Sarah walks boutique owners through creating a customer persona by answering eight questions about your VIP customers: age, location, lifestyle, income, style. Name the persona and use it when buying at wholesale markets to avoid stocking things that won't sell and tying up cash on inventory nobody wants.
Hey guys, it's Sarah with the Booty cup. And I'm back today to talk to you about your customers. Everybody's asking, how do I find more customers? How do I make more sales? How do I attract more loyal customers? Well, there's a few exercises that we walk you through in Retail Bootcamp as well as in our Boutique Hub membership. But today I want to give you a few insights just to open your eyes on a couple questions that you can answer today that maybe will help you get to that next level and attract that customer and retain that customer. So therefore you can narrow your focus and you're not spread so wide, so thin trying to do everything and really attracting no one. So here are a couple things. I've got my notes. Take, take inventory of this. Who is that customer? Talk to me about, answer these questions. What do you notice about this person or a few of your select VIP customers? What is familiar about them? What is consistent about them? Answer that question first. Now, keeping in mind that customers are everywhere and this doesn't necessarily have to be just someone local to you, especially in the E commerce age, customers are absolutely everywhere. So it's okay to narrow that niche, focus down and really get tried and true about who you are and who you're serving. Number two, how old is this person? He or she, how old are they? What do they like to do? Where do they live? What and when I say where do they live? Like that could be all over the country, but in that space, Are they rural? Are they city? Right. Do what do they like to do with their free time? How old are they? What do they like to do with their free time? Are they a student? Are they a career person? Are they a mom? Tell me about their life. Next, number four, annual income. This is pretty important to kind of identify what the percent or what the, the range of their income would be, helping you to identify what their disposal income might be for you to shop with you. What would their income be? Give a couple ranges, Right, because you don't want to just narrow in on one specific thing and start to make assumptions. But it does help you get a better idea of who this customer is if you can better understand their income range. And the last thing, this is just another quick question, but what do they like to wear? Say, what do they like to wear on the weekends? What is their lifestyle like? And I know these are kind of dumb, dumb questions. You would think they're no brainers. But honestly, I will tell you the number one mistake. New retailers, especially new boutique owners, make when they go out and buy inventory is they fall in love with something that's really cute. If you can answer these eight questions and go back and really define this customer, then when you go to market and you're sourcing wholesale, you will find you're directed into a path that serves this particular customer. Because I can tell you when you get to these markets, there's so much out there. You can get spread way too wide, way too thin, and get attracted to all the pretty things, all the fun things, but it very well might not serve that ideal customer. And guys, if it doesn't serve that ideal customer, you're set back, you're sitting on old unsold inventory. And what happens with that unsold inventory is it's tying up your cash. So therefore, you don't have cash to go reinvest back into other inventory to serve that customer. So narrow the focus down. Answer those eight questions. Who is your ideal customer and how do you serve this person? And to just say, well, I think there are somebody between 18 to 65 and they live in the city and they like to go to the theater. That's not enough. We need to dive in and really get to know that customer. Give that customer a name. Give that customer the Persona. So when you're walking through market, whether you go to Dallas or Chicago or Atlanta or Vegas or LA or wherever you are, or you're on a wholesale marketplace and you see something, you have to say, does Sarah wear that? Does my customer, Sarah, who is a student in college, who has this amount of disposable income, who likes to go to games and hang out with their friends on the weekends, and likes to do this, this and this. Is that something that Sarah would need? Is that something that solves a solution that's a solution to Sarah? If it's not, you need to walk right past it. And you need to stay focused on the Sarahs that are your main customer so you can serve that person. Because if you start serving too many other people, Sarah is not going to feel like you really understand her. And then Sarah might start shopping somewhere else. Those are my tips for you today about understanding your ideal customer, really finding that person, serving them, and helping them understand that you are there to f to offer a solution for them, and then they will stay more loyal to you. And when they stay more loyal to you, you have more money in your pocket.
