Locate the ideal customer it is a fundamental step to make it economically sustainable for your business.
Put yourself in the shoes of your ideal customer not only has the function of ensuring the economic survival of your business, but also to set more effective your entrepreneurial mindset. You can broaden your horizons, from a vision in which the parts to be yourself and create products and services based on what you like to do, to a broader vision, in which the parties by the customer to create products or services that help him/her solve a problem or fulfill a desire.
You know that was even created a map of the empathy that you can use to explore in detail the feelings and sentiments of your ideal customer? Starting from the customer, it is necessary to know, as if I had the chance to come into his life and in his mind, to discover the desires and needs of secrets.
It is one of the concepts that I say most often to people who turn to me: “Get on your means to move from asking the question what can I take what I can give.”
Identifies the fears and secret desires of your ideal customer
Imagine being able to listen to the hidden thoughts of your customer, the deeper, that maybe does not reveal a high voice, and try to answer these two questions:
• What are the fears bigger than your ideal customer?
• What are at this moment, his greatest desires?
I'll give you a concrete example to better understand this mechanism of identification and to understand how to draw the profile of the ideal customer.
My ideal customer is an aspiring entrepreneur. At this moment, his fears, the larger the fear of failure and the fear of success. He fears that his business could not work, and, at the same time, fears that the success and the money they can change it and losing the people he has around him.
His greatest desires are to take a revenge on lifethat is not allowed, so far, to express to the end of his ability, and to leave a markto be remembered for the one that has managed to achieve.
As you can see, the fears and the desires of my ideal customer, are in part contradictory: on the one hand there is an urge toward self-realization and success, together with the desire to become a source of inspiration and have an impact on the lives of others, on the other hand, this expansion of life and this having to expose in the first person are not afraid of them.
It's completely normal that in the mind of a person that is starting a new business activity we have these types of thoughts and mixed feelings. An entrepreneur grows with your business, is responsible for his own success and should expose oneself to be able to communicate what you are doing. Knowing how to read and to give a voice to these thoughts is fundamental to be able to communicate in a very deep and empathetic with these people.
Your ideal customerwhen you know him well, is identified in your own words, one feels understood and encouraged by your proposals, he understands that you can trust youbecause you understand perfectly the situation is and you know exactly how she feels in this moment.
Try to perceive reality as your ideal customer
Then thinking like in your ideal customer and to perceive it as him/her reality with his five senses:
• VIEW: what you see through his eyes? Who is around him/her? What and who observes? What to watch or read?
• HEARING: what to hear through his ears? Who are they and what do they say about the people around him/her?
• FEEL: what actions does physically? What is today? Which of the objects he has at hand, and prefer to touch?
• SMELL: what sensations perceived in the environment? Wearing perfume?
• TASTE: what flavors do you prefer?
Also in this case, I'll give you a concrete example.
My ideal customer it is a stylish woman who loves the brand, and loves to study its characteristics. When is a walk in the town, you stop to take a look at the shop windows, not only to see the news, but also because he wants to understand why some activities work and the other not. You always ask why in front of the shop there is the row, and because the other is empty. The like to understand the behind-the-scenes, that is, what are the mechanisms and strategies that lie behind the the success of a brand. She likes to read all about the business, the marketing and the personal growth.
To my ideal customer love to observe people on the street and they feel attracted by the personality particular, that stand for some detail in the clothing or in the carriage. It's very curious and likes to steal fragments of conversation among the people during the day. Likes starting from these fragments of the story in order to imagine the stories of these people. The like to get into welcoming places, with delicate scents and relaxing, and like to give special scents thinking about the personality of the person who receives the gift.
She loves Italian cuisine class, and sometimes at the dinner in the michelin star restaurants. Not exclude, however, the good taverns with traditional cuisine and, when traveling, loves to experiment with the flavours of the cuisine of other countries as a means to get closer to the local culture.
He spent many hours at the computer, but loves to feel the paper of the books under the fingers, she loves to tap fabrics and fun to cut out pictures from magazines to create whiteboards ispirazionali with its goals and objectives.
What do you think of this description? Not to know it?
Communicate your solutions to your ideal customer
Try now to imagine your ideal customer that walks and talks next to you, what would be his conversation, his tone of voice, her style?
Talking with him/her and starting to get to know him better, find what are the points of contact among you, in order to understand how and is able to help the most right now:
• In which starting situation can you find it? What can you share of your situation?
• What is the desired situation from your ideal customer and what is its goal? How you can help him reach his goal?
The greater the knowledge of your ideal customer and the most effective and targeted will be all your communication, online and off-line, because the people with whom you speak will feel, hear, and understand deeply.
Once you know exactly what are the the preferences of your ideal customer and what you need, you will be able to reach it with your targeted messages and be able to attract towards you the persons concerned what you're offering.
It may seem difficult or too much to do this just so detailed, but, especially if you're in a launch phase of your business, thebiggest mistake that you can do is to apply equally to all, without being perceived in a different way than your competition. Contact all of it, is to not go to anyone: do not come to be perceived as unique and sink in the sea of undifferentiated competitors.
The ideal customer is the other side of the coin of your personal brandingthat helps to stand out compared to your competitors: the success of your business is in the match between their needs and your solution.
If I had to make the identikit of my ideal customer I would say that it is a woman who has decided to get over 40 years and that has left a job as an employee in which she felt trapped and not valued. And’ one woman's courageous and determined that it has been able to overcome the fear of making the big jump, that he has not listened to the opinions of his family members or colleagues who sought to discourage, and that has made this decision alone. A woman who has opened her own business because it is ambitious, and is not satisfied, that wants to be realized from the point of view of economic and carve out more time for herself and her family, who has devoted much energy to the other and now he wants to take revenge on life and finally do something for herself.
My ideal customer she is the one who opened the task based on his or her passions, but after the initial enthusiasm, has had to deal with reality.
The life of a freelancer is much more difficult as he had imagined: there are a lot of responsibility and a lot of duties to attend to, from customer acquisition, to accounting, to marketing. Although it is very good in her work and is equipped with a unique quality, has no clear his idea differentiating and it makes it hard to reach out to potential customers.
There are moments in which the activity seems to take off and suddenly stops. This instability leads her to have many emotional ups and downs, and thinking to give it all up. Then his vocation is so strong that it motivates you to not give up and to seek a solution to its problems, and so it is put in the computer and begins to search for sites about women entrepreneurship to find someone who can help her.
What do you think of this description? It's pretty realistic, right? Maybe you've even recognized in some of the statements.
This ideal customer it is credible because it's a bit like me, reminds me of me some time ago, when I was stuck in the wheel of the hamster of a professional life that does not belong to me most and I decided to go to a coach. This ideal customer I can understand it thoroughly, and almost read the thoughts because I have lived a similar situation to his, and I can empathically to get in tune with her desires, and deepest needs.
To create a Business I started from what I would have wanted to find me when I started, a unique route, which combines coaching and training for the women entrepreneurs who want to bring their business to the next level, saving time and errors.
If you're curious to learn more about this path, you can request to free session with me!
I wish you all the best!
