Finding Your Ideal Customer Profile

Business brain, episode 501 for Wednesday, November 15, 2023. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take a few ideas, we crunch them, we analyze them, we dissect them all in the interest of tuning our business brains together, each and every episod so that we can keep on living those charmed lives. Sponsors for this episode include fastmail.com businessbrain where you're gonna go and get 10% off your first year of my favorite email provider. We'll talk more in depth about each of that. Each of about details about that in a little bit. For now, first day with the new mouth here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And out here in the Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean.

It's like 501 is like episode one. So. Yeah.

Yes. We're starting over, right?

We're starting. That's right. Yeah.

Nine years into it. Sure, why not?

Almost. Yeah, Try it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, we have to. Speaking of having hit episode 500, there's one thing we have not yet done, and that is we need to pick a winner. Shannon, for the MacBook Air that we are giving away.

How did people get entered to win that MacBook Air? Dave, tell us.

All they had to do was send in email to us at. Well, send in a comment, question, something for us to use in the show. The easiest way to do that is feedbackusinessbrain show. But of course, if you can find us other ways, that worked too. And anytime we used your comment or question or whatever in an episode, even if it was just sort of tangentially or quickly, we put you on the list. And then we actually held a drawing about five minutes ago. And it was a grand thing. Yes, it was amazing. We had all kind. There was, there was. There were flowers and fireworks and all kinds of other things.

Confetti. I'm still sweeping up the confetti.

It's going to be, dude, I've got glitter in places I can't even name. Yep, that's right. The other person who has glitter in places he can't name is Tony Geronimo. Tony, you are the winner of our contest. And we'll reach out to you to select your color of MacBook Air. So nice. Yeah, we'll go from there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thanks for sending those questions. And it's what drives the huge part of the show and that interaction. And we answered tons of questions for people. Even if it doesn't make it on the show, it's great to have that Dialogue going back and forth.

Yes, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And we'll, you know, we'll, we'll figure out something to do for, for 2024 as well, so.

For sure. Yeah, absolutely.

It's a fun thing.

That's great.

We like, we like giving stuff away, so bear that in mind. Speaking of things that came into feedback at BusinessBrain Show, Robert has a follow up from our discussion in episode 499 about different AIs that, that we're all using. And Robert says, I've been using ChatGPT to write website copy recently. I had a client go nuts in a good way because he was so surprised about how much I knew about tree removal and he now loves his website. But lately I find myself liking the results I get from Google's Bard better. Something about the language is less clunky. I'm going to have to try this. This is interesting.

Yeah, same.

Yeah. I tested Bard when it first came out, but I didn't really play with it much since then. So it's time to go back to dig back into it.

So I wonder, like, I pay for ChatGPT, the 4.0, whatever. So I wonder, I mean, does Bard have a paid version or is Google just.

I don't think so yet. But, but, you know, but maybe. Let me. I thought I had it up here. Yeah, I don't, I don't think there is a upgrade here on Bard. So. No, I don't, I don't think so. I don't think so.

Okay.

Which is interesting because the. I pay for. I also pay for ChatGPT and lately it's felt like it's really worth it to me because of the Dall e integration. Dall E3, the image generation. Like it, you know, I'm not going to renew my Shutterstock subscription for next.

Year because I have a lot to say about it because I. Yeah, I. After you and I had that discussion, I've used it.

Yeah.

Almost every day the last week. So there's. I'm glad you have the Shutterstock subscription through like mid next year because I thought. But by that time. Well, no, I'm hoping that some of the things. Yeah, yeah. And we could have a discussion about what it does. Well, what it doesn't.

But I think we should. Well, along those lines though, Robert continues, he says, for images, I've mostly been using Adobe's Firefly. I use it to create an image for Vape, World of Ocean, a small little shop and a small budget. But I use Firefly to create images of a vape pen circling the earth like a rocket ship satellite. I've also used Firefly to create a book jacket for an author with a complex concept and some images for a local carpet cleaner. Says, I like Firefly because I can upload my own images drawings to have it use my stu style. So the art looks like do that with Dolly. No. And that's where the art looks like he created it. It's. It's in his style. So he's just sort of having it iterate on what he does. I really like that. That's.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I gotta. I gotta play with Firefly more. I did not know Firefly came out a few months ago and I signed up to be on the waitlist for it. When I got Robert's email, I went and checked there is no more wait list. You just go use it. So I. I missed that, which is great. It's why we like to have these conversations. So thank you, Robert.

Oh, yeah.

Great stuff.

That's great. Good. Yeah.

Yeah. You were going to say something about have you used Firefly or anything like that?

