Choose your dream clients & fire the ones that prevent you from delivering the right story to others.  – SETH GODIN

When someone asks ‘who do you really want‘ as a customer, is your answer ‘we want to sell to everyone’?

Do you hesitate to be bold & stand out from the crowd in case you alienate or “miss opportunities”?

How many times have you used the term ‘customer focused’ to describe your service?

The reality is that you are probably not working with your dream clients if these statements resonate with you.

Attracting your dream clients is not an accident – strategy is the art of sacrifice. But making a strategic choice to focus on one group is hard & scary. Which is why people shy away from it.

The reality is, that by being surgically clear you attract the people that really matter and they tell your story to people who think like you do.

PICKING THE ONES YOU WANT

It’s not a matter of who can benefit from what you sell. It’s about choosing the customers you’d like to have and delighting them. We only work with clients we love.

If someone doesn’t believe what we do, doesn’t respect us as partners to their business, doesn’t see the massive impact we can have as one team, then they are not the client we will want to win.

If we don’t want them to win we will not do our best work.

If we don’t do our best work we are not living our WHY.

So, who are your dream clients?

Tip: They do exist. They are not unicorns. (Unless, of course, they are a tech startup valued at a Billion dollars!)

Take a few minutes to answer these questions:

1. What are the personas of the customers who you do not want to work with?
2. Why do your current customers believe you are worth doing business with?
3. What do your dream clients need to believe about you, to decide you are worth doing business with?

Still confused? Marketing guru Seth Godin says:

Sell to angry cheapskates and your business will reflect that. On the other hand, when you find great customers, they will eagerly co-create with you. They will engage and invent and spread the word.

HOW DO YOU HOOK THEM IN?

Once you know who you want, understanding your customers is crucial to targeting.

What if you could describe how your targets say things, what they believed in & what their needs are? What would you do differently?

Everything you do should speak to the one person you are really there for – the dream customer. Go out and craft something just for them. Become a magnet for them.

Are you thinking – “But what about the others? Won’t this alienate them? We can’t afford to lose them.”

By trying to be all things to all people you will create a watered down proposition. Soon you will be delivering an average experience for an average client at an average price attracting average people.

You are better than that.

Put it this way. If GoPro said ‘we want to make personal cameras’ they would have become another electronics company competing against Canon, Nikon & Sony.

Instead, GoPro defined their dream customer as heroes & extreme adventurers – they focus their efforts on delighting these people. They have ended up with an exceptional product & a story that inspires.

Who doesn’t want to be a hero?

The extra time you put into a customer who fits the bill vs. the hours spent on the customer you never REALLY wanted but you spend hours trying to please.

That is not a good return on energy. It will drain your team and rub off onto the clients you love.

SO HOW WILL THIS DRIVE YOUR BUSINESS?

Unwavering focus leads to strategic choice.

So choose your dream clients with your pricing, your message, your promotion, your outreach and your products.

If everyone pulled in the same direction & understood the ethos of your dream client, what might it change about your results?

TO SUM UP

You will never attract everyone, and you shouldn’t try. You are fighting for a position in a crowded marketplace. It is time to stop being reactive, and start being proactive. Don’t accept that you will do business with anybody willing to pay you. Become a customer sniper. Profile them, target them and attract them. It is ok that some people won’t like you. Focus 80% of your energy on the 20% of customers that are your core audience. Not the other way around.