Andy Neary breaks down how to find your best prospects by combining demographics like industry and job title with psychographics: their beliefs, values, and how they make decisions. Most salespeople focus only on measurable attributes and miss the fit that actually matters. Pick your favorite client, map their demographics, then write out their psychographics to find more like them.
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Everything we do in the world of sports is focused on the physical side, the demographics. Not enough time is spent on the mental side. And this is where I see so many good athletes with all the right measurements get recruited at all the right rate, all the right schools, and then they never give up the expectations because they're not a good psychographic fit.
So what the heck does this have to do with you and your business?
Well, it has everything to do with your business, because just like a high school baseball player is a prospect to a major college, you're that business in your town, that big city you've been trying to go after is your prospect for your book of business. And my question to you is, are you spending enough time understanding the psychographic fit for your agency?
If you think about the world of insurance and identifying an ideal prospect, there are two ways to do it. Demographics and psychographics.
Demographics are your prospects. Measurements, location, size, number of employees, number of revenue, industry.
What job title are you going after within that business, who's the decision maker? Those are all the demographics, the statistics, the measurements. But demographics alone cannot make an ideal prospect. I have never talked to an insurance producer in my coaching career that has, said Andy. My ideal prospect is ABC Manufacturing. Why? Because they're a manufacturer. The people I work with there are rude. They treat me like crap. They don't take any of the advice I give them. They never do what I want them to do. But they are my ideal prospect because they are a manufacturer. Said no one ever.
Demographics alone cannot identify an ideal prospect. And for my commercial risk advisors listening in, it goes for you specifically. A lot of commercial advisors focus on industry niches. Just because a prospect is within a specific industry does not mean they're a good fit for you. This is where psychographics come in.
Just like psychographics are the mental side of an athlete's makeup in sports, the psychographics are the mental side of the makeup of your ideal prospect.
Who is your ideal prospect? What do they stand for? What do they believe? How do they make decisions? Who are these people between the ears? This is how you identify your ideal prospect. So what I encourage you to do after listening to today's episode is sit down and take the time.
To figure out the psychographics of your ideal prospect. So let's talk about how you can do this.
If you want to open more doors with the right prospects, you have to have a clear understanding who your ideal fit is. Demographically, yes, but more importantly, psychographically.
So here's what I want you to do. I'm going to share an exercise with you that we share and do with our own clients. The first thing you want to do is you want to sit down and ask yourself, who is your favorite client today? If you had one client in your book of business that you could replicate over and over and over again, who would it be?
I want you to think about that. If you work in the B2B space, write down the name of the company. Write down the name of the decision maker you work with there. If you're in the B2C space, write down the name of the person you work with. Who is your favorite client today? Then you want to ask yourself, why? Why are they my favorite client? Now here is the only answer you cannot give. They are my favorite client because I make the most money on them. That is not the reason they are your favorite. The reason they're your favorite client is because they let you do your best work. So we've got to ask the two most important questions under the question of why are they my favorite client? Number one, what is their demographics? What's their measurements? Just like for a pitcher, it's height, weight, velocity. What are the measurements of your ideal prospect? Do you sell in a certain geographic market? Do you work with a specific industry? Do you work with companies with a certain number of employees or certain level of revenue?
Take time to sit down and make that list. Maybe it's the target decision maker within that organization. Do you work specifically with CFOs and COOs? Or do you work with HR professionals? Or a mix of both.
But remember, demographics alone cannot make for the ideal prospect. Now you got to do part two.
Write down the psychographics of your favorite client.
What do they believe when it comes to what you sell? How do they make decisions? What do they stand for as a company, as an individual?
Now, when I say what do they believe and what do they stand for? I'm not talking religion, politics, things like that. I'm talking more about what it is you help them with. What it is you sell them what it is, what problems you help them solve. What do they believe about those problems? What do they stand for? What are their opinions? You see, this is where the gold is. This is where your ideal prospect lies.
That's why they are your favorite, because you and that client have a psychographic alignment.
