Posts Tagged ‘Ideal Client’

Okay, you got me.  I don’t really “hate” much of anything about anything.  But, I do sometimes get frustrated with coaching.  As a client, sometimes I just want my coach to TELL me what to do.  Well, guess what?  That’s not coaching.  That’s consulting.  Fortunately, I have a coach who offers a little bit of coaching and mentoring, too.  So what’s the difference?

Coaching starts with the assumption that you are naturally creative resourceful and whole and that you actually have all the information that you need to make an informed decision and to effect positive change in your life.  The strength of coaching is being able to empower you to find that information and to help you set goals and build structures for accountability.  In coaching, the agenda comes from the client, and the coach helps to keep you focused on the present and on yourself.  Coaching can also be introspective and is very much about self discovery.  One of the foundational skills of coaching is asking questions.

Consulting starts with the assumption that the consultant knows something that you don’t know and that you want and need this information.  Generally, the consultant tells you what to do and you do it for the purpose of achieving some result or outcome. One of the foundational skills of consulting is answers or solutions.

Mentoring is about sharing experience.  Mentors generally offer a combination of coaching and consulting which results from their experience in your field.  They have likely made some mistakes and can help you avoid making them.  They generally have relevant experience to share that points you in the direction that you want to go.  One of the foundational skills of mentoring is story telling.

Coaching has become very popular.  With that popularity, there has been some confusion.  Many consultants and mentors are actually calling themselves coaches.  It’s not wrong or bad, but it is confusing.  Know what you want and know what you’re getting.  It doesn’t really matter if your consultant calls herself a Marketing Coach.  Do be aware of what you want, though, and make sure you’re getting it.

If you’re anything like me, most of you don’t need any more experts telling you what to do.  You probably know what to do, but you don’t do what you know.  You know you should have an ideal client and you know what kind of marketing activities you like to do best and you think there are other things that you “should” be doing, but you’re not.  Most of you don’t need to hire someone else to tell you what else you “should” be doing.  The main benefit of coaching is that it helps you figure out what you really want, what you really want to do and how to give yourself permission to stop doing the things you “should” and just do the things you love in order to get the results that you are after.

If you like that idea, let me know.  I’d be happy to set you up with a sample session with me or another knock your socks off coach.

As promised, here is my “Stadium Pitch”:  The Seven Most Expensive Mistakes Women Entrepreneurs Make.  Drum roll, please…

1. Being non specific and not identifying your niche.  This is extremely true of coaches and service professionals.  How many clients/customers do you really want?  You do not need to market to the entire world in order to get them.
2. Not knowing who your target market is.  Of course, defining your niche is a big part of this.  “Pretty much everyone could use my services ” is not a target.  I recently polled a group of savvy, mostly experienced women entrepreneurs and less than one third of them had a defined target market.  This is a VERY expensive mistake.  You need to know who your client is in order to know what they want from you and how to reach them.
3. Telling your clients what they want and need instead of listening to what your clients tell you they want from you.
4. Getting up and running on a crazy treadmill and not asking yourselves, “What’s the point?”  It is important to evaluate every commitment and decision and ask “Why am I doing this?  What do I hope to achieve?  What do I want to get out of this?  How do I need to approach this in order to get my desired outcome?”
5. Taking on too much overhead and throwing money at your business without looking at your return on your investment.
6. Recreating the wheel.  There is a lot of good information available.  For most new entrepreneurs, it makes more sense to build your own website than to pay $9K for one.  But, it probably doesn’t make more sense to build your own blog than to pay $500 for one.
7. “Spray and Pray” advertising.  This is a common side effect of not being clear about your niche and not knowing who your target market is.
8. Networking ineffectively – expecting to “get something out of” simply attending some networking meetings.  This could also be called not following up.
9. Hiding behind SAFE sales strategies – advertisements, newsletters, handing out business cards, creating facebook events, etc.
10. Thinking that a new expert or another credential is what you need to succeed.  In some cases, an expert is very valuable, but many entrepreneurs make the mistake (at least once) of hiring someone or buying a program in order to avoid doing what they already know.
11. Not taking responsibility for your impact.  Blaming other people, organizations, advertising platforms, social media sites, etc for your lack of success.
12. Quitting too soon.  Doing something once and expecting it to payoff.
13. Not quitting soon enough.  Hope is not a good strategy.
14. Attempting to do everything yourself.  Stay in your strengths and outsource the rest.  I just hired a VA to do my billing, because I hate doing it.  It actually costs you more money for you to run certain parts of your business than it does to outsource them, and you will likely be more productive and make more money when you free yourself from tasks that drain you.

Okay, okay… I can count.  That’s fourteen, not seven.  I could edit the list, combine some things and drop some things and I’m not going to.  I also think it’s a good strategy to under promise and over deliver.  So, the extra seven are my gift to you.  Enjoy!

I was on a conference call with Chet Holmes recently, of “The Ultimate Sales Machine”.  By now, you have all at least heard of the concept of your target market or your ideal client.  The new information for me, though, was Chet’s break down of your target market’s current interest in buying now.

So, here’s how it breaks down:

30% of your TARGET Market is DEFINITELY not interested in buying right now!  That’s one third of your ideal clients, people.

30% of your target market THINKS they aren’t interested in buying right now.

30% of your target market isn’t even thinking about buying.

7% or your target market is open to the idea of buying, but needs some compelling reasons.

And only 3% is planning to BUY NOW!

So, how can you position yourself to be in front of your ideal client when they are ready to buy?  And how can you refine what you offer your target market to make more people interested in what you’re offering?

Chet offered an exercise that I thought was pretty compelling:

Imagine that I am going to put you in a room full of 50,000 people who are ALL your ideal client.  You get to get up on stage and deliver a speech to them, presumably with the intention to get them to buy your product or engage in your services.  Here’s the catch:  Your opening line needs to be the title of your speech and everyone will get the opportunity to get up and leave if they aren’t interested after you deliver your opening line.  What speech will you deliver?

I started with:
“I’m here to help you turn all the problems in your small business into opportunities.”

By the end of the call, I refined my topic to:

“The Seven Most Expensive Mistakes Women Entrepreneurs Make”

I’ll get that article to you soon!