Lessons

Lesson Info

Segment 4 - Defining Your Ideal Customer

We are going to focus really on as I said this I kind of defining leads or defining who makes an ideal customer and creating this core message and dive a little bit in this segment into the hourglass approach as well. So a lot of the things that we kind of high spotted in the first segment we're going to kind of roll up our sleeves and trust me I won't show you my watch anymore it's actually if you weren't here for the first segment and this is probably like a two hundred dollar watch you know so I was really trying to pull that off to really either some of you have really lousy cars or you know I was kind of making it up but the first thing we talk about is some of the reality some of the things that have changed maybe over the last few years or some of the things we need to consider you know as to why maybe we're doing some of the things that I'm going to ask your I am asking you to actually due on the first one is that no one talks about boring business is right can you think about ...

the last time you went out and raved on facebook about that totally satisfying experience that you had right? Nobody does that, but the problem is more than ever, particularly in this inbound approach, this kind of non selling approach more than ever we need people to talk about us. We need people to share. We need people to be in enthused about what we're doing, enough to actually go out and tell their friends, neighbors and colleagues. And so we have to build that into really, or we have to at least hold that consideration in just about everything that we do in our marketing and sales. We need information but we don't just need mohr information already alluded to this idea that we're drowning in information now today and so what we have to think in terms of is is our information you know is our content relevant? Is it intentional doesn't help somebody draw some insight around a challenge or problem there have does it does it add to their ability to make a decision as opposed to hey that guy named johnson I need to block on monday so you know I guess I'll just write a blogger post right because we we don't necessarily need just mohr of that and and the good news about that too is that you know many of you men is a lot of the stress that I feel from a lot of marketers and business owners over the last few years is around this whole idea of creating content because it can be the greatest amount of work and you hear people like me saying content content content on so what I'm going to suggest is it just has to be intentional has to have a purpose on dh you have to map it out and planet you don't have to just produce more of it this is a tough one but this is certainly true for business owner for a marketer for a sales person I mean people today now if you don't deliver on your promises you know, people know right I mean and they go to the all the places where they can report that where they can write reviews where they can tell about the perfectly terrible experience they had me and think about your own I mean what is the last time you went to a restaurant or stay in the hotel that had all these bad reviews right no way we just we just don't do it we pass on them and so I think we we have to be aware of the fact that that this total end and customer experience has to be something that we're participating in every step of the way because and dealing with you know the fact that that sometimes a bad experience happens you know so how we deal with that how we rectify that you know is is as important really as keeping the experience is high as possible you know certainly this one has you know rings true for anybody that sells for a living I mean yukio the idea of cold calling or you know, banging on doors you know that people used to it's just I mean I don't have a phone in my office I mean we do everything you know digitally I mean it's very difficult we've all you know created these these ways to filter out spam and to you know, record through ah advertising and unwanted messages the things that we don't want to have in our lives and so you know we now have to this idea of an inbound approach of of us providing enough value that people want to come to us and say I think you're the right solution for me me has to be our approach rather than you know the easy part is to buy an ad or to buy mailing list or to buy an email list heaven forbid on dh and just blast that stuff out but that's not how we want to that's not how we want to find the businesses that we do business with and so it's no longer an effective approach when the last one is that really trust is always on trial you you can have an incredible experience incredible promise you khun deliver on what you said you did but you're constantly being measured on what did you do for me in this stage what did you do for me next time how did this experience go when it came time to collect the bill I mean every little element every touch point you know it is a decision point for our prospects of customers it's away they're judging you know how the experience when it's it's the way they're kind of judging the overall picture of our brand so those elements are kind of the table center you know for some of the things that I'm now going to ask you to do over the next couple segments I want to come back to and I've already revealed this but I think it's a great I probably will review probably will say this three or four times throughout the program on dh that is my definition of marketing is getting someone who has a need to know like and trust you and I think that that is the game that we were all engaged in no matter what we sell what our product is that's what we have to really focus on in terms of building an audience building a community that that thinks what we're doing is something that they like and things that what we're doing is is something that