No, I haven't. So. But this concept of being able to upload an image to match a style color palette, I mean, that's. That's huge. I wanted to do that with Dolly because like, well, once we nailed something, now I want to iterate and that's one of my complaints is that Dolly is. It's tough on iteration.

It is.

It tends to always want to change stuff that I was like, no, no, no, I like that. But I want you to remove this. And sometimes it gets it, but often it does not.

Super frustrating. I find with Dolly. Sometimes what I need to do is figure out where I am and start from scratch with a new query that incorporates all the things I've learned about what should have been in my first query to begin with. But we will have that conversation. I don't know, in a couple of weeks as we're experimenting with all of these engines so that we can go but feedback at businessbrain Show. Please send us your stuff. We'll pull it all together with our stuff and your stuff and we'll share it and we'll all learn together. All right, look, folks, let's talk email. It's essential, right? We can't run our businesses without it. But it can be a bit of a hassle, right? Privacy concerns, managing different accounts. It's a lot. And this is where our sponsor Fit Fast Mail comes in. They've been the champions of email Privacy for over 20 years. And what does that mean for you? No ads, no trackers, just your email, as it should be. With Fast Mail, you get your calendar, your email and your contacts all neatly packaged in one app and service. And their features. Game changers. Masked Email protects your real email address. Scheduled send lets you control when your emails go out and snooze. Well, just handy, right? And they've got various plans to suit everybody, whether it's for just personal use or your business needs, or all of the above. Worried about switching providers? Look, don't be. Fast Mail makes it super easy to move over from your current service. I did this with my email six or seven years ago. I've been on Fast Mail now and I migrated from Google like Gmail. I gave my Google credentials to Fastmail. It logged into my Gmail account, started slurping things over. I went to sleep. By the time I woke up in the morning, all my email was moved over. Everything was done. And then let's talk about customization. Folders, labels, custom swipes, themes. You can tailor everything to fit your style. Plus, with human support, always ready to help, you're never alone in your email journey. So if you're looking for an email provider that values privacy, productivity and personalization, Fast Mail is the way to go. To learn more, visit fastmail.com businessbrain for 10% off your first year and don't forget to follow them on Facebook, x Mastodon and LinkedIn. Fastmail simplifying email, prioritizing you and our thanks to Fast Mail for sponsoring this episode. All right, we got a note in from Tony, Tony Denke, different Tony than the one who just won our contest and says longtime listener, first time caller, great first he says for small retail service businesses, would you average ticket size of say, you know, $300 to $5,000. Would you try to create an ICP, an ideal customer profile to use when marketing to your audience? If so, do you know of any good guides or resources for small businesses to use to help create their ICPs? As many are more for out there are more for the B2B and medium to large businesses it seems. Thanks for the question, Tony. Shannon, you know anything about this ICP thing?

I do, I do. And you know it's, it's, it's a very important part of what trying to focus your energy and you know, trying to find out who's, who's coming in buying. If you have a retail location, who are you advertising to? What works, what doesn't. And the thing I would say before looking for Outside resources is to focus on inside. Because you really. The starting point for creating that customer profile of who your ideal customer is is the data that you probably already have. Right. And it's, you know, stuff about your current customers. And I don't know how much, you know, you might have Tony, but there's ways to get more as well. But obviously you know what they're buying and perhaps you have some demographic data, you know, where they live, you know how far they're driving to come. Get you will help you to create like a map for. Okay, people typically drive 10 miles, you know, or, you know, 20 miles. I don't, you know, whatever it is.

Yeah, yeah.

Distance, whatever it is. But I think the first step is to start figuring out what data you have. And then the second is how can you get more data? And I think an incentive to get you. You want those customers to give you more information like, you know, what preferences they have, what, what hobbies they have. Can you get age? Can you get gender? I mean, as much as you can get, what their interests are, as much as you can get is that's going to help you create this profile and get you closer and closer. But I think you have to incentivize it to get that data because I think most people. It's tough to get people to respond to surveys or different things.

So would you create a survey on your own, Shannon, or would you like. I, I know that survey creation is one of those things where if you don't have expertise in that, you wind up leading the witness, right? Like asking questions that aren't that are going to give you the answers you wanted to get as opposed the answers that you wished you would get, as opposed to the answers you wanted to get.

So, yeah, let's back it up and even just simplify it. Like if somebody buys something from you, let's say it would help you to know what their hobbies are, their age and maybe their gender for some reason or something like that, what they read. Well, you could just ask that when they're making a purchase. But you have to give them a reward for that information, right? You have to give them a charity. So is it. It could be like, for example, I just recently bought a chainsaw and for this new property that I have that needs a bunch of stuff cut down. And while I was there, great guy walked me through this whole thing, and I was just at like an ace hardware store. I didn't expect any of this. So I buy this saw. It's only a couple hundred Bucks. And this guy walks me over to the computer and I'm like, okay, here we go. I don't want to stay and fill out this computer.

