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Hello, and welcome to the Midlife Business Show with Suzanne Mountain. This is the podcast that celebrates all those of us who are building a business during our middle years. I’m an ex corporate girl who started my business six years ago in my fifties. And I’m loving it. This podcast is here to inspire you with conversations with other entrepreneurs about the messy and magical ups and downs of this period of our lives. Plus, I’ll be sharing simple, actionable step by step strategies to help you build a business with impact and a life that you love

Suzanne (00:43):

Hello and welcome to the Midlife Business Show. Today I’m going to talk to you about how to identify your ideal client and why it is really important for you to understand your ideal client.

Now, there’s a lot of talk in the online business world about ideal clients, and some of it can appear very restrictive. And if you are like me, you may have resisted honing in on your ideal client. When I set up my coaching business seven years ago, I had a long history in coaching board members, senior management, rising talent within the corporate setting. I’d also spent many years honing my coaching skills and my coaching qualifications, including undertaking coaching qualifications at one of the world’s leading business schools and delving deeper into several other areas of coaching and coaching modalities. So I considered myself to have some deep experience that could help so many different people. So when I heard the concept of ideal clients and understanding who your ideal client was, I was quite resistant.

(01:58):

I felt like as a new business owner, actually honing in and saying, This is my niche and this is who I work with, would lead me to having fewer clients. In reality, every time I niche a bit deeper or a bit smaller, I gain more clients. And whilst this feels counterintuitive, the reason for this is that people want to buy from an expert. And when it comes to creating blogs and social media and writing your website, all tasks that you have to do as a small business owner, it is very, very difficult to do that effectively. If you are trying to please everyone, the more you can hone down and focus on talking to one person, the easier it becomes for you to really resonate with that individual. And that’s one of the reasons why it’s one of the first things that you need to do when you set up your business.

(03:01):

And also something that you do need to revisit periodically. 

One, because as you are serving more and more of your ideal clients, your knowledge and understanding of them deepens and you understand where they’re coming from. You get to know their language better, and you also understand more about the problem that they’re looking for a solution for. 

But two, you may decide that actually you’ve learned something about your ideal client that changes who that is, or you may have chosen to pivot your business. And if you choose to change direction in your business, you need to revisit your ideal client work. So today I’m going to give you some prompts that will allow you to think about who your ideal client is and perhaps get some more clarity on how you help them. As business owners, we’re in the privileged position of getting to choose who we want to work with.

(04:07):

This means that by choosing an ideal client, you get to create marketing that attracts that person. So one of the fundamentals of picking your ideal clients and creating the avatar is that it allows you to really think about who is it you want to work with. Now, when I first started my business, I attracted corporate coaching clients, and I also attracted people who wanted to change their jobs and career. This was due to the fact that I had a long corporate career in HR and had worked for a recruitment and staffing company. So it was natural that people saw me in that space. I didn’t have to try. I had credibility in that space. So those people, you know, people were coming to me and asking me to support people they knew in those situations. Reality was, and I didn’t really understand it at the time, and as I’ve said previously, I was reluctant to to niche down.

(05:16):

But the reality was that whilst I was grateful for the work, the work that I was doing at that stage did not make my heart sing. The people that I was working with and supporting were lovely individuals. However, the issues that I was dealing with no longer made me feel satisfied. And it was only when I started coaching small business owners that I really recognized the difference.

 Now, when I get up in the mornings and I see who I’ve got in my diary, I’m excited about the potential they’ve got. I’m excited about the opportunities for their business, and that’s what I want for you. 

I want you to wake up in the morning and look at your diary and feel grateful and excited about who you are going to be working with. And that’s when you know you are working with your ideal client. The first of the prompts that I want you to think about today is who is your ideal client?

(06:28):

And one of the ways to actually think about this is to reflect on a client that you’ve really enjoyed supporting someone who you felt like I’ve just described, you felt excited to be talking to them. If you haven’t had any clients so far, then I want you to think about someone that you’d really love to support. It could be a friend that you’ve got, or it could be a celebrity that you, um, hear about or see. So think about who is it that you would really, really love to support. I want you to also write down some demographics about this individual. So what sort of age are they? How do they identify? Are their mom, do they have a family? Are they a career person? What do they fill their time with? What hobbies do they have? Where do they like to shop? What’s their values?

(07:33):

It’s really, really important when we’re working with clients that we have values in common, otherwise we can find ourselves clashing or not understanding our clients. So think about what makes her heart sing, but also think about what drives her crazy. So what is it that really, really excites her? What does she get mad about? What does she care about that it makes her mad or sad? What problems do they have that are causing them to look for help? And what does she struggle with? What does she really want to be able to do or want to feel different about? And note down all the problems you think she might be experiencing, not just the ones that you help solve. Because understanding what’s good in her life and what she struggles with can give you valuable content for social media that can help make a connection with her.

(08:43):

And as human beings, one of the key things we’re looking for is connection. We want to be seen and we want to be heard. And if you can make your ideal client who is scrolling on social media or reading your blog or reading your website, feel that you see her and you hear her, then you are a long way towards building a relationship and building connection with her, which will lead to her thinking of you when she comes to solve her problems that you can help her with. So think about how does this person think about and speak about their problem? Now, a way to do this is to think about what would they actually say to you if you are out for a glass of wine together or a cup of coffee together, How would they describe their problem? What are the words they use?

(09:40):

As much as possible, we need to be using our ideal clients’ language. Often the danger with coaches and therapists is we learn this new language as we undertake our studies, and we use that language to try and talk to our ideal clients. The difficulty with this is our ideal clients are still in the place that we were in before we learnt the things that we now know. And so that means they don’t understand what we are saying to them when we use this language. What we need to do instead is to come alongside them and talk their language so that when they hear our message, they understand what we are talking about and they know that we’re talking to them. Ideally, our social media content, our blogs, our website, should make them think that you really understand them. And that’s because you do. And using their language is one of the best ways that you can demonstrate this to them.

(10:57):

So now you’ve drawn up this view of your ideal client and you’ve really, really honed in on her. You can think about all the creative ways that you can make her real. So you can name her, my ideal client is called Sarah. You can draw a picture of her. You can find a stock image that you think looks like your ideal client. All these tools are helping you visualize this person and bring them to life. And then when it comes to creating your content, you are right as though you are talking directly to that individual. So once we fully understand who our ideal client is, we then need to think about how we help them. And this is when we start thinking about the transformation that we bring about. So what you need to be thinking about at this point is what is is their life like before you solve the problem that you solve in your business?

(11:59):

A key point with business owners is that we solve problems and we solve the problems and not the problems we want to solve, but that our clients want us to solve. So think about where is your ideal clients before they get help from you? What do they want to solve? What is their motivation for solving this problem? So maybe it’s that they want to be more productive and the reason they want to be more productive so that they can spend more time with their kids. Or maybe they want financial freedom and the reason they want financial freedom is so that they can pay for a family holiday or give some money to charity or just spend time doing things that light them up. So now that you’ve spent time delving into what their life is before and what they want, really, really think about what does their version of their best life look like?

(13:06):

Assuming that they’ve worked with you and you’ve solved their problem and you are checking in with them one year later, what are they doing now? What’s different? How are they feeling now? What emotions are they feeling now that you’ve helped them solve that problem? Because those two pieces give you the transformation that you bring about in your work. And understanding that transformation and being able to articulate that to the person who is struggling in the before position can really help you understand why they should buy your services. 

I hope it has been useful for you for you hear about how to identify your ideal client and why it’s important. 

Please let me know. I love it when I hear from you. So drop me an email, suzanne@suzannemountain.com and let me know. Tell me about your ideal client. I’d love to know more about her or him. 

So that’s all for today. 

I look forward to speaking to you next week. 

Okay, that’s a wrap for today. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe, rate and review the Midlife Business Show. And if you’ve enjoyed it, tell your business buddies all about it. Bye for now.