they you can trust her that they want to know more of that they want to actually be a part of that journey or that that community but then ultimately a big part of what we're talking about you know, the title of this particular course eyes that we have to turn no like and trust in to try by repeat and refer so that for those of you that we're paying attention makes up the seven stages in the marketing and sales hourglass but I also use those as really the definitions now I think of those of those terms because they can be I think they can be very confusing very misinterpreted and to me this is a nice kind of tidy way to bring you know the what the difference between marking marketing and the difference between sales but also hopefully recognize that it it's this kind of end and journey that we need to be focused on. The very first step now we're going to work on you know creating your marketing and selling system the very first step is to recognize that we have to develop a very solid strategy before we developed tactics really my first entire segment was in many ways about strategy it was about how are you going to differentiate your business how are you going to communicate your culture how are you going to build intentional build that customer how you hear that culture how are you going to build this methodology that becomes your unique point of view? Those are all really elements of strategy those air decisions that you make before you ever decide oh I think I should be on facebook or I think I should be doing email marketing right? Those air the tactical things that so often people want to jump teo I know in my work over the years and I imagine you probably experienced this too you know when somebody hired wants the higher marketing consultant they want you know I need a website I need this I need that they need the tactical things on dh really if we spend time on the what we're going to talk about the next couple segments developing this really strong strategy first I've often said over the years that in some cases if you get the strategy part right, you get that ideal customer right? You get that core message right? You get that culture right that almost any set of tactics will actually make you succeed, so instead of worrying about the idea of the week, you know that I went to some conference or I heard this or my friend said I should be doing acts that we spend more time on this developing this up front strategy the first component of that is to define an ideal customer now this is not necessarily an earth shattering concept a lot of people certainly over the years have had this idea of oh, I need to define my target market I think that I would like to suggest I take this a little deeper in this idea of ideal so when I'm suggesting is that we in most cases need to narrowly defined who makes an ideal customer so what I mean by ideal in, you know, in very broad terms, I mean, it's somebody I believe in ideal customer somebody that also sees themselves as a customer or is it part of your community as opposed to simply a transaction? Now this will be different for every one of you, but I think that if you've defined how you really are different and your methodology an ideal customers, somebody that really values that I mean, they want to go through the process that you put him through that because and and they're willing to pay a premium because they value that that difference a value that you're going to take notes or you're going toe bringing experience or you're going to hold them accountable in a way that nobody else is and that that is worth them going through what may even be extra steps in the process obviously an ideal client needs to be profitable an ideal client in many cases if I were to walk into your businesses and you said help me to find my ideal client if you had existing customers, what I would actually do is look at your most profitable customers that already refer business too because in my experience is that if we can identify the common characteristics in that group, even if that group small you are going to probably land upon you know just exactly who you should be marketing your entire business too here's an exercise that I would tell those of you out in the audience to do those of you here internally to do so this is going to be really brilliant aren't here. So there you go just do that. So if you were to take your most profitable, cussed germs and put them on a spreadsheet or you know, whatever it any way you could rank them kind of from high to low right? And then you would also take at looking at that list well, I'll tell you one of the things that has happened over the years when I've had people do that is that they immediately and some of you were knew enough that this you won't have this experience but they immediately they say why are we doing this business you know we shouldn't be working with this kind of client this problem didn't this customer didn't actually have the type of of problem we could solve we took him when we're just getting started and we don't really do that kind of work anymore so you want to realize that there are there in many cases segments of your market segments of your existing client base that you're probably not that well suited to serve anymore or that you just flat don't want to serve right I mean a lot of times when people are getting started in business they charge one hundred dollars for a service you know because they just wanted any client well now they're charging a thousand dollars do you want that person that that you know came for the hundred dollars service to be referring business to you maybe maybe not but you have to I'm not saying that you necessarily chuck those people or you fire them you know but you you will start to understand you know a cz important understand who you do want is to understand who you don't want a zoo client as well right so we we rank those