The Ideal Client Profile
Now that you’ve established who it is you’re looking for, let’s take that a step further. In addition to looking for speakers and coaches who need bookkeeping services, we need to establish other traits that will help us determine our ‘ideal client profile’ – having one will help you to develop a more focused and targeted search for the prospect that will most benefit from your skill set, expertise and business style.
Once you implement your ideal client profile, you will find that you avoid a lot of client objections and difficulties in dealing with clients who do NOT fit the profile. It’s important that you put steps in place to make sure you are working with the people that fit your personality and business practices.
It’s important that your profile be created in a positive vein. You want clients that pay on time, not clients that aren’t slow pay. Can you see the difference? Here are a few more examples:
Negative
- Don’t believe in me
- No loyalty
- No budget
- No fun
- Micromanager
- Indecisive
- Needy
Positive
- Trusts & believes in me
- Loyal
- Has money or budget
- Fun
- Gives space to perform
- Decision maker
- Supportive & supportable
Which type of client do you want? Working with clients that aren’t ideal brings you down. If you feel down, it will infect everything you do. Your work won’t be its absolute best; your interaction with clients and others could be negative; and if it happens during a time when a prospective client comes to call, it can be disastrous. Having even one client who doesn’t fit your ideal client profile can contaminate your business.
What we may learn in this exercise is that we are sending out bad or negative vibes and attracting the wrong type of client. These are clients you will definitely want to remove from your book of business so that you can clear the way for more positive relationships.
The next step is to include some that are industry related, too – those that will fit within your niche. Back to our previous example, we are looking for speakers and coaches that need bookkeeping skills. The next level could be we are looking for speakers and coaches that need QuickBooks bookkeeping support.
So the industry and software specific to people within that industry can be a part of your ideal client profile, too.
How To Connect to The Industry
Let’s talk about industries and niches – who am I looking for to attract my ideal clients? If your niche is REALTORS, you won’t be marketing JUST to REALTORS. You will want to figure out who REALTORS work with in order to expand the target you will be looking to connect you to REALTORS.
Using this as an example, if you happen to meet mortgage lenders; real estate attorneys and coaches; appraisers; inspectors; feng shui consultants or home stagers, it’s probably a good bet that they also know several of the top REALTORS in the area.
Don’t limit yourself to looking for only those people who exactly match your niche client, but those who will easily connect you to them. If your target market is attorneys, then CPAs and financial planners are probably good people to target, since they work with lots of attorneys.
It’s much easier to close the sale if you’re connected to the prospect through someone they already know, like and trust. Word of mouth and referrals are probably the most effective ways of marketing your business. Find those connections to others that serve the same target.
You should now have a pretty good idea of your ideal client profile and even the industry in which they work. Take a look at your current client base and make sure that everyone fits the profile, if not, you may need to do a little house cleaning, or consider utilizing sub-contractors to handle the business needs of those clients who are not IDEAL for you, if not, turn their business over altogether.
Next week, we’ll discuss where you might find them!
Jeannine Grich, owner of Accurate Business Services, a VA practice, is an author, writer, speaker, and VA Business Coach, specializing in providing professional business coaching to established and start-up virtual assistants (VA’s). For her FREE article, “What’s Holding Back my Business Success?” or “Finding or Expanding Your Niche”, Visit: https://VAbizcoach.com; or contact her at: [email protected].
Ready to find out how to take your business to the next level? Schedule a 30-minute complimentary session to discuss your business, and how coaching can help you GROW, here!
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