Defining Your Ideal Client: How to Work for Only the People Who are Your Target Audience
More than half of all new businesses fail within the first few years. I believe that this is due in part to the fact that these businesses never seek out their target audience and ideal clients. If you try to serve everyone you most likely will end up serving no one, so it is better to find a niche that you can market to directly. By marketing exclusively to these ideal clients you will end up with more work than you could ever have dreamed of getting.
I have a client who runs a handyman business. He works alone and does excellent work at a fair price. When I first began to work with him he told me that he could help anybody so everyone was his target audience. He was getting work but he was driving over three hours a day and having difficulty with many of the jobs he did. We sat down together and talked about his work. I asked him to tell me about some of the jobs he had done recently.He told me about a job that he had recently done installing tile flooring in a bathroom of a condominium that was on the second floor. It had been difficult to park inside of the complex and impossible to get his tile cutting machine upstairs so he spent many hours over a two day period going up and down the stairs to cut each tile. After some discussion he agreed that it was not in the best interest of his business to work in condominium or apartment complexes or to do tile work upstairs. He then told me about some work he had done for some very nice people about 40 miles from his home. They had been very accommodating with their time, purchased all of the materials in advance, and paid promptly when the work was complete that day. It took him over an hour to get home because there was so much traffic in the area where he lives. He told me a third story about a woman who lived alone and needed odd jobs done at her house from time to time. She lived about 5 miles from him and needed someone who could work on Saturday or in the evenings, which he was glad to do.
After working with this handyman we came up with his ideal client: It is a woman living alone in a home that she owns, or a couple where the man is unable or unwilling to do needed work around the home. They earn more than $50,000 per year and make repairs and upgrades on a regular basis. They live no more than 10-15 miles from his home. They live in a home that is at least five years old.The handyman told me that he did not believe that he could get enough work from this group of people alone and that he didn't know how to reach them. I showed him a simple marketing plan, both online and offline, that he could use to target only this group of people. After just two months he has almost doubled his income and is happier about his work. He only works for people who fall into his target audience and are ideal clients. He now turns down work from everyone else, allowing him to focus only on the customers that meet his criteria.
Defining you ideal client and target audience works. It will enable you to maximize your time and efforts for greater profits and a better working experience.
Connie Ragen Green is a small business marketer and consultant. For more ways to increase your business visit Source: http://ezinearticles.com/
North Korea halts nuclear disabling work over US terror list - MarketWatch
Boston Globe North Korea halts nuclear disabling work over US terror list MarketWatch - By Chris Oliver HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- North Korea said Tuesday it would halt work on disabling its nuclear facilities in protest at Washington's ... North Korea says it has halted disablement work at nuclear reactorDenver Convention Gets Under Way As Democrats Work on Roll-Call Deal - Wall Street Journal
Times Online Denver Convention Gets Under Way As Democrats Work on Roll-Call Deal Wall Street Journal - Obama and Hillary Clinton still struggling to work out the choreography for the formal roll call of the states that will make him -- a 47-year-old senator ... Video: Michelle Obama Shows Husband's Personal Side Staten Islanders in Denver think Clinton, Obama camps can work ... Steve Cochran has been volunteering to work for Democratic ... -Text of Michelle Obama's speech at the convention - The Associated Press
NECN Text of Michelle Obama's speech at the convention The Associated Press - And thanks to their faith and hard work , we both were able to go on to college. So I know firsthand from their lives and mine that the American dream ... Michelle Obama's Speech: I You Michelle Obama's speech was quite effective. Here were the five ...