What makes an ideal client? — Kelford Labs Daily

I often talk about finding your “ideal” customers, but what does that even mean?

Does that mean the people you simply like the best?

Or the clients with the most money?

Or the clients with the simplest problems to solve?

What do I mean when I say ideal?

For me, it usually comes down to at least three factors:

1) Shared roles: What job or role do your most common, best clients share?

2) Shared value: How do your best clients know they got what they paid for?

3) Shared values: What personality or purchasing traits do your best clients tend to share?

First, your ideal customers or clients probably share a role in their organization or in their life. If you’re trying to communicate and demonstrate value across many different roles (everywhere from CEO to junior contributor) or responsibilities (everyone from HR to marketing), it’ll be much harder to build credibility.

Second, your ideal clients or customers probably share a perspective on how they judge value. Perhaps that’s based solely on price-per-unit, or perhaps it’s based on long-term value. Whatever it is, it’s much easier to focus on one definition of value in the eyes of the buyer rather than try to convince and persuade everyone individually that you’re the best value for them.

Third, your ideal buyers probably share personality traits or buying preferences that you can focus on. They might be analytical readers and researchers who want to understand the full picture. Or they might be quick-to-decision risktakers. You can demonstrate value much more effectively when you know the particular quirks and preferences of your buying group, rather than finding out on the fly in every sales conversation.

There are other ways of finding the customer who’s ideal for you, but these questions give you an easy place to start.

From here, use your curiosity and investigative instincts to find more commonalities and overlaps between your best projects and purchases.

And keep focusing further.