Know Your Client: Identifying Your Intended Audience And Target Client

Well, hello, uh, people of Fearless. Uh, so today we've got the avatar training, how to identify your perfect client. Uh, I think we're just going to get straight into it. Um, it's probably the best way forward. So basically, here's what I'm going to be covering on this video. So first of all, I'm going to go through what is not an avatar and the potential pitfalls when designing your avatar. It's better to know what not to do, I think, first, and then we can kind of focus on the positives and what is a good avatar, how to nail down your avatar, and then finally testing it out. Because sometimes people do all of the work on their avatar and then kind of don't really do anything with it. So I just want to make sure that everybody's kind of clear on exactly what it is that they, um, uh, to make sure that once they've developed their avatar, that it does make sense from a commercial perspective. So first and foremost, what's not an avatar? So you'll have all heard the term SME. So this is a massive bugbear of mine, and the reason for that is that basically there are 5.9 million businesses registered in the UK. I don't know how many there are worldwide, but I guess we can worry about that when I get my first international clients on board. And I just want you to kind of guess how many of those are defined as a large business. Yep, probably fewer than you thought, a lot fewer than you thought. There's only 6,000, I think, to 9,000 large businesses. So SME stands for small to medium enterprise, so I'm focusing on the large businesses. 6,000 to 9,000 out of 5.9 million. So essentially what that means is that SME isn't a target. It's all of the businesses. And it's far too vague, and as a result, your messaging will be vague. It's the same as kind of saying that, you know, if you're a B2C company, business, business-to-consumer business, that you help people. I think actually, you know, when there's 70 million people in a country and 5.9 registered small businesses, like, the reality is for most of us, you know, relatively agile small businesses, You guys don't need all of the clients. You just need a select few clients in order to create a really nice, profitable, sustainable business, okay? So it's really important that you don't piss me off and use the term SME. That's the first thing that I want you to think about. So, just give me one second. Here we go. So, next up I've got the pitfalls, basically. There's like 4 or 5 downsides, basically. If you get your avatar wrong, you'll never get clarity on exactly who it is that you're gonna serve. So, the first one is about being too vague and not being specific enough in the right areas. So, a lot of people, when they come to doing, like, developing an avatar, they kind of keep it, he's a man, 34 to 45, drives a Saab, and reads the Mail on Sunday, and maybe plays golf at the weekends. But actually, this doesn't really give us any useful information to be able to go out and target people, unless, for example, you were gonna, like, sponsor an event sponsored by Saab, sponsor a golf course, or put something into the Mail on Sunday, which nobody really advertises like that these days, you know, so, unless you're, like, a big, big business. So, also, like, second of all, like, being too wishy-washy and woo-woo, so, words or sentences like, My avatar is a strong individual who confidently goes through life. She commands respect from her peers, et cetera, et cetera. For me, it's kinda just a bit too vague. It's a bit too wishy-washy. We've got to be much, we've gotta get a lot more specificity in there. Like, be specific about the sorts of things that your clients go out to, and I'll be going into that sort of further on through this training. Also, one of the mistakes that you might be making is thinking that niching is bad. To choose a niche means, like, getting really focused on a specific target market and cutting out everybody else. So, like I said, there are 5.9 million businesses and 70 million people in the UK, 7 billion people in the world. You don't need to sell to all of those people. For most of us, we just need to, like, find a small select number of raving fans who really get exactly what it is that we do. You know, so try and niche where possible. And basically, you know, what happens if you get it wrong? Your messaging will be vague, your offer will be vague, you'll have tonnes of vague conversations and wonder what you're doing wrong and not selling anything. You'll do lots of, people will ask for coffee, and you'll leave the coffee meeting wondering what they did, they'll be wondering what you did, and, you know, you won't sell anything. So ultimately, like, defining your avatar is what leads on to how you go about selling and being able to convey the message about your products, your value proposition, making sure they understand your pricing, your value stack, and what they're gonna get, basically, for their money. So, what is an avatar? Worthwhile just doing a little, everybody loves a definition. Your avatar is your perfect customer. So, for our purposes right here and now, let's define an avatar as a person, singular, who embodies your perfect customer. They are the person who you are creating your business, your content, your products, and your services for, okay? And in fact, your avatar cannot wait for you to launch your business because what you're gonna provide them with is going to help solve the pain points and fill the informational void that they're currently experiencing. So it's gonna solve their biggest pain point and solve an informational gap that they need to fill in, basically, to make their business or their life grow. Hopefully, that kind of makes sense. So, you've gotta think about the perfect customer, okay? Not a group of customers, but the single perfect customer. So, a couple of things that you can do to— in order to kind of start to break down, like, you know, you will have, heard me talk about my Marketing 101, so identify your target market and ask the question, like, where do they hang out? Then you've got to go to them, then you've gotta show up regularly and often with the same consistent message, okay? So this is kinda like step 2 in that Marketing 101, it forms part of the avatar. So you've gotta identify, like, what are their favourite brands, what are their favourite websites, where do they go to get their breaking news, what apps do they use, what industry and business news do they look out for, you know, are they following, like, marketing or sales or