It’s rare to find a business that doesn’t have customers that are a joy to work with and some they regret having taken on as a customer.
If you’d like to attract more of your fun customers and rid yourself of the others, it’s essential that you have a clear picture of who that ideal customer is.
What is an ideal customer?
To me, an ideal customer is one who is:
- Fun to work with.
- Values what I have to offer enough to pay a premium to get it.
- Values what I offer so highly that they’ll forgo other spending during difficult economic times to get what I have.
- Regularly refers people like them to me.
One of the advantages that you gain from attracting only an ideal customer is that you are able to generate greater profit with fewer sales. Indeed, my clients are able to hit their revenue goals with only 14% to 20% of the sales they previously needed…and at much higher profit margins.
So, how do you go about identifying your ideal customer?
Ideal customer profile
The vast majority of businesses use demographics to define their ideal customer. I’m going to suggest that demographics is not the best tool for accomplishing that…that psychographics is much better at attracting your ideal customer.
To illustrate my rationale for that statement, let’s assume that you own a Mercedes dealership. You know that your customers have six-figure incomes and live in certain zip codes. These are the demographics and they are accurate.
What demographics don’t explain is why there are people with six-figure incomes in these zip codes who are driving a Hummer, Lexus, BMW, Audi or other luxury car. Until you get to why, you don’t have a way of attracting your ideal customer.
Another way to delineate demographics and psychographics is: demographics get you to the stadium, psychographics get you to your seat.
What does a psychographic profile look like?
The simplest way for me to illustrate a psychographic profile is by sharing mine with you. My ideal customer is:
- Customer centric – they enjoy exceeding customer expectations.
- Dynamic – the prefer to initiate change than respond to it.
- Results-oriented – they like to outperform their competitors.
- Value-oriented – they know that they provide great value, but often don’t feel adequately compensated for that value.
The typical psychographic profile will identify four values, behaviors or characteristics that are indicative of your ideal customer. The number could be 3 or 5, but most often is 4.
You’ll notice that I defined each value, behavior or characteristic. That was intentional. I didn’t want to leave the terms open to interpretation.
Now that you have a sense of what a psychographic profile looks like, you are probably wondering “How do I create one?”
Creating a psychographic profile
A psychographic profile emerges from the triangulation of the responses to these questions:
- Why did you create the offerings you did? What did you feel was missing in the marketplace?
- Which of your customers is the most fun to work with? What makes them so much fun to work with.
- Who is your most profitable customer? Why are they willing to pay a premium to get what you offer…in good times and bad?
As you compare the responses to these questions, you’ll see that certain values, behaviors and characteristics are common to the responses to all of these questions. These form the basis of your ideal customer profile. Once you’ve identified, the elements of your ideal customer profile, define each of the terms to make it easier for others to see whether or not they fit the profile.
Employing your psychographic profile
As discussed in last week’s blog, including the psychographic profile of your ideal customer in your marketing messages…in all media you use…helps you attract your ideal customer and repel those who aren’t.
For those of you who may worry that you’re missing out on a revenue opportunity by repelling people who don’t fit the profile, go back to the opening sentence of this post and recall those customers who you later regretted having taken on as a customer. These are the folks you’ll be repelling.
The way that I employ my psychographic profile in my marketing messages is by saying “Where my clients and I enjoy the greatest success is when they possess these qualities.” Then I insert the profile just as it’s listed above.
It’s a non-threatening, non-judgmental way of letting the reader know whether or not we’re likely to be a good fit for one another; for it’s in the alignment of values that we’ll both enjoy great success.
I use the same language in my sales calls. Interestingly, in about 20% of the calls, the prospect asks “Do I qualify?” Talk about changing the dynamic of a sales call..they’re asking me if they qualify to work with me.
Even the other 80% realize that the decision about whether we’re going to work together isn’t going to be a unilateral decision. We’re going to decide, jointly, whether or not we’re going to work together.
This simple approach moves the dynamics of the relationship from customer/vendor to peer/partner. It’s one of the most powerful tools I’ve discovered for establishing the basis for long-term relationships with customers.
Takeaway
A psychographic profile will:
- Attract more of your ideal customers while repelling those who aren’t.
- Improve the ROI on your marketing dollars.
- Help you avoid wasting time and energy with “prospects” who’ll never buy.
- Lays the foundation for profitable, enjoyable long-term relationships with customers.
If you enjoyed this insight, please share it with friends and colleagues. They’ll appreciate that you’re thinking of them.
Resources
For a complete overview of Greater Profit/Fewer Sales concepts, check out Dale’s books, Pricing for Profit and Generate Greater Profit With Fewer Sales:
Even More Profitable training programs assure that your organization enjoys the benefits of being a Greater Profit/Fewer Sales organization.
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