Imagine being able to have an edge over your competitors. Coming in as an underdog, bootstrapping your way up, and actually gaining momentum so fast, others call it a Midas touch.
Why? Because each product or service that you launch turns into an amazing income stream for you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? For any entrepreneur, that would be the Holy Grail! Well, buckle up, because I’m about to make your day a little more awesome. How? By giving you a simple process that’ll help you figure out what makes your ideal clients tick.
This is like the secret sauce that many of us often struggle with, especially if we are stepping into an already competitive and saturated market.
I’ll let you in on a well-kept secret: The key to a far more rewarding, satisfying, and profitable business is to build genuine relationships with the right people. And the best way to achieve this is to say what usually goes unsaid in the context of business.
To share the intangibles of life and emotionally connect with those who are ready and hungry for your product or service is always going to set you apart from others in your space. That can only happen when you share the mission you serve and the motives that drive you as an individual.
Perhaps the most important aspect that’s often overlooked is aligning that mission and vision with your ideal client’s mission. This will enable you to relate to them in a more relevant way, and it places you in a position where you are then able to better help them achieve their goals. This is where truly understanding what makes your ideal client tick becomes essential.
Here’s how you start getting into the mind of your client
Step into the shoes of your ideal client for a moment, and see the world through their eyes.
It’s that simple, and it works all the time, every time. That’s how Walt Disney did it to find new insights when he was working on a new product or ride. And if it worked for him, I don’t see why we shouldn’t use it.
Your ideal client is the lifeline of your business. No clients, no business! Without them, your business won’t exist no matter how much you want to change the world. It doesn’t even matter how good your message is or how amazing your idea is.
So regardless of your niche or money goals, get your priorities straight and stop wasting time on shiny things online that don’t really help you connect with the small group of people who are hungry for your product or service. To get the wheel in motion for you, and end that frustrating pain we often experience while trying to come up with the right message to reach our audience, follow the example of Walt Disney.
The technique and approach for getting into the mind of your ideal client
Take a few minutes now to sit in silence, uninterrupted by people, desktop notifications, and so on.
Allow yourself to enter your mind into a space where you can have a visual or auditory conversation with the person you would most like to work with. This one person is the representation of that ideal client or the buyer persona you created. If you don’t know how to create a buyer persona, Neil Patel’s article does an amazing job walking you through each step.
Once you are in that zone where you can feel, hear and even see your ideal client sitting next to you, it’s time to ask and then listen in silence for the answers that come up. This might take a while before you get the hang of it. Practice makes perfect.
If your mind is weak and easily distracted, you might need to develop those mental muscles a bit more before you can reclaim this power of being able to hold mental meetings but if you keep at it, you’ll soon discover how much power and insight you already have. The listening part is just as important as the asking part. This article is more focused on guiding you on what to ask, so below are the six questions I recommend.
Six questions to ask while you’re in that mental space connecting with your ideal client:
Give him or her a name, if that makes you connect better.
- What motivates or inspires you to get out of bed each morning?
- What is most important to you right now?
- Who is the most important person in your life?
- What would you love to achieve before leaving this world?
- What do you really love about your life?
- What’s a fear that’s currently blocking your and making you play small?
Asking powerful, high-quality questions can lead to amazing income-producing results. Most people struggle with results in business because they’re unable to align their business goals with the “language” and desires of the customer.
While the above questions are simple and the technique super easy to experiment with, a little more clarity is perhaps needed so you can understand why asking these questions and performing this mental exercise does lead to greater success in your business.
It cannot be emphasized enough that you need to make “seeing through the eyes of your client” part of your business strategy. Especially when working on a new product or service. That means you need to hone down your ideal client and really understand his/her needs, wants, desires, aspirations, fears, and perceptions – at least as best as you can from where you stand.
This isn’t always easy. Ask most online marketers and they will advise you to “find people” in groups, forums, and so on, to ask them what they need. I’m not saying that’s a wrong strategy, but I am stating that it’s a hard way to play the long-term game of success.
There’s a much better starting point when honing down your ideal client. And it doesn’t require any external effort or desperate search for attention online. You simply carry out the entire experiment within your mind using your divinely given superpowers.
The great secret that trains your brain to win:
Dr. Jim Afremow, a sports psychology specialist says, “athletes who diligently train their minds play their best more consistently, experience greater enjoyment, and increase their odds of victory. As one progresses to the higher echelons of any sport, physical skills tend to balance out among competitors. How then, does the athlete distinguish himself or herself from the pack? It is here where we discover that having a superior mindset is the key to gaining the upper hand.”
You and I may not be professional athletes, but I am sure you can agree competition is stiff in the entrepreneurial space. There’s much to learn and emulate from the world of sports, and one of the key things is learning to train our minds to win.