ones that are profitable and then we also go and look at the ones that refer and it's this group you know that end up kind of in this wait for it wait for upper quadrant that we want to we want to know everything we can about those what are all the common characteristics of those folks and I'm going to go over all of the elements that you might consider onda simple is this drawing is you know what? What happens is so people who would end up down here are people that that are maybe they refer business to you but they're not profitable they're not the right fit in some cases they might not really be able to refer the right people to you but your people that are ideal customers that are profitable that already referred there's a really good chance though that they also know people that would that they should be referring to you right so these mean anybody who refers business is great but typically speaking you know that profitable that ideal customer is really who you want to go after anything down here you know not profitable and doesn't refer is probably somebody you ticked off right there you know it wasn't there you really aren't suited to serve them on so you shouldn't even be trying to serve them in fact you should be doing everything you can to you know to not attract those folks or to say no or to refer them to someone else. So what are the common characteristics of your most profitable customers that already refer business to their friends, neighbors and colleagues now if you're just getting started out and you don't have that spreadsheet to draw from you don't have any referral customers to draw from obviously you have to do a little bit of guessing s o what I mean by that is is you need to actually make a determination of here's who I want to serve here's who I think we today you know are best suited to go after and in some cases it's a hypothesis but but instead of going out of the chute and that doesn't mean you don't leave a lot of flexibility for changing for growing evolving but instead of coming right out of the chute and saying, well, we just want anybody who wants to do yoga or we want anybody who wants the deejay that you really start saying no here is who we are best suited to serve and you start narrowing that as soon as possible so a couple ways you narrow that is through defining them, you know, demographics I mean in some cases certain age group gender a certain part of town that people I mean, there are a lot of things that are going to necessarily narrow you you know, if you're in a certain business, you may never you know, maybe most of your buyers are going to be women, so obviously that needs to be consideration in describing, you know, who makes an ideal client and I will tell you I'll come back to this idea but ultimately what you're trying to end up with is an incredibly succinct and specific statement that answers this question how would I spot your ideal client so if I walked up to you we met in a bar and I said it was juice bar of course and I said how would I spot your ideal client that you would actually be able to describe somebody in so much detail and you might have multiple segments of course you know that's perfectly okay too for a lot of businesses but you'd describe somebody that that I would either say I don't know anybody like that or I would say well yeah I know three people exactly like that right it's so thoroughly described so you know what they look like how they think maybe where they live on this last one and I'm gonna spend some time on this is there a particular behavior that they exhibit that really demonstrates yes that's going to be our ideal client for example one of the things I learned over the years is that business owners who are you know our target who also participate at a pretty high level in their industry group like on an association or you know, a committee member on a chamber of commerce or something that was a really, really interesting marker for us as a behavior that meant tow us that that person really appreciated lifelong learning that really wanted to make their industry better they believed in professional development I mean, those are all the kinds of things that we believe that we offer. And so clearly what that was, was a marker of somebody who valued those things. So the nice thing about that in our case, and you won't have this in all of your cases. But the nice thing about that, in our cases, we could buy a list of those people. I mean, we could find people who participated in their association. I mean, so it really became a very valuable insight on our part when we discovered that. So once you have and start narrowing this focus and I can't say if I haven't said it enough narrow this focus we want this list to be or this desk description to be as narrow as possible on dh sometimes that's going to take some guts because what you're also saying is here's people we don't we can't serve where we're not trying to attract and that doesn't mean once we get this ideal description it doesn't mean that you will never ever sell to anybody outside of that it's actually an understanding on your part where you need to make a priority for your communication and for your marketing efforts but we also need to understand you know where where do these people go what do they read what do they listen to what do they search if you have existing customers those air some questions you wanna ask them you know where do they get their information what what groups do they belong to what publications do they read? What blog's do they read? What podcast do they listen to? So I'm pretty interesting insights from understanding that about as much as possible about your customers and use this opportunity to say that talking to your customers is a really good thing and you should be doing it all the time to learn more about what they need about what they don't have in fact but once you start