Doing your homework when it comes to understanding and attracting your ideal customer is vital to the success of any business.
People buy from people they know, like, and trust, and to ensure you are promoting your products or services to the right kind of people you need to spend a while in your customer’s shoes.
It’s not enough to have a fabulous value ladder of services if the audience you are targeting is not looking for what you offer. You need to get to know your audience on a deeper level and build a relationship that you can nurture.
How do you understand who your ideal customer is?
Let’s have a go at doing an ideal customer exercise.
Answering the following questions will help you bring to life the kind of person you want to work with. Be as honest as you can when answering.
- If you could help anybody with your product, service, or idea, who would it be?
- When people hear what you do, what do they ask you?
- What are the top questions you get asked all the time by your customers?
- What field are your current customers in?
- What are the goals of the customers you currently have?
- What specific results have your top customers achieved already?
Stepping into their shoes and thinking about your ideal customer in terms of their issues and goals allows you to provide them with solutions that match their exact needs.
Here’s another question to ask yourself.
Do your customers really know what they need or have they only identified what they want?
Needs and wants are entirely different entities, and it’s up to you to discover if your target audience requires help with one specific issue (want), or if there is a deeper struggle going on beneath the surface that must be addressed first (need). Getting to the crux of the challenge can take time, but even during a discovery call you can ask the right questions, listen carefully, and begin to build that relationship.
Spend five minutes picturing a person you would love to work with. Imagine yourself stepping into their shoes and experiencing their world.
- What do they need?
- What’s lacking in their life?
- What challenges do they face?
- What are they not so good at?
- What stops them from moving forward?
- What does their world feel like in a year/five years?
Connecting with your customer on a deeper, more emotional level helps you build trust and allows you to use your UHP – Unique Human Proposition®.
Think like a buyer
What is it like to buy from you?
Why would I want to buy from you?
What do you give your customers as a solution?
It might seem strange to think like a buyer when you’re trying to sell your products or services, but aren’t we all buyers? Yes, you are running and promoting your business, but you are also a consumer and the ideal customer for someone else’s business.
Use your life skills as a buyer to take control and drop any fear you have about selling.
What have you bought recently? Why did you buy these things?
Keep it simple and think about what you like and don’t like when you are buying goods and services. Use this knowledge to create an easy sales journey for your ideal client to buy from you.
And here is a golden nugget – why not use your own stories of being a buyer when you are selling. This brings you to a new level with your customer. They see how you really understand them. Bonding can take place through this kind of storytelling. Share experiences, and then the ability to offer them a different experience when you sell to them.
Do you provide a solution?
Your ideal customer is looking for answers. They might need help (coaching) to achieve goals, or perhaps they require something to make their day/life better or to solve a problem (a product).
Think about the solution you provide for your audience.
What do you help people with?
What have your customers tried in the past that didn’t work for them?
Come up with three areas where your products or services can help your ideal customer.
For example, I help my customers gain clarity, understand sales skills, and sell with confidence in an authentic way.
Attracting your ideal customer
Once you’re clear on WHO you want to help and HOW you are going to add value to their lives you can begin creating content to attract your ideal customer.
To find your target audience use the ideal customer work you’ve done to actively search for the right people. Think about your current customer and the ones you love to work with the most.
- Where do they hang out online, and how did they find you?
- What did they struggle with that you were able to help fix?
- What keeps them coming back for more?
- And who do they know who you could help, as they are likely to share the same values or challenges as them.
If you’re unsure why not ask them! You can use survey tools like survey monkey and another great one for feedback is VideoAsk which allows you to gather video responses as well as audio and text. You could just have a quick Zoom call with your favourite customer. It’s a fabulous way to do a spot of market research. It will help you find future clients that fit with your ideal customer profile.
Hell and Heaven
And to deepen this there is great work to do on what I call Hell and Heaven. I truly believe that we buy emotionally and if you can tune in to the emotions of an ideal customer you will start to be able to craft content that really connects. Impact is key and when something makes sense emotionally it creates a wonderful ripple effect of connection, trust, discovery, and that moment when you say – this is my kind of person! They get me!
This is one of the lessons in my Sales Academy Sweet Shop – a pick ’n’ mix of wonderful sales videos to help you discover the real joy of Live it Love it Sell it. Maybe we can take a walk down the high street to discover more if you’re ready to really embrace sales.
Attracting your ideal client is all about connection. Sharing genuine stories and social proof helps the process. Your audience is out there right now looking for you. By being unique on your social platforms, in-person dealings, and work ethic, you will attract your ideal audience.
The golden rule for business visibility is to keep showing up consistently with a relevant message. People will recognise who you are and how you can help them.
Regular, Consistent, Relevant.
Want to learn more about attracting your ideal customer?
Follow my Youtube channel – https://www.youtube.com/c/LiveitLoveitSellit – there are many videos all about my passion for selling – Oh and the walking the dog vlogs too!
Joining the Sales Academy will help you understand your ideal client, how your business and sales strategy can offer value, and build long-lasting relationships. It will also help you fall in love with selling while meeting like-minded business owners. Find out more HERE.
