If you want to drive your life, your career or your business in a direction that will bring you more success you have to know the destination of where you are going. You want to know what that target feels, smells and tastes like. It has to be palpable to you - so much so that you can describe it down to the last detail.
No matter what line of work, volunteerism or business you are in, you have an "Ideal Client." If you are a manager, your clients are your employees and to whom they provide a service. Your ideal clients might be top talented employees who provide measurably higher productivity and benefit. If you are a stay at home mother, your client is your child and your ideal client is a happy and well-adjusted child. If you are a salesperson, your clients are your customers. Your ideal client could be the CEO of a company with 60 or less employees with the cash flow to pay you within 30 days who will give you a testimonial and referrals.
Distinguish Your "Ideal Client"
1. Make a list of the qualities of your "Ideal Client." What do they eat? What do they wear? What do they read? What do they want? Who do they spend time with? What do they do in their spare time? If you were to engage one demographic of customer who would it be? What do they desire? What do they worry about? What do they value? What do they need more of? What do they need less of?
2. What does your "Ideal Client" need from you that they cannot get from anyone else? This will help you to redefine how you fill a niche for people. It will establish your brand. It will help to develop your brand awareness into brand equity. If you are a support department in a company and your ideal client is a person satisfied with your service, why do they want you to serve them more than anyone else? If you are a nurse, why should your patients request you for their care?
3. Write a letter to your "Ideal Client" explaining why they should work with you? This will help you further define your position on who you are as well as who you can be to better serve them in their eyes.
Once you have defined who your intended market is you will better be able to create strategy that will meet their needs. You won't be throwing out a net of activities that comes back empty. You'll be casting a line of finely tuned precision that will reel in a prize catch. Save money, time and energy - distinguish your "Ideal Client."
Read Mary Lee's article Seven Questions Essential for Business Strategy.
Mary Lee is featured as an executive coach in this month's MONEY MAGAZINE.
Mary Lee Gannon is the president of StartingOverNow.com - Transforming People and Organizations with Goals-to-Results. With more than 16 years of experience as a CEO of organizations with up to $26 million in assets, Mary Lee coaches executives and organizations with a Goals-Accountability-Results system. Read testimonials from her clients. She is a graduate of The Duquesne University Professional Coaching Program and an alumnus of the 2010 Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital Coaching in Medicine & Leadership Conference. Her personal turnaround came as a stay-at-home mother with four children under seven-years-old who endured a divorce that took she and the children from the country club life to public assistance from where she rose to the level of CEO to support her family. Areas of Specialty: Strategic Planning / Board Development / Executive Coaching / Healthcare / Public Relations / Meeting Facilitation / Leadership / Productivity / Life/Career Transition. Her book "Starting Over - 25 Rules for When You've Bottomed Out" is available in bookstores and from online booksellers.
