109- Who is your ideal client?
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Summary:
Who is your ‘ideal client?’ Have you ever tried to figure that out? It can really help your sanity and your business when you know exactly who you want your client to be. Today we discuss the ‘ideal client’, what that means, who that is, and the questions to ask when figuring it out.
Topics on this episode:
What is an ideal client?
Who is your ideal client?
Marketing to your ideal client
Keeping your ideal client
What to Expect from the Game Changers Summit, with Natasha O’Banion
Main take away? Doing a little introspection will go a long way to figuring out who you want to work with!
Links:
Check out the Game Changers Summit!
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
ideal client, client, business, people, pet, questions, dog, market, services, targeting, hire, pet sitters, confessional, day, person, means, membership, high end clients, care provider, instagram
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin, Natasha
Collin 00:17
I'm Collin.
Meghan 00:18
And I'm Meghan. And this is pet sitter confessional, and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. We would like to thank pet sitters associates for making this show possible. Hello, thank you so much for joining us today for Episode 109. Hello, if this is your first time, welcome, thank you so much. And if you are a returning listener, thank you so much. If you haven't already, please hit subscribe and your favorite podcast player. And we have a whole back catalogue of over 100 episodes we've been doing this for over a year now. And if you wouldn't mind going back and listening to those we have some great topical episodes, some excellent interviews with other pet care providers, and over 100 episodes, so you have lots of listening to do a lot. We would like to thank our monthly patrons, Jennifer and jack, thank you so much for supporting this show. And if you would like to know more about Patreon and what it means to become a patron, you can go to our website petsitter confessional comm slash support. Today we're going to talk about your ideal client, knowing what that means, who that is, how to find them, and how to keep them. When we talk about your ideal client, it can really mean many different things. The first one is what so understanding what an ideal client actually is.
Collin 01:44
So an ideal client could mean that they agree on your pricing, they're willing to pay the price that you want. So we charge a certain price, and they immediately are willing to pay for it. That sounds pretty ideal to me. They can also mean that a client that fits and understands our schedule that gets and understands our rules and our policies. These are clients that we love people who understand and abide by the policies that they've signed. An ideal client could also mean someone who appreciates your services and understands the immense value that they are getting whenever they pay for you.
Meghan 02:22
An ideal client also