financial or whatever, you know, are they looking for specific pieces of advice? Do they use Twitter? Do they use Facebook? Are they on LinkedIn? Are there other places where they hang out? What personal goals do they have? What business goals do they have? And finally, what family goals do they have? So, the last 3 there really is about, like, 'cause most of you who offer services, you know, in Fearless Business, service-client businesses, you will offer some kind of, like, transformation. So you'll be offering, like, this is where you are now, this is where you wanna get to. So you gotta be able to identify with what their personal, business, and family goals are, in order to be able to sell to them and understand them and understand, like, what their transformational journey looks like, okay? So, here's just, like, some numbers. Everybody knows I love numbers. So, one of the ways to think about it is to start off with a broad audience. So, like me, I work with service client businesses. Now, I've made these numbers up, alright? I was lazy, I didn't look, but you can go and grab some numbers, probably. Um, or work out, like, put some approximations in there. So I kind of guessed that there's 2.3 million service client businesses in the UK, okay, out of the 5.9 million businesses. Then, and we're going to come on to the problem a bit later on, but then, like, we've got to look at their problems. So these clients are stuck charging time for money, and, you know, out of the 2.3 million, I assume that there's 1.8 million businesses with this pain point. Then we've got to start to get a bit more specific, okay? So we go broad We look at their problem, and now we start to go more specific. Okay, so in here, and these are my avatars that I work with, so accountants, coaches, consultants, law firms, creative agencies, and freelancers. Okay, or if I was to do it singular, an accountant, a coach, a consultant, a law firm, a creative agency, a freelancer. Okay, and I know I've put, I do serve people sort of at the moment UK-wide, and and broader than that, but in this instance, I've kind of, you know, so you go from 2.3 million to 1.8 million, then in your specific audience, there's 158,000 in the UK, but then in Gloucestershire, there are 7,000 businesses. And then finally, we can nail down the exact companies that fit within that sort of avatar, that target market. So, and there's like 4 company names there that I've met up, of which there's one of each, okay? So what we're trying to do is just narrow down our audience. Um, and it might— you might feel like, well, gosh, if I've only got 7,000 companies that I can target— well, there's 2 ways of looking at this. Um, actually, in niching my avatar, I've kind of cut out nearly 2.3 million. But hey, you're still left with 7,000 potential clients there, okay? That's a lot. And if you only need 10 of them, or 20, or 100 of them to, to create a 6 or 7-figure business, then Like, that's, that's plenty a big enough pond to fish in. All right. So, um, what this training came out of was, um, uh, one of the Fearless clients, um, posted without really too much prompting that his avatar was potential soldiers and obstacle racers. Okay. So that's a really— you can't be more specific than that as an avatar. And there will be Facebook groups where both of those audiences hang out. There'll be pages which they like, so, you know, obstacle racers will be like MudRunner and things like that. So in this instance, and what I've also done is the solution, so we know what the problem is, and we've kinda wrapped that up in what the solution looks like. So potential soldiers and obstacle racers who need to be fit in 8 weeks, okay? So if you remember mine, mine is service-based, client service businesses who want to double their turnover in 6 months. Okay? Freelance graphic designers who want more money. Okay, we could be, I could be more specific there about the money, so who want to double their turnover, grow a 6-figure freelance business, or whatever it might be. In-house marketers who want to go freelance. Okay, or copywriters, or whatever it might be. 10-year smokers who want to quit. Alright, so hopefully this is kinda resonating with a few of you, and starting, you'll be starting to get a bit of clarity about kind of where I'm going with this. It will become more clear if you watch this video alongside the Facebook organic, like, learning, which I'm training, which I'm gonna do next. So keep an eye out for that. But hopefully this is starting to get you to be a bit more specific about who your perfect client is and where they hang out, what sort of problems they've got, okay? Just as a little exercise, I'd probably pause the video at this point, just grab a bit of paper, and maybe list the 3 problems your ideal customer is having, But specifically, which makes them an ideal customer for your business, alright? So, like, go deep on their pain points. Like, why is it a problem? Why wouldn't they wait until tomorrow to solve it? Why do they just wanna jump on that horse and, like, get it resolved today? It's really important, okay? So, go away and just think of those 3 problems, write them down on a bit of paper. Next up, start to think about, like, what's the worst thing that could possibly happen to your ideal customer if their problem isn't eventually solved? Okay, this is a bit like the fear setting exercise. If you haven't done that, go and check it out in the portal. Like, you know, what's the cost of not taking action, and what's the, you know, the worst possible thing that could happen if they don't take action? If their problem isn't eventually solved, where's it gonna leave them, okay? So, how's it gonna make your customer feel if their problem isn't solved? If you're in a B2B business, like, you know, in the corporate world, how might their boss react to that? What would their friends think, okay, if they don't get on and solve the problem? If they don't stop smoking, if they don't stop drinking, if they don't take control of their life, if they stop being a Moaning Minnie, if they don't make the money which, you know, their friends think that they earn, all of those sorts of things. What would their friends think? What could happen to their career or personal life if they don't solve this problem? What could be the financial consequences or costs for them not taking action? What could be the professional consequences? Could they lose their job? What could be the personal consequences, okay? You know, worst case scenario, could they lose their house? Could they get divorced? Could