just looks amazing and so you're looking at it you're like, can I eat that way? We've had so many folks come up to us a farmer's markets like, oh, what is this looks delicious e o I don't I don't need it, so having an open and being able to touch it and smell it is such a huge part of of what we do, so I suddenly have something out for them great, so you'll definitely want to think about that and how that works with your customer so fantastic so do you feel better about those prices that are going teo now from looking uh during one of our break says to the prices of other people's um really high end stuff and then kind of where we sit I feel really comfortable about that the higher price point yeah good job great I love it we're going to get there so everyone on I think that's really part of this game thanks warren is that once you start to see you know who these ideal customers are then it's not hard to imagine but they're going to spend that money on those prices that originally you thought felt really really scary so uh we have going on in the chat rooms and anyone in there have have some profiles that they're sharing not showing postcards but they asking questions let's dive in question well I love this name but I'm sure she's actually delightful but her name is jessie is so rude jesse says what if I've identified a profile of someone who doesn't have a higher salary even if I know people like that who spend manual similar products? Is that a problem? Yeah so that's a fantastic question jesse who's hopefully not that rude doesn't seem like you are in the in the chat room s o high salary is not an indicator of whether or not someone is going to buy your product so what happens is it's actually not about you know can they afford it because pretty much anyone we're dealing with can afford ah, lot of what we're talking about in our products if they prioritize it, so what we're looking at is, does that person prioritize spending money? So, you know, in the case of lauren, you know, it's not just she make a million dollars and has unlimited income it's she cares about what she's using on her body and she's gonna prioritize that enough that she's going to spend a little more money on that or she's going to spend a little more money just because it really looks good enough to eat on, so she's got to take that home and not eat it, but you know, the same thing with shayla, so it might be someone who prioritizes, you know, they might not have a ton of money, but they're going to prioritize that first morning cup of coffee because it's super important to them or they have had those kind of things where maybe they're they've had some health issues or they realized, you know, they've got to do things like cut out the sugar or whatever, and so they're prioritizing spending money on their food, they might not be even what you would consider rich, but they know that what goes in your body is really important, I think we can look at the same thing, you know, like with lindsey, your customer, maybe isn't buying always the most expensive clothes but then she's going to splurge on that accessory because that's what's really important to her she's like okay, well, I can go by this here and it's fine, but that I'm going to splurge on this necklace because it's gonna be awesome and it's gonna work for me so yeah, they certainly don't have to be rich or high earners or anything like that to make them an ideal customer and I would say I think even in the case of monica, you know, this first profile that you did definitely is someone who's a higher income, but even at the price point that we're talking about bringing you up tio they don't have to be like the orange county housewife they can certainly be, as I said, like my friends who she just really wanted a juicy couture diaper bag I don't think she could afford one, but she was prioritising that that was super important her she was having this baby, but she didn't want to lose her identity so she wanted that diaper bag and she made it happen is there a rule of thumb ugly baby is asking how many profiles e teo ugly baby is asking how many profiles you should try to identify? Yeah, I generally say three to five if you could only get two to start that's okay, I think on ly one narrows you too much because you know if we're looking at mine you know susan isn't shopping in the same places that bernice is shopping and it's not shopping in the same places that annie is shopping so that you only have one it starts to narrow you too much but I would say more than like four or five it starts to get really crazy and you're back to that like my customers everyone because suddenly you've got a profile is twenty and seventy and sixty and twelve and so it starts to get a little bit crazy so somewhere in the three to five that's kind of sweet spot and does it still work like ella alicia is asking if you if you are aiming at different demographics you've got the same product but the your demographics are going to be all over the shop yeah so that's that's why this kind of key profile helps you because you can still drill down and make those decisions based on individual people so if we pulled out kind of like the demographics of any of our customers again they look pretty broad but having those ideal profiles lets you say okay, I know that you know susan is going to buy in this type of place and she might be motivated by this so she's gonna have a certain demographic uncertain motivations and bernice is going to have a different kind of demographic area and different motivation so absolutely your customers can this works for you even if your demographic ranges broad because it helps you drill down and really get to know these people. Okay, can we talk about that homework? Yes let's absolutely talk about work so I wanted to give you guys a kind of a big piece of homework on for you know, our next session going forward we have talked a lot about your ideal customer, but someone posed a really good question in the chat room earlier about you know, if you're going to eat those high prices, don't you need like raving fans to do it? And you guys remember my response you are the raving fan, so in order to set us up really well for our next session and it kind of our next segment's going forward, what I want you to do is really get inside the mind of your customer by doing an exercise that I like to call be your own biggest fan. So what that means is that for the next we'll call it twenty four hours just to be safe. Whatever your product is, you are going to become the number one user of it so it's pretty straight forward if you are a jeweller you're going tio where it all much as you can all of it all it wants for necklaces repairs there now but honestly, I would say if your jeweler, like, put on one or two pieces of jewellery and more than you actually feel comfortable wearing that little help helps push you. Um lauren is going to go home, and she is going teo youse lot of her soap, you're gonna, like, take bath, enjoy it. It's gonna be really nice scrubs, best homework ever right? Shells in a person coffee? Uh, you know, you're a little trick you're you're going to find a child giant e child to put that card to get on. You might just be talking everyone else in the group who'd anod when they thought your cardigan clearly, monica, I know that you're using your product was just going to go change a lot of diapers. So those of you who are watching online, you know, if your ceramics person I want every meal, every cup of coffee, whatever it is, every glass of wine from now, um, moving forward, you're going to use your product. If you guys are making wall art or things from the home, I want you to put it everywhere so like you shouldn't be able to turn a corner. If you make paintings, you shouldn't turn a corner in your house without seeing another one of your paintings. On dh so while you guys were doing this as you are using your product is your surrounding yourself with your product what I want you to do is I want you to think about how using it makes you feel I want you to focus on the positive emotions so the idea is what do you love about your product is you're using it what is really fantastic about it and I want you to divorce the idea that you made it so in this scenario where we're becoming our own biggest fan we're gonna pretend that somebody else made our product right we didn't make it we bought it it was given to us doesn't matter you didn't make it so I want you to think about then just as you're using it as you're experiencing it what do you really really love and so in doing this one it's gonna help us get inside the mind of our ideal customer so I can think about what susan's gonna love about my necklace or what bernice is gonna love about these hearings because she's totally rocking the big earrings I think about that but then it's also going to set us up really well going forward as we learn how to talk about your work how to communicate the value better how to work with buyers and talk about your product is going to set us up so well for our next session's going forward