Knowing what your ideal client looks like is critical if you want to attract the right customers to your business and have successful outcomes. This is not to say you shouldn’t work with clients who don’t exactly fit the profile you’re looking for. But having a customer ‘avatar’ helps you to focus your marketing and filter potential prospects.
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When you’re new to business and still trying to find your first few clients, you’re naturally going to be less picky about who you work with. In the early days, I remember taking on almost any client that came my way. When you’re trying to earn the bare minimum you need to survive, you don’t really have the luxury of choice. Regardless, you should still be creating a profile of what you’re ideal customer looks like so you can attract more of these types of people.
Having an ideal customer in mind focuses your marketing so you can speak directly to the people you want to attract. For example, when I make a video about Asana, I picture our target customer and remind myself about the common types of problems they have. This is why I say things like: “If you’ve had Asana for a while but adoption hasn’t really been successful, or you feel like you’re only using 20% of Asana’s features…”. This is because I’m targeting existing Asana users who have these common problems. I could make videos aimed at larger enterprise customers who are new to Asana, but they’re not our ideal customer.
When someone watches one of my videos, I love it when they tell me: “I feel like you read my mind” or “I feel like this video was made just for me”. This is evidence that we’re speaking to our ideal customer.
Having a clear picture of your ideal client helps you to evaluate prospects once they engage you. Not everyone is going to be a good fit for our service. Sometimes people come to us and ask if we can set up Asana for them. I have to explain that we provide a ‘done with you’ service (rather than ‘done for you’) as we find our clients are more successful over the long-term when they learn how to master Asana with our assistance.
You may be wondering why we don't work with everyone we can. While we could offer a ‘done for you’ option, I find our business is more scaleable and our engagements are more successful when we focus our marketing and offering.
As you grow, you can afford to get more selective about who you choose to work with. Along with making sure a client's needs align with our service, one of the most important factors we look for now is that the client is a pleasant person who we actually want to work with. Now, our ideal client is someone who:
- Is a good communicator, who reads their emails and provides us with what we need in an efficient manner.
- Is pleasant to deal with, who respects our time, appreciates our service and makes our life easy.
I often tell my team that we’re going to find work one way or another, so we may as well get booked up by the very best clients we can find.
Inevitably, we get approached by some prospects who are poor communicators or prospects who book a call with us and don't show up. Sometimes I’ll be talking to someone and I just don't get a good feeling from them. They may come across as demanding or difficult. Either way, we don’t want them as a client. I want to enjoy our client engagements and if I feel like someone is going to give us a hard time, I’d rather not take their money.
By comparison, last week I received an email from a client who told me how much he appreciated working with us. This client is a genuinely nice person to deal with and I always enjoy our interactions when we get to meet. These are the people I want our calendar to be filled up with.
Again, this is a luxurious position to be in. But remember, luxuries like this are earned. I appreciate that not everyone can afford to take this stance with every prospect. Nonetheless, it’s a situation to aim for.