Who is your business’s target audience? This shouldn’t be such a hard one to answer for business owners and leaders. Surprisingly, I find that most cannot answer this question-yikes! If we don’t know who we are serving then how can we be communicating to let them know we exist, we have the solution they are seeking, and communicate with them in a manner which engages and entices them to your offerings? I don’t have a clue how anyone can do this without identifying their ideal customer for the questions I just posed as well as so many more…
Know Thy Customer
I’m not sure how many posts it will take to break down the Ideal Customer Discovery Process will take. Again, we will over-simplify here. So let’s do it a little differently from all the other postings and jump into my discovery of these questions and then, of course, you would begin to dig into yours as well 🙂
Self-Discovery of The Business Rescue Coach re: YOUR Ideal Customer
1. Who are they?
In my case, they are small to medium size business owners or business leaders. Notice I said leaders. Leaders have the opportunity, and the power and authority to make the improvement/changes I help businesses learn about and help implement. I prefer to say leaders (which implies they have people who choose to follow them) versus managers (who really manage what’s in front of them). Yes, I know many managers are authorized to make change, and I am not dishing a typical manager- actually I’m making a distinction for my ideal clients that the person or team that I work with can make change happen swiftly throughout the organization. Most often, for my type of work, that is an owner or leader of the business.
2. What do they do?
In my case, my ideal client is someone who is responsible for the operations and/or P&L. It is someone that must be able to notice that the business is not moving in the right direction with a particular topic or as a whole and is willing to learn new business strategies and hang in their through the changes to seek the reward: improvement!
3. What are their strengths and weaknesses?
Oooops! I think I already started answering this 🙂 In my case, my ideal client is someone who has passion, the internal spark in them to do what so many people talk about: conduct business in an appropriate manner. This, to me is what helps my clients through the work that we do. They tend to be conscientious leaders and managers, who take-on a great deal. They can wear many hats. They are the” go-to guy” and are typically very connected. Sometimes they are busy pulling their hair out while on a bathroom break or worse yet, they aren’t sleeping at night because the business isn’t performing the way they need it to. They tend to carry some, if not all, of the burden of P&L. Typically, they are spread too thin. They often are taking on projects that they don’t have that particular expertise (but no one else does either)! They often don’t have appropriate talent to help them accomplish everything in a good way. They don’t have a great deal of training or experience in effective business strategies. And… they are overworked.
4. What is keeping them up at night?
Yikes! Also started to answer this one in #2… In my case, my ideal clients isn’t sleeping because “there is too much to do and they feel overwhelmed”. Whether this is accurate or how they feel; it is their reality! I often here that they are being “crushed” or “squeezed”. They usually are in uncharted territory with the business concept as a whole (especially with solopreneurs). Sometimes they don’t have the expertise to make a particular change/s happen and needs some help doing it in a productive and results-oriented manner. They want everyone to be happier at work- starting with them. They want the business to be more productive and profitable. They are seeking ways to solve all the issues pending at work – they don’t “shut-down”. When they come home from work because they are searching for ways to improve the business. They need to relax more.
4. Why do they enjoy doing what they do?
In my case, my ideal client follows their heart and makes sure that their head agrees with the choice selected. Now, this doesn’t mean that they aren’t logical and aren’t able to or enjoy doing the analytical and trend analysis work. It just means their heart is engaged. How do I know this? Typically their job is grueling. If someone was in it just for that and didn’t have an ideal as to how the business could be, they wouldn’t be there. They enjoy helping people and solving problems and creating things (developing talent, products, or processes).
Self-Discovery Questions for YOU:
1. Now it’s your turn to take the time and do what I did with each one of the above questions!
If you or your business needs rescuing on this particular topic
or any other Business Strategies we have been discussing,
please reach out to Maggie (262) 716.7750 FYI: I’m in the Central Time Zone
Blessings of Success to YOU ~
The Business Rescue Coach, Maggie Mongan
Brilliant Breakthroughs, Inc.