The more we are able to consistently deliver on our products and services to the right people who love and enjoy that experience with us, the greater our long-term success will be in a highly competitive market place. Part of that training involves gaining clarity, in the mind about who we want to serve and how we can uniquely improve their current situation.
Your mental state will either lift you up or bring you down as you go about growing your business. This mental exercise is how we ensure that you always set yourself up for big wins. I shared six questions to help you gather enough information at the start.
For anyone looking to create or offer a product or service that produces income, these questions are vital. The answers you receive from doing this mental exercise will give you insights that affect your marketing message as well as your unique value proposition.
I can’t tell you how many entrepreneurs and freelancers attend my prosperity workshops frustrated over their lack of results.
The products and services they offer are great. Many of them actually invest quite heavily in paid advertising, expensive websites, and other marketing tools. The end consumer, however, remains unresponsive. Why?
Because often we are in such a rush to “sell our idea” that we don’t take the time to figure out what particular needs or desires our specific product or service could provide for our clients. If we are not clear on that, there will be no alignment with our desired client, because we won’t resonate with them.
So let’s break down each question for you so that as you carry out this experiment in your business, you’ll be setting the right intention and foundation for the responses that are sure to come.
1. What motivates or inspires you to get out of bed each morning?
In other words, what’s your M.O.? This is one of the silent deal-breakers when trying to connect with our clients. If we don’t know what drives our buyers, regardless of how good our offer is, they won’t be interested.
For example, if you create a marketing campaign for a tool that could help your client become a more productive businessman, but you don’t understand that his M.O is being a family man who can provide enough income so that his wife can stay at home full-time without having to work and his kids can attend a private school, then you might use flashy cars, half naked models, and partying scenes for your campaign, which will totally misalign with him. See the point here?
Ask this question with the intention of “feeling” and understanding what drives your ideal client.
2. What is most important to you right now?
This one touches more on the logic and ambitions of your ideal client. Human beings by default are dynamic beings. Our goals are also always changing. The goals I had five years ago are certainly not the same ones I have today. Have you noticed that those objectives are always shifting and changing?
It’s important to know what your client is hungry for now, because what he or she is hungry for is also what he or she is willing to invest in. If your product can help solve even part of it, you won’t ever need to “sell” anything.
3. Who is the most important person in your life right now?
This one touches more on their emotional side and, as we all know, buying is always an emotional thing. We try to justify with logic what we purchase, but the real decision is always done at an emotional level.
While having that mental conversation with your ideal client, do your best to figure out the people who touch an emotional nerve for them. If we take back the example stated earlier, that businessman will have no emotional resonance with half naked models, beautiful as they may be.
But if in your campaign the message implies a family related story, something about enjoying more free time and romance with his wife, or if you touch on children and why it’s important to offer them the best education – now you’re hitting all the right spots. So take your time and connect with your ideal clients’ environment and the people he or she is interacting with.
4. What would you love to achieve before leaving this world?
There is an innate human need for significance. We all want to feel like we matter and that what we do has meaning.
Each of us loves to feel like our time on earth counts for something, and if you can capture the essence of that in your marketing message, you’re sure to win. Remember, marketing isn’t about collecting leads and closing deals. It’s way more than that. Tap into this need, and you will always have a deeply resonating campaign.
5. What’s a fear that’s currently blocking you and making you play small?
Asking this question gives you a sneak peak into your client’s perceptions. The frame of mind he or she carries and the beliefs he or she holds will either become a stumbling block for you or a portal that makes you close deals faster.
The more you can know your client’s rational and irrational fears, the better your sales letters and unique value propositions will be, because you can address very specifically the very things they are struggling with in their own minds.
Conclusion
I know the logical approach often taught by online marketers is doing an actual survey, asking people from one of the Facebook groups you joined to tell you what they need, or getting on the phone with existing customers to milk out responses.
All these tips are great, and they all work. But they are rarely the best way for you to land ideal clients that invest long-term in your business. This is because starting with that physical activity is actually reversing the true creative process.
When you want to design and live life on your own terms, when permanent prosperity and a thriving business that withstands fluctuating markets is your objective, then the first connection with your client needs to be in your mind. The game of life is first played in the mind and then projected into time and space.
Learn to make the first contact with your ideal clients in your mind by asking high-quality questions and you will naturally smoke them out with your online marketing efforts, because each and every one of them will instantly resonate with the offer you put out. There are many more questions that can help you prime your mind, but this does offer a simple and effective starting point.
Now it’s your turn to share some golden nuggets. I would love to know the techniques and processes you’re applying to better connect with your ideal client, especially when starting out. Have you found other techniques that work?
Why not share one tip with our community in the comment box below or mention your reply on Twitter.
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