Your Ideal Client

Might have red hair, or be a company with fifty employees, or drive a Honda.

Your ideal client might have a certain job title, be in a particular marital status, have a particular responsibility.

Different companies and products will have different essentials to describe their ideal clients. Each list of “must-haves” and “nice-to-haves” will be particular to the business.

Are there any constants across all these client groups? Are there client descriptors that are important to every business’ client persona?

Perhaps.

Here are three descriptions that will build a solid foundation for any ideal client profile.

Know how the problem affects them

In order to buy you as a solution, the client must have identified a problem. Whether an urgent problem or simply an upgrade, there is something being fixed.

But different people and business are affected differently.

You will find different pain points, different levels of pain tolerance, different consequences of the pain, different resources to handle the pain.

How does the pain affect your ideal client? What does it mean to their day to day? Why does it cause pain? What limitations are created by this pain?

Know how the problem, the pain, is exhibited, tolerated, and expressed by your ideal client.

This will explain why and how they want it solved, which is why you must…

Know what outcome they want

These same considerations: pain tolerance, resources, impact; will begin to describe what the client wants instead.

In other words: what is the outcome they expect from your solution – or any solution.

How would your ideal client describe success?

This is describing the end result, which must be achieved in their preferred manner, meaning you must also:

Know how they want to work

Describe your client’s preferred process.

Think about all that goes into it: how do they prefer to communicate, what do they want to know, how do they want to participate, what resources do they want to dedicate to this, what else is going on in their business that requires their attention, and so on and so forth.

Whether their time of interaction with you is a week or a year, know how they want that interaction to go.

Put it all together

Combining your solution, deliverables, and process to your clients’ problem, outcome, and work preferences creates the description of your ideal client.

All other relevant factors? Build them upon this foundation.