getting customers that's your best product development research that's your best r and d is to actually start going out to them and saying hey I'm kind of sort of thinking about making this course or this program or this offering on dh it might look like this is that something that you would do okay here's the outline is that something you were participated okay here's the more developed outline you want to be obeyed a user of this product or this service that could be a great way for you to stay very close to your customers but it's also a great way to develop products and product and service offerings rather than you know the backwards approach which so many people do which is hey I made this cool thing wanna buy it right how about finding a gap finding a need that your existing customers actually have and developing something with them that was a little sidebar that I just don't know how I how I got down that path but understanding what you know what timing trigger's really thoroughly understanding you know when is somebody going to need or what trips somebody into needing your product or service right heard the wedding deejay the proposals I mean these air you know these air lifecycle changes that people have that need to be a part of your ideal description right because they probably aren't going to hire a wedding deejay for you know and maybe he does other events other types of events. A cz well but obviously there's got to be some trigger there's got to be some event that has somebody going out looking for a business like yours so what are those where does somebody who then has that timing tripped where do they go look for information where's the first place they turn is there a sort of known problem or pain that they're trying to solve you know what will they gain from finding you as the solution these air all parts of this description of this ideal client or of what we actually marketing people refer to as a persona the idea behind persona it comes really from the theatre that you have you ever any of you participate in any theater you've read a script at all there's usually this character description right and this person you know it's affect its the fictitious person right and they're describing this is what this person thinks and does and this has been her challenges in life and this is why she does what she does right it's like what's my character what's my motivation what's my persona you know as an actor so think in terms of defining your customers this way and people that do this find that this can actually be a really ah really important element of you know, getting a sense of you know instead of this like amorphous market out there that we're trying to get it's like we want you know sally homemaker or we want you know this type of and obviously it's up to you to name that persona to give it a full life a full description I know folks that we've worked with over the years that actually will take real clients and I'll say you know this person is really representative of this persona and they'll actually I had client years ago that actually took pictures had I mean told fully told his clients he was doing this he took pictures and made full cut size cutouts of them with their name of the not the individual person's name but the name of the persona on what he found was that by having those around the office everybody in the organization really just fully stayed focused on here's who we're after here is our target middle here's how I would spot your ideal client so you really can't take this this concept too far now we're going to spend some time working on trying to develop this idea of your ideal client of your persona so and then and those of you out there in internet land we have actually a form ideal client description so if you find this it's in if you downloaded those and you following along here and obviously we're because we're streaming live here we're not going to take fifteen minutes that I would love to take teo teo let you all fill some of that in so we're going to kind of do it on the spot. And this boys and girls might be one of those things that's on the test for tomorrow or for the end of the program. Here's, let me give you not one, a little extra bonus tip for a lot of people. When it comes down to describing, you know, their ideal client a lot of times. It's actually easier to say who you don't want right and that, you know, unfortunately, you know, starting negative doesn't always feel like the best place. But experience tells me over the years that a lot of times if we've had bad client experiences, where those sort of ripple to the top much quicker than exactly you know who our ideal client that we're looking for. So let me let me start with the audio. You guys in here on dh, then we'll deeper into this, and we'll go out to the internet audience. But, um, so who? 00:22:11.87 --> 00:22:15. Don't you want as a client? And I don't want somebody 00:22:15.33 --> 00:22:17. who wants me to do all of their marketing for them, 00:22:17.95 --> 00:22:21. right? Okay, so you're selling a marketing service, 00:22:21.55 --> 00:22:24. but you really you want to do the strategic work and 00:22:24.05 --> 00:22:27. not necessarily all of the tactical? Exactly. Ok, 00:22:27.24 --> 00:22:31. so obviously that's something that, you know, I doubt 00:22:31.73 --> 00:22:34. that you could put in a marketing brochure, I want 00:22:34.0 --> 00:22:35. to work with people who don't want me to do the actual 00:22:35.92 --> 00:22:37. work, right? So you have to be a but you have to be 00:22:37.84 --> 00:22:40. able to communicate that in a way, that's going to 00:22:40.25 --> 00:22:43. allow you to attract really the right the right person, 00:22:43.66 --> 00:22:44. and that has to be 00:22:45.65 --> 00:22:47. one of the things that's so cool about really getting 00:22:47.52 --> 00:22:50. firm on this. This picture of, you know, how I