If you’ve been in business any length of time, you’ve probably dealt with a ‘less than ideal’ client or customer.
We tell ourselves the same things even though we know how it’s going to end. “I need the cash so it will be ok” “This time it’s going to be different” “They wont take advantage of me” “Everything is going to go according to plan”
Though deep down we know the truth. That it’s not an ideal fit and that we are selling ourselves out and wasting our time when we could be serving those who are both grateful and ideal, and it can be fun at the same time. In both running a marketing agency, growing several coaching businesses, I’ve had my fair share of bad customers, and I’ve seen the headaches they cause for my clients too. So I have one simple question. How much time have you actually spent designing your ideal customer? I don’t mean the typical “Customer Avatar” or demographic information that most marketers tall you to build. But I mean a character structure. What valued to they hold? What will working with them be like? Do their values align with yours? Are they going to mesh well with your culture and your company culture? Or will they take advantage every step along the way, ask for work outside of scope of the project, continue to ask for more and when you give an inch, they take a mile and throw a fit if they don’t get their way? Here are a few tips of what you can do to both design and attract your ideal customer. This is a process I call ‘Ideal Customer Design’ and it makes it way more likely that you will find and work with the people you want to work with, and know how to filter the ones you don’t.
START WITH WHAT YOU WANT YOUR EXPERIENCE TO BE LIKE
I start by listing out the 4 main things that I want my customer experience to be like, not for the customer but for me and my company. Do I want the relationship to be strictly professional or would I prefer it grow into a personal friendship and relationship as someone that I would want to call a friend? Do I want the interaction to be fun and energizing? Do I want it to be more of a partnership, or to be subordinate or have them be subordinate to me? How will I feel about getting on meetings and calls? Will the person be grateful for the experience? Will they tell the truth? Will they ask for more and more or understand and respect boundaries that you put in place?
THEN LIST OUT 25 TRAITS OF YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER
Listing out the traits of the customer, thinking like you’re creating the perfect person that you wouldn’t mind getting caught on a dessert island with. It’s ok to include some demographic information but the most important things are the following threeitems.1. Do you like them?2. Can you help them?3. Can they pay for your help? And then you can go even deeper into their character traits, what they need help with, where they are in their lives/business, different hobbies they hold.
THE RESULTS
What will happen when you go through an exercise like this is you will naturally begin to find and attract these ideal clients. You’ll see them everywhere and immediately know that it’s a good fit. You’ll meet someone or chat with them in the DM’s and say to yourself, ‘this is such a coincidence, you literally match my profile to a T”. But it’s not a coincidence. I could go into a TON of information about the metaphysical manifestation and the theological aspects and NLP sides of designing what you want.
ONE LAST WARNING
Make sure on your list you cross out writing anything you DON’T WANT as an ideal trait. Our brains don’t process the word ‘DON’T’ and we just end up attracting more of what we don’t want. Make everything and every statement something in the positive.
NEXT STEPS
I designed a really cool worksheet that you can print out and start filling out, adding to it anytime something new comes to mind. Drop me a DM or a comment with the word “DESIGN” and my team will make sure to get that out to you! If you want to go deeper on tips like this, join my free community where we create playbooks like these every week.
