DIFFERENT TYPES OF CLIENTS?
It’s amazing how ‘defensive’ people can get when you ask who their ‘ideal’ client is!
“My clients are all different. They are men, and women, couples, some are young and some are over 50”
Yes, I get that, and are you sure they are all ‘ideal’ to work with, and ‘ideal’ for what you offer?
See, some Coaches & Consultants don’t want to let go of anybody because they are afraid they miss out on clients!
I’ll explore that scenario in another post, for this one, let’s take a look at what could be at play, if in fact, the clients are ‘all different’
With clients seemingly appearing to be all different, we need to ask this question:
WHAT is the ‘common denominator’ that connects these ‘different’ clients?
For example:
It appears, young and old, male and female buy McDonald’s meals.
Here is what these different types of people all have in common, and who McDonald’s see as their ideal client:
People who do not have the time or do not want to prepare food, workers on short lunch times and teens who are after a quick snack.
Now here is the interesting factor, McDonald’s marketing is not about time and it is not about ‘fast food’, it addresses the individual taste appeal factors, it shows how McDonald’s food is fun and part of a great lifestyle .
Digging deep into what the actual appeal is in going to get a McDonald’s meal, is the key to their targeted marketing. They are not targeting ‘anybody’ but specifically why the people mentioned earlier, want food fast.
In fact, digging deep is what I do in the very first session of my Write & Publish a Marketing Optimized Book in 6-Weeks or less, because just like MacDonald’s, we need to know who the ideal reader will be and what specifically they want to read in your book.
The common phrase Coaches and Consultants use, when writing a book, is to say:
‘My book is for everybody I work with’
Writing a book for ‘everybody’ will only work, when it is clear what exactly these people have in common and what they expect to read about.
Here is what often happens:
As an example, a mindset coach writes about why it is important to have the right mindset to achieve your dreams. Without addressing a specific group of people, like entrepreneurs with online businesses who want to break into the international market, or people who want to ask higher prices for their offers and are stuck in fear it could be too much to ask, and people won’t buy their offer, or people in employment who want to get promoted but are too shy and insecure in their own ability.
When the mindset coach has written and published the book, let’s say it’s titled:
‘The Importance of the Right Mindset to Achieve your Dreams’, he or she will discover disappointingly, no one, or at least, not many, people buy the book!
The mindset coach will be surprised about this, because the list of people who are looking for answers to overcome their limiting thinking, is long and yes, varied, as I showed in the paragraph earlier, yet the appeal is not there. And the mindset coach may have perceived to have ‘all different types of clients’ but missed digging deep into their various motivations and which one is common to all, if any.
Knowing and understanding people behaviour is part of marketing and missed when people in business only look to Google for marketing help.
This is the very reason I set up my Write & Publish a Marketing Optimized Book in 6-Weeks or less. Marketing must be part of planning a book, long before the first word is written.
For me it is always, first and foremost about marketing for two reasons:
I studied marketing as a comprehensive subject, not just one part of it, or just ‘googled’ it, and secondly, I’ve applied it first in my own businesses, in very different industries, such as Diamond Jewellery, and Office Supplies, and then with clients of my Marketing Agency, Stickybeak Marketing.
And with Marketing Optimized I mean, with my book writing clients I look at who exactly the book is to be written for, what it is the writer offers and who is looking for that offer. And to be clear, by offer I do not mean a package or program, but what it is the client achieves with or for their clients.
For the mindset coach, as example, looking at the existing clients, yes, they might be all different, the best option is to choose for a book topic and title something that appeals to their very best clients. Those that the mindset coach really wants to work with and has the best outcomes for.
And now to clarify, writing a book is of course not necessarily for the coach’s clients to buy and read but for prospects who would become clients. Those two scenarios do require a different approach in the planning, from the start.
This is done across the first 2 sessions of my Write & Publish a Marketing Optimized Book in 6-Weeks or less Program. The reason for this is, for session 2-6 we are a small group and people find it stimulating to share their own ideas about their clients with others in business.
In fact one of my clients said this about working in a group setting:
• “Not only did people offer insights that I had not thought of, but it was good to see my business through other people’s eyes, as a kind of relevance test.”
If you’re interested in working together so you can have a marketing optimized book that is going to give you the outcome you have in mind, simply send me a message.
I’ll ask you a few questions, share info about how we would work together, and if it’s a fit, we’ll get started.
If you’re not yet ready to write, I hope this post has given you a starting point for your planning.