I don't want to have lunch with this guy. I just wanted to change.

Correct. But he goes, hey, if you register right now, I can double your warranty. And I was like, oh, well, that's kind of cool.

I think that's a great idea.

Yeah, Nothing. And I said, okay, great. And then he says, hey, you know this company Stihl S T I H L that made this sauce? Look, they really want to make sure you buy the right gas for this thing. If you buy a gallon of their gas, which is completely overpriced. Right. It's special, whatever it is. But I. And this was after I'd already filled out all the information because I'm like, yeah, I'd like double. He, he says, if you buy a gallon of this gas was like 35 bucks. He goes, I can extend the warranty another year. So I was thinking, man, it's pretty good. So I gave up a bunch of information about myself. You know, I don't recall the specific questions, but they're building this profile as I'm there. Yeah, he bought the gas. Yes. He's. This is what you're going to do with it. You know, what your background is. Are you a consumer? Are you in the industry? All these kind of, you know, questions, and they're building their profile. Right. So that's where to start, I think, instead of out some other kind of resource, just basic, basic questions, and then you can like segment them based on what common characteristics that they have. Right. And one thing I say, you know, we're talking about AI a lot, but one of the GPTs that's I've been using more and more is this data analysis GPT. And if you export that kind of data, like into your spreadsheet and this kind of thing and tell the data analysis GPT what you want, it'll go create these models for you. And it will, it's very impressive. You know, it'll analyze their purchasing behavior. It'll tell you what the common characteristics are of your customers. Yep. And you can ask your questions like, what's the most important thing about whatever, you know, what are their needs? Or, you know, depending upon what questions you asked your customer. And, and the, the GPT data analysis, you know, I will help you develop that. So where it could have been using an outside company or something could be more expensive in the past. I mean, this is, you know, 20 bucks a month. And so gathering the data and updating it frequently because this is a fluid thing. Right. And it may turn out that you have multiple customer profiles based on, you know, I'm sure you, if you're selling things, you have customers that buy.

Yeah.

A specific, you know, specific thing.

Yeah, yeah, tag it, tag it that way. Look at the data in aggregate, but also look at it individually. I would also say, you know, as I'm giving this advice, I realize, you know, I'm back to my, I know nothing about surveys and, and I, the one thing I know is how difficult it is to do it and actually get valuable data.

Yeah, you remind me of that all the time when we, when we've tried to do it here, even on the show.

Yeah, it's tough. I mean, look, any data is better than no data, but knowing how you got it is really important. Did you happen to lead people the wrong way? And so, yeah, if you're not going to employ an expert in survey creation, at the very least do some research about survey creation and talk about it, you know, and maybe even ask chat GPT about it because there's just ways of crafting the queries so that you get objective information from these people where you're not pushing them one way or another. And if one of you out there is really good with this stuff, I'd love to have you on the show so we can talk about kind of some top level things about what people can do or what people should at least avoid when. Yeah. Feedback at businessbrain show. Yeah.

And, and you know, to Tony's point, you know, if you're a retail establishment, my thought process here is that you're going to have like an iPad right there, point of sale system. And those questions are going to be right after they're done right there. Say something like, hey, if, if you answer these five questions, I can give you X. I can, you know, double your warranty. I can give you this add on product that we normally charge 50 bucks for or whatever. I mean, I don't know what business that you're in, but I guarantee you there's something that people want that you could give them and they, you know, they would go, sure, I'll answer these five questions.

Yeah, right.

You know, so, and especially if they're in, you know, simple and innocuous, you know, that kind of thing.

Yeah, you want to keep it easy. There's. Yeah, there's all kinds of. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah. What's important for you and, and think of it backwards. Like, what do you. What would really be helpful? You know, maybe you don't need to know gender. Right. Maybe you don't need to know age or whatever. I don't know. You know, we had the taco guy on the show. I forget his name, but, man, one of the things I loved. Yeah, Manny, is it. You know, he was buying cell phone data to see how many people came into the. The strip mall to see if the location supported his. His restaurant. I was like, so obvious.

It's brilliant. I know. Yeah, I know.

So that's a great place to start. If you have information about, you know, setting up these ideal customer profiles. Share it feedbackusbrain show. We'll share it here on a future episode. And we'll keep talking about this because it is really important.

Absolutely. Like he said, feedback at businessbrain show. And make sure you check out fastmail.com businessbrain get that 10% off your first year. And do me a favor, huh? Keep living that charm life and tell somebody about the show. See you next time.