- Recently, I was sitting in traffic along a busy section

of road near my home and noticed one of those signs spinners

standing out at the upcoming intersection,

attempting to lure customers to the local mattress store

in the adjacent strip mall.

When we think of the various sales and marketing approaches

we are exposed to every day,

seeing an approach like this reminded me

of just how important knowing your ideal customer is.

This is certainly the shotgun approach,

blasting a message to the masses in hopes

that one person out of 1,000 thinks, "Hey, you know what,

I wasn't really interested in a mattress,

but suddenly I am."

It's not a very effective approach,

yet companies and salespeople do it every day.

Instead of thinking about

how many possible people could buy your product

if all the stars aligned appropriately,

I want you to start thinking about who in the marketplace

is your product or service most likely to help quickly

and effectively solve a problem,

and then work backwards from there.

So what is an ideal customer, anyway?

An ideal customer could be described as:

A customer who values your product or service.

A customer whom you can make a profit from.

Sorry folks, but this is a business, ya got to make money,

or you won't be in business very long.

A customer who'd be willing to refer you

to other potential customers.

Start with the smallest market possible.

If you identify a very focused group of potential customers

that have the highest likely degree of success

with your product or service,

you will gain credibility faster

and be able to expand your customer base.

Think of your ideal customer through the ready, willing,

and able framework.

Let's take a look at them one at a time.

First, are they ready?

Issue: Do they have a problem that they need solved?

Awareness: Do they know they have a problem?

Motivation: Do they have a sense of urgency

to solve their problem?

Next up, are they willing? And this starts with timing.

Are they ready to solve the problem today?

Are they searching?

Are they currently looking for solutions

to solve their problem?

And finally, are they able?

The first category here is money.

Do they have the budget to solve the problem?

Next is authority.

Do they have permission or approval

or the decision-making authority

to actually solve the problem?

Now, how do we find these customers

that are ready, willing, and able?

Start by creating ideal customer personas or profiles.

Customer personas include the following information:

What's the ideal industry

your best potential customer is in?

The ideal title or experience that they have.

What's the ideal buying cycle for your product?

Meaning is the customer ready, willing,

and able to purchase your product when you need them to?

And then the ideal location, meaning your product

or solution is geographically aligned

to where your best customer is also located.

One of the easiest ways to get started

with customer personas is to build them

around your best current customers.

If you've got a handful of great customers today

who love and appreciate you and your product,

then you're going to want to clone 'em.

If you don't have this type of information

readily available, talk to the person responsible

for marketing at your company.

They should be able to provide you these types of profiles.

If you're a small business and you are both the sales

and marketing departments, you basically have two choices.

First, you can do the research yourself

with the help of Google, LinkedIn, and others.

Or you can hire a market research company

to help you build these target profiles based on your input

and their expertise.

Remember, the key is to find the narrowest group

of customers with whom you can develop a quick

and effective partnership by helping them solve

their urgent problem.

And you can expand from there.

(upbeat music)