What if your ideal client isn’t so ideal AFTER the sale?

As business owners, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to target our ideal clients, what messages to use to get them to buy, and how to close the deal.

But what happens after the sale?

Sometimes, we’re so focused on making the sale, we don’t stop to think about whether we want to work with an individual after they’ve purchased our products and services.

Case in point:

I was recently working with a client on their customer profile/avatar and she mentioned she’d been courting a client for FOUR YEARS.

On paper, this client was ideal.  Right industry, right business stage and size, and she had expressed interest in the service my client provided more than once.  In fact, she was the one to originally reach out to my client to initiate the relationship; and my client started the sales conversation process. My client invited her target to events; the woman was always too busy.  She invited her to webinars; the woman never engaged. She asked her to sign a contract; she was never quite ready and felt like she needed more information. And on, and on…

So, I asked my client “why are you working so hard to get someone who won’t even attend your events as a guest to be your client? What makes you think she will be any more engaged after the sale?”

Whoa.  My client later told me that was a real eye-opener. She had become so focused on making the sale, she wasn’t reading the signs that this woman was not, in fact, her ideal client at all.

Here’s the thing about ideal clients. They not only want to BUY your product or service, but once they have?  They:

  • Are your best referral partners
  • Engage with you in the way that you want them to
  • Will go on to buy your premium products and services
  • Rarely lodge complaints about delivery or value
  • Almost never complain about price

The old-fashioned way of targeting clients was through demographics.  Race, gender, religion, location, income, marital status and other statistical data that formed a two-dimensional picture of a person who might buy your products and services.

With the advent of the interwebs and its associated cookies and tracking software, we can dig deeper into individual buyer behaviors and interests to build avatars built on psychographics, which are much more detailed data about a person’s worldview and emotional drivers.  Now we consider things like the problems our products and services will solve for them; their goals and how they influence their buying decisions; and how their values align with the values we offer as business owners.  Combined with demographics, this gives us a three-dimensional image of who we want to serve.

These profiles and avatars are created with the goal of making the sale. I challenge my own clients to think further about how they want their IDEAL client to engage with them after the sale and ask questions like: is engagement with your client through social media important to you? Do you want your clients to prioritize attendance at events and programs? How do you want your client to integrate your product or service into their life? How often do you want them to interact with you on a daily/weekly/monthly basis?

We’ve all had clients who were real stinkers once they had signed on the bottom line and made their first payment.  They’re always calling.  They never respond. They’re too demanding.  They ghost you.

They’re not ideal.

It’s those clients that can suck the joy out of our business.

Take time to include post-purchase behaviors in your client avatar, and then create messaging the criteria to feed your funnel with those clients who you can’t wait to work with and who can’t wait to work with you (in just the way you want them to!).

 

Need help figuring out who your ideal client is?  Let’s schedule a chat to see how I can help! >>