As a business coach, I strongly believe that it would be great if all businesses today would know who their ideal clients and customers are. If I asked each of the readers of this article to tell me who your ideal clients are, could you tell me? Have you ever taken time to truly identify your ideal clients and what they are like? I suspect a majority of readers of this article answered NO to these questions.
Too many business owners and managers cannot identify their ideal clients and customers and as a consequence they continue to “chase” any prospect and sell to everyone. By doing this, they work harder, not smarter, waste valuable time & resources, and they fail to grow their business. Worse yet, too many business owners and managers find it absolutely impossible to “walk away” from any prospect even when they know the prospect is not the right fit for their business.
In my professional business coaching practice, I have worked with many companies to help identify their target markets and ideal clients. I strongly impress upon them the importance of doing this so they can strategically grow their business.
What advice do I share with my clients on how to identify their target markets and ideal clients? Here is a short list of some advice I do share with them.
+ Identify prospective client company and individuals that will match up closely with your company strengths, your company’s identified opportunities, and the vision, mission, guiding principles and goals of your company.
+ Set aside time to carefully think about the people and companies and organizations that you really love to work with and write down some of the traits of these individuals and companies. Some of those traits could be: they value a long term relationship; they look at the value of services and products, rather than cost; their assignments are challenging; they are passionate about growing their business; etc.
+ Develop a demographic profile of your ideal client company or organization using such parameters as: geographic location; number of offices; annual revenues; number of employees; types of employees; SIC codes; etc.
+ Develop a demographic profile of your ideal client as an individual using such characteristics as: where they live; level of education; income level; skill sets; job title; area of work responsibility; personal interests & hobbies; etc.
+ Write clear descriptions of your ideal client and organization and your ideal individual within a client company of organization and then refer back to those descriptions before developing and implementing your marketing efforts. Use these descriptions as a “filter” for any prospect list you develop.
If you want to learn how you can benefit from a guide, facilitator and business coach to assist you in identifying your ideal client companies and organizations and the ideal individuals within those companies and organizations and how to achieve a higher level of confidence that you have a clear description of whom you should be talking with and why their company or organization needs your products and/or services, please contact Glenn Ebersole today through his web site at www.businesscoach4u.com or email him at jgecoach@aol.com.