they not see their kids? You know, all of these things, like, the reality is, like, we don't talk about this stuff enough, but these are things that could actually happen. Secretly, like, what is your customer afraid of that they would never speak about? You've gotta get, like, deep down and dirty. In terms of nailing your avatar and understanding their pain point, okay? Then, like, as per the fear setting exercise, what's the best thing that could happen to your ideal customer if their problem is solved, okay? So, by the way, the last exercise on the previous page, this will help you identify where they might be going, what Facebook groups they might be joining, in order to get answers to their problems, okay? To get solutions to their problems. And that is where you need to start hanging out. Alright? So next up, so what is the best thing that could possibly happen to your ideal customer if their problem is solved? What would their perfect solution look like? And hopefully it's aligned with what your product or service looks like, your solution that you're offering looks like, okay? What is it that they really want more than anything else? What's gonna be a slam dunk for them? What would they be willing to pay almost anything for in order to get that result? Okay, in order to have that problem resolved? And how does your product or service match up to your customers' needs and desires? Okay, again, this will give you an indication about where you should be marketing, where you should be hanging out, where you should be starting to solve people's problems, okay, at a very basic level, very granular level. And how can your business help to solve your customers' problems? What is it that you are trying to provide to your customers? Okay? If you can start to answer these questions, you're starting to provide that solution to your clients. You're not solving their problem, but you'll be able to find ways of communicating your messaging to your avatar so that you build and create that connection, okay? So this is the last part of the video, or the learning, sorry. So this is around testing your avatar. Basically, this is a simple process of market research that you can test on multiple different avatars over a period of time, 'cause it might be that you select an avatar now and it just doesn't, it feels a bit like, It doesn't quite feel right, so what you might wanna do is choose, like, or test over a period of time several different avatars, and see which one produces the best results for your business, okay? So, simple, there's 3 steps basically in terms of market research. So, and you can do this just by, in the right groups, once you've built up rapport, asking questions, asking these 3 questions, okay? So, put the idea out there, pitch the solution, like, give the bit of background, so tell the problems that your avatar faces, pitch your solution, and then ask a very simple question. Do you like this product, service, or offer that I'm putting out there? Second question you ask, would you be willing to spend some money on it? Not how much at this point, but would you be willing to part with some money if I could solve this problem for you? Okay? And then finally, what you want to do then is show them the cost of not using your solution, and then ask them how much they would spend on it. Okay? So heaven if you do, hell if you don't. So the heaven if you do buy my product, you know, if we give you the solution guaranteed, how much would you be willing to spend on it? But then you've also got to, on the flip side of that, show them how much it's costing them by not taking action, okay? Because people have gotta see, you've gotta see both ends of the seesaw, both ends of the equation here, to work out whether your product or service is value for money or not, okay? Or your avatar needs to be able to be shown both sides of the argument. Cool, so lots of things to think about. What I'd suggest you do, 'cause you're gonna need to probably spend like an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours now just, Maybe just, like, open up a Word doc or get a notepad out, go back over this video and pause it at strategic points, okay, and start answering some of these questions, because this will help you to determine, define what your avatar looks like, which then leads on to the next video, which is about how we then go about doing our organic marketing in order to attract our avatar, our perfect avatar, to us, okay? Um, to put this into perspective, um, I went through this process. I, at the avatar, I designed, um, I designed my and wrote up my avatar. I did a post answering these 3 questions in it, and then I, I put a very simple, um, call to action at the bottom, which was just to book— if this resonated, book a call. Book the call. And closed a $7.5K client off the back of this, okay? So you guys can do this, guys and girls, you can do this, but you've gotta put the time into it in order to really deeply understand your customers. This is just, I'm gonna be honest, this is something that people just skip over normally, and they're not interested in, and then they wonder why they're not getting clients, okay? So this is like really, really important. If you can absolutely nail your avatar, then you're gonna be well on track to, you know, starting to create clients on demand. Okay, and automating, like, you know, basically attracting the right sorts of clients, 'cause basically what you're doing is connecting with them on a level whereby they can see that you really deeply understand their problems and pain points, and that you want to, there's a deep desire there and belief there that you can help them to come to a solution, okay, and to resolve those problems. Okay, it's not sleazy selling or anything like that. This is just a process of really understanding your perfect client, okay? So, go and crack on. If you've got feedback, chuck it into the Facebook group. If you want to, if you want me to kind of like run over your avatar, and also like if you're unsure about anything on the avatar side of things, like, do bring it into the weekly call and we'll run through it. Like, we'll just, Spend 5 or 10 minutes just discussing your product, your service offering, and whether your avatar kinda matches up with that, how easy we feel it is in order to attract that avatar, and what your next steps might be, whether the niche you've chosen is the right niche for you, and how you might go about testing that avatar. So, fire into the Facebook group, or, like I said, jump on the weekly call and we'll start to dissect it.