How do you find your ideal client?

After yesterday’s ponderings on how to decide which ONE thing to focus on first (thank you so much to everybody who contributed), I took my dilemma to my business friends yesterday. Like many successful business women, I have a team ready, willing and able to support, encourage and challenge me: my mastermind group.

As a business confidence coach, of course I know that I need to be absolutely clear on WHO I want to work with, WHAT they want and HOW I can help. I decided to go back to basics and spend time reflecting on my ideal client.

Know WHO you want to work with

When you know WHO you want to work with, you can start to visualise and articulate your client and what your client wants. Get clarity on your ideal client’s:

• lifestyle
• likes
• dislikes
• challenges
• aspirations
• dreams
• values
• needs
• fears.

When you have that piece of the puzzle (the WHO), you can figure out which pieces of your puzzle give your ideal client WHAT they want.

My mindset mentor, trusted friend and mastermind accountability partner, Caroline Ferguson, asked me to describe my ideal client. Using Caroline’s process, rather than my own meant that I didn’t know what question to expect next. Therefore I was more able to free my mind to put myself in the life and head of my ideal client. Caroline is an expert in helping women entrepreneurs who are stuck and I’m so glad I talked this through with her.

Are you my ideal client?

This is what I have come up with as the description of my ideal client – is it you?

She is a mum in business, aged 28 to 45, who believes in her business and believes in herself. But she also knows she has moments (sometimes days) where she doesn’t feel absolutely confident. She wants more success. She wants to have a bigger impact. She wants the freedom to build her business around her family. She wants the stability you get from consistency of clients and income. She wants independence and not to be reliant on others.

She’s got at least one child at primary school which means she wants family time. However she’s smart and intelligent, probably with a degree. She wants the intellectual stimulation of running a business. She wants her business to make a difference in some way – not just a business for the sake of the income.

She values creativity, stability, independence, authenticity, integrity and family.

Her business is beyond the startup stage – she’s been doing it for a couple of years and has reached a certain level of success but she’s dissatisfied because she wants MORE. Maybe because the success is at a plateau; maybe because she’s not sure what to do or focus on next. Or she’s not sure she deserves more. She’s likely to have some limiting beliefs (don’t we all). She wants more clarity, more success, more clients, more consistency and less overwhelm, less confusion, less uncertainty, less waking-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-is-this-really-going to-work fear.

What do I have to give to my ideal client?

My other mastermind buddy, Vicky Warr, reminded me of how excited I was when I first thought of the Confident Business Performance Review. She is going through the review process right now and has found it absolutely invaluable in getting clarity on the ONE thing to focus on. In turn, her motivation levels have gone through the roof and she’s taking such incredible positive action.

The Confident Business Performance Review taps into my expertise as a law firm performance consultant, bringing my analytical skills and business experience to mums in business. Now I’m thinking creatively as to how I can make that work successfully as a group programme. I want it to be affordable and less of a big leap investment than a full mastermind. Although I also subscribe to the theory that if you can only just afford it, you will work hard to make sure you get a return on the investment.

I believe there is so much power, richness, encouragement, support and motivation when you work ON your business as part of a group. You are more likely to push yourself beyond your comfort zone. You are more likely to feel the fear and do it anyway. You don’t want to let yourself down but you don’t want to let your group down either. It’s that peer accountability.

This type of work gives me the opportunity to be intellectually challenged, troubleshoot and problem solve, have fun, facilitate, lead a group AND at the same time to nurture and inspire women to get the clarity they need to make decisions with confidence and ease.

In conclusion …

Unless you really understand your ideal client – her fears, her worries, her dreams, her values, her aspirations – it’s almost impossible to identify WHAT to offer that client. Yes you can shoot in the dark and throw out various offerings in a scattergun approach. However it’s less likely to work than talking to a particular client with a specific need and showing how your unique product will address that need.

I’m not a marketing specialist, but as a performance specialist, I know you get the best performance when you have absolute clarity about what you are doing, for whom, where, when and how.  Plus you need a healthy dose of inner confidence. I have the inner confidence – I’d simply lost my way in how best to use it.

If you are my ideal client, let’s talk. If you’re stuck feeling overwhelmed or unsure about what you really want or whether you’ve got the confidence to do it, don’t stay that way – let’s have a conversation about what’s working, what’s not working and if that’s performance confidence related.

No obligation but it’s good to talk.