I Don’t Want To Limit My Company With an Ideal Customer Profile
Most people I talk to say they have no idea who they serve. When asked, they say their ideal customer is everyone. Their ages range from 18-95. They’re both male and female, and they can make anywhere from nothing to $150K. Your ideal customer is someone you enjoy working with, and that matters.
I’ve helped a lot of businesses over the past two decades. Customers require energy, even if you’re doing something you enjoy doing. Five years ago, I wrote outlines for authors and had absolute blast with that, but there were some authors and outlines that were easy and others that were just difficult. For the past three years, I helped cultivate and grow a successful electrical contractor, and the first thing we did was change who we targeted as our customers. I have more examples, but that’s not the point.
Energy Management Starts At the Ideal Customer Profile
I took a class as an indie author that was hugely beneficial to every aspect of my business and how I look at business and content development. Becca Syme’s book, Dear Writer, Are You In Burnout, she emphasized the need to focus on energy distribution when looking at your productivity. It sounds weird that I’d be talking to you about making your business more efficient through something I learned through my author career, but what she said is key.
You have so many pennies in your energy piggy bank. Some things you do add pennies, while others take pennies away. Certain services we offer add more pennies than they take away, which is why we already know what we do and don’t want to do.
What we’re afraid to admit, however, is that there are certain customers who remove a lot of pennies from our energy bank, while there are other customers who add to it. Sometimes, we’ll take on a client who just absolutely drains us. At the end of the day, they have what they need, but they’re not happy with you and you’re not happy with them. They might leave you a negative review, but you want to leave a review for them as well.
But someone else can take that exact same client, provide the exact same service, and get a different reaction.
Personalities matter more than we like to think, especially when we’re in a service industry. We’re afraid that if we focus too much on our ideal customer, we’ll lose a lot of other business. That’s a starved mindset instead of a growth mindset.
Did you know that businesses who have a strong Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), or buyer persona, achieve 68% higher account win rates?
Why Targeting Your Ideal Customer Matters
When you’re talking to the right people, you feel more confident in your service.
There’s a difference between when you’re talking to someone you barely know and when you’re talking to a friendly acquaintance. With acquaintance, you have something in common already. You’re not scrambling to find the right words. You’re confident in what you’re saying in what you’re doing.
Confidence shapes how you walk, talk, sit, enter a room. Everything. When you’re confident, you’re already using less energy to create your livelihood.
When you’re speaking their language, you’re building rapport based on shared past experiences.
Some of the ideal customer profile characteristics you’re looking for are things you have in common. It could be owning a home, a hobby, or religion. Whatever it is, you know what information to bring to the table with you and how to present it. Do they need small talk first, or are they a details-first kind of person? Will they get upset if the accidental f-bomb falls out of your mouth? That’s a real thing that happens sometimes. Do you need someone who can stand up to your passion about your subject matter?
I curse occasionally, so my ideal customer needs to understand that. Wearing the “no curse” mask takes energy I can’t use to do other things I enjoy.
When they trust you, they ask fewer questions.
When building your ideal customer profile, you’re looking for someone who you can easily build trust with. Who fights you the least? When you’re fighting someone to build trust, you’re expending a lot of energy that you’re not using with your hobbies, your dog, your partner, or your kids.
For me, I want you to trust me quickly and efficiently so I can get back to writing books and playing Cash Flow with my kids. What are you missing out on by fighting to build trust with the wrong clients?
When you retain more clients, you have to seek fewer to feed your cash flow.
Most business owners don’t think of retention when they’re looking at marketing. Retention has nothing to do with marketing and everything to do with relationship management and business operations. Ensuring you have the right fit in your customer engine helps you ensure your business runs efficiently for as long as possible.
What’s Next?
Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be going over the things you need to build a strong ideal customer profile (ICP), or a buyer persona. Don’t worry. You know more than you think, and what you don’t know is easy to find.
The best thing to do right now is to download the Client Profile Worksheet I’ve created and print it out. Or upload it to your tablet and work on it on the computer. Either way is fine. By the time we’re done, you’ll have a customer profile you can build a marketing and business plan around that will keep your business sustained and healthy.