would 00:22:50.03 --> 00:22:53. spot an ideal client, is that, then I'm going to suggest, 00:22:53.59 --> 00:22:56. and you probably have to develop some tools, some 00:22:56.53 --> 00:23:00. price, some processes, some expectations, you know, 00:23:00.14 --> 00:23:03. in the discovery or the selling process, and those 00:23:03.46 --> 00:23:06. all have to be part of what you communicate once you 00:23:06.67 --> 00:23:08. once you identify this ideal client. So who else? 00:23:08.77 --> 00:23:11. What are some? What are some elements of, ah, client, 00:23:11.58 --> 00:23:14. you know, or a prospect, you know, you don't want 00:23:14.04 --> 00:23:14. to work with 00:23:17.8 --> 00:23:20. just my gut feeling is that we don't want to work 00:23:20.17 --> 00:23:23. with people who are apathetic because the whole point 00:23:23.93 --> 00:23:27. of our businesses to give on there's some of our competitors 00:23:27.76 --> 00:23:30. and it's a great model for them they have these cookie 00:23:30.46 --> 00:23:33. cutter packages and you can just buy it with one click 00:23:33.69 --> 00:23:37. and that's a great way to make money but the whole 00:23:37.68 --> 00:23:39. point of what we do is creating the experience and 00:23:39.95 --> 00:23:42. putting our personal touching it and having this high 00:23:42.96 --> 00:23:46. quality and and so people don't care about that right 00:23:47.3 --> 00:23:50. so you don't want people that that really view you 00:23:50.43 --> 00:23:52. is that one click or that don't want to participate 00:23:52.65 --> 00:23:55. yeah right it's we wantto work with them we want to 00:23:55.85 --> 00:23:58. create their vision but in order to create it we need 00:23:58.75 --> 00:24:01. them perhaps so that needs to be part of your description 00:24:01.8 --> 00:24:04. I mean that that you would actually and this is not 00:24:04.45 --> 00:24:06. always the case so you could create these personas 00:24:06.81 --> 00:24:09. you may never actually share them word for word with 00:24:09.42 --> 00:24:12. somebody but there should be elements of them that that kind of creep into your cues or your message or hears you know here's who gets a great result with us I love that kind of paige you know in your marketing kit you know here's who weaken grit who here's who we can create the most value for I love doing that, you know kind of that kind of wording because it allows you to put in things like people who want to participate in b a you know, an active part of this you know, people who are looking for somebody who could be a strategic guide for them so that they are doing the work the proper work themselves you know, knowing that they have the confidence to do it themselves so you can start then adding that into your messages so who else anybody you don't want to work you guys have been kind of quiet back here I don't want to work was the was the people who search for the deals for the cheap deals on that is finding the good deal is more important than the quality of the products of a service that's right that I'm providing and that's and that's again that that's probably most of you write would probably add that one that's what's kind of nice about you know, having this group participation is that I'm guessing almost all of you would put that in there unless you have, like, deal of the day side or something that was your business but that's an element that then you know, how do you communicate that how do you communicate? We're not I mean and I've seen people do this we're not the cheapest you know we're just the best right? I mean and so you know that that has to kind of be part of the message because that implies hey, if you're looking for a deal well you might not be you know who you're looking for now you have to back that up you have to have a methodology or process that that shows me value above that right because when people are looking for deals a lot of times it's because you have it or we haven't done anything to help communicate how we're different right and what I need I need to know how you're different right if I'm calling a b and c person I need to have something some way to analyze how you're different and if you haven't done anything to communicate something that I value the sort of raises you up the only thing I can say is how much right on biff you're getting phone calls today and people that's what they're looking for it is a deal there's a really good indication that you've not done anything to communicate why they should pay a premium to hire you don't make sense okay what else who else I'll come to you know negative nancy's and debbie downers and people who blame the external factors for the results that they're getting the blame you know she did as he did this and what you just used our personas that have actually kind of fallen into the sort of everyday lexicon right? Debbie downer people pretty much have a picture of what that person is right so what I'm asking users create your own uh and you know, let's, flip to more positive ones. Now, I'm asking you to create your own kind of personas like that that really give you ah, great picture of who makes an ideal client for your business, but but also is a right. And and this was this is so important. What you start having staff. And once you start trying to train people that are gonna work with clients that are going to sell, you know, for on behalf of your business, perhaps they need to understand, you know how to spot your ideal client as well, and be able to bring those elements into everything that you are communicating everything that you're writing. So the exercise that, you know, I would have you go through and those of you out in the studio audience. I'm sorry. The internet audience. Is that what we call them? Those folks out there start thinking about working on that it's, just kind of three questions that really kind of get down to that biographical sketch.