by : Mike Cummings - Marketing Consultant
To some business owners, an ideal client is the one that pays his bill. To others, it's the customer who wants what you sell. To another, it's the customer who needs what you sell. All three could be accurate in your mind, but only one is truly an ideal client. Have you ever taken a look back at a transaction where everything went perfect from start to finish? The customer wasn't picky. They liked the selections you offered. They agreed with everything you told them. They didn't try to get a lower price and they even prepaid for all their services. When they left, you asked yourself, "Why did that exchange go so smoothly?"
The simple reason is some clients want your offer and some need your offer. The difference is huge. Prospects may or may not buy what they need, but they will always buy what they want, even in the current market conditions. Prospects make buying decisions based on emotions, “I want it. I'm buying it.” Needs, on the other hand, are based on logic, “I should get it, but I'll wait until I get paid.” When your product or service matches your prospect's specific wants, you have found an ideal client. If you are not invoking emotion into your sales process, don't expect to find ideal clients.
To find your ideal client, first you have to identify their demographic characteristics. This is the type of client that has a need to purchase your product or service. Characteristics that define the group of available candidates might include male, homeowner that are between the ages of 30 and 35. The next and more critical process is to identify the ideal client’s psychographics. These are the factors that identify the motivation or reasons why someone wants to buy the product or service (e.g., wants to have the newest technology, wants to create the image of success). You must discover what your ideal client’s hot buttons are and how to push them. Once you have this profile created, your job as a business owner is to create a match between the buyer’s psychographics and your product or service in their mind.
Now that we know who they are and what they want, the third step is to understand their decision- making process. Every decision starts with a reaction to an internal emotion such as fear, desire, scarcity or loss, or external influences like an advertisement, word-of-mouth referral or sales call. These reactions then turn into needs or wants.
For example, suppose you take your car to the same mechanic every time you change your oil and one day you discover that he's been ripping you off by using a lower grade oil and charging for a higher grade. Chances are you wouldn't go back. That decision was triggered by an internal emotion.
However, if you were pleased with your mechanic's level of service, it would take some form of external influence to get you to change to another mechanic. That external influence would probably take the form of an advertisement promising a substantially reduced price in exchange for greater service.
Can you see which of these two reactions is more powerful? It's internal emotions that are the most powerful factors in your client’s decision making process.
In every business, you will experience problems, concerns and frustrations with clients. These become hot button issues that they want or need to solve. If you can provide your client with a solution that satisfies those wants or needs, they'll buy from you every time.