Andy Neary explains that identifying ideal business prospects requires both demographics (measurable attributes like industry, size, location, decision-maker title) and psychographics (beliefs, decision-making styles, values related to what you sell). He uses a sports analogy to show how psychographic fit predicts long-term success and offers a simple exercise: pick your favorite client, list their demographics, then write their psychographics (what they believe, how they decide, what they stand for). Finally, he advises using your own opinions and psychographics in marketing content to attract more aligned prospects and improve sales conversations.
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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. Because if I spun the question back on you, what do you believe about what you sell? What's your opinions? What do you stand for? I can almost guarantee you're going to provide the same Answers as you would for your ideal client.
Which leads us to the last part of this podcast today. If you have a clear understanding who your psychographic fit is, who is your ideal client psychographically? Now, you have to do everything you can to go find more like it. And how do you do that? You do it in your marketing. And here's how I want you to think about it.
By identifying a prospect demographically. Demographically, what you're doing is you are creating a lineup of prospects. Imagine all of your prospects that fit the demographics lining up against a wall, just like suspects in a criminal case.
The psychographics are what's going to get the right ones to take a step forward. So how do you get the right prospects to take a step forward? You have to use and talk about the psychographics more in your content, whether that's social media content, email content, webinar content, whatever it might be. You have to talk about the psychographics of your ideal prospect more often. One of the easiest ways to do that.
Is share your own psychographics. What do you believe? What do you stand for? What are your opinions about what you sell? What do you think the problems are that you solve? Are you talking about those enough or are you trying to be down the middle, trying to be too vanilla? You see, to win in content today, to use content to turn connections into conversations and conversations into clients, you have to put more of your opinion. You have to have a stance on something to ultimately find your ideal prospect. Now, here's the truth. Yes, you might turn some prospects off.
Some prospects might not find themselves aligned with what you have to say. And that's okay, because they were never going to do business with you anyways. But man, when you put more of what you believe, what you stand for into your content, the right ones are going to take that step forward. They're going to raise their hand, and you are going to have better sales conversations. In fact, that sales training I talked about at the beginning of the podcast, the outdated training gets kind of taken care of when you are bringing the right prospects into your pipeline, prospects who are psychographically aligned with you.
So my ask of you leaving today's podcast is quit trying to be all things to all people. Quit being scared to have an opinion to, to talk about what you stand for when it comes to what you sell, because those are the two keys that are going to help you identify the right people.
