In this solo talk, business designer Donna Brown challenges the common practice of creating detailed ideal‑client avatars that focus on superficial traits (hair color, latte preferences, etc.) and often result in a fictional persona. She argues that the first step to finding a true ideal client is deep self‑knowledge: identifying what you naturally do best, what you love, how you show up in groups, and the roles you gravitate toward (leader, facilitator, problem‑solver, etc.). She then advises extracting “nuggets” from past jobs, trainings, and certifications—looking beyond industry‑specific skills to the underlying learnings and strengths they reveal. By combining these self‑identified strengths, passions, and experience insights, you can craft a unique, authentic business model that reflects your “zone of genius.” Donna redefines the ideal client as the person who can receive and benefit from your highest‑quality work, analogous to a donut maker’s ideal client being someone who truly appreciates handmade, high‑quality donuts. The talk emphasizes that your business should support your expansion, mastery, and joy, and that you must first treat yourself as the primary client before connecting with others at a deep, heart‑level.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Donna Brown, business designer, mentor, and motivational speaker. I want to share with you a way of looking at your ideal clients that no one else shares with you, that nobody else really tells you. And you go through those painful exercises of creating an ideal client avatar and like their hair color and what earrings do they wear and what kind of lattes do they drink and what, you know, color is their hair. Do they have kids? What car do they drive? And all these things. And you give them names like Nancy or whatever, and then you start creating programs for this person. But that person that you've created, as you've created them, actually doesn't exist. And so that's the first disconnect. The way you've described them doesn't exist. And that— and you can feel that. And you've always had— you've all had those feelings, right, where you've tried to create a program or you've created this avatar and it's just like I don't know, it's like, is this my person? And, and they kind of feel strange and, and, and forced, right? There's a trick, and that's really to take a step back and to take the time to first know yourself, to describe yourself, to spend the time asking yourself what it is That I do best? What do I love to do? What is it that I do sort of naturally? What position do I fall into when I'm in a group? What, what are the dynamics? Am I the leader? Am I the person who facilitates? Am I the organizer? Or am I the person that everybody comes to for solutions? Am I the person that people come to for ideas or to make them feel better or to console them? Who am I? What What is it that I naturally do and what is it that I love to do? And when you connect with what you love to do and then you start looking at your past experience, like all the jobs you've had, all the trainings and certifications you've done, don't turn your back on them. Go back and look for the nuggets in there because there is gold in all those years and months of effort that you have taken and spent learning. Learning something new and working in a job, even in a corporate job. Go back. I would urge you to go back and write not just the skills specific to that industry, but what were you really learning there? What is it that you learned? It could be specific to an industry. It could be learning about publishing. It could be learning the process of publishing. It could be learning about how to create a collection, how to curate a collection of physical products. It could be any number of things. But it will speak to some strengths and some part of you that was happy to accept that job and excited and stayed there for a certain amount of time. Pull those nuggets out. Look at what you're doing now, even though you think they maybe have nothing to do with each other. And this is the fun part. And this is where— this is my zone of genius and where I just love showing people how they can journey into wholeness and bring everything together and create this unique, even quirky business model that is so them that it really helps them stand out in the marketplace. Because of course, that's one of our other challenges. But that's for another video. When you really sort of tune into how you naturally relate to the world, what is it that you do best? What do you like to do? How do you— what kinds of jobs have you had and what have they really been— what have you really been doing in those jobs? And what are you hoping to bring to your clients? When you can start to see how these all fit together and you can create something for yourself that makes you happy and allows you to be more you. I am a creative. I'm a designer. I love— I can see the big creative picture, but then I can just get into all the details of the roadmap and how things are done. That's me. That's me. I'm great at finding the market positioning of clients. I'm great at figuring out what their next step is, finding pockets of unexplored earning, things that they haven't really sort of kind of walked by and didn't really realize that that could actually be money earners for them. What's your special thing? What is that special thing that you do and how is it that you naturally show up in the world? How is it that you naturally relate to people? And to companies and to projects and the way you approach things. Now, your business is meant to support you in expanding in that expertise, in expanding in the exploration and play of the things that you love. It's not meant to be a whole slog the whole time. It's also supposed to be a little bit fun. And once you've decided what that is, and take your time, what is the business? What are the things that you can do now that will help you in your own journey of self-discovery, in your own journey of expansion, in your own journey of mastery and expertise and in joyfulness? Your ideal client quite simply is the person who needs to receive your best work so that they can do their best work. Now that's kind of a blanket definition and statement if you like, but if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. I can't— the person, if I make donuts, my ideal client is somebody who likes donuts. So my desire to express myself through donuts at my best, to make the best donuts I can possibly make. My ideal client is somebody who appreciates something that's handmade with good quality ingredients and is the best, and so that they can enjoy that to the fullest. They're not simply a mirror, as a lot of people will say, that that's you a few steps behind or a few years ago. Partially, but also not necessarily, right? So take the time to understand yourself first. Make yourself the first and most important client of your own business, and then find out and connect with at that very deep heart level who your ideal client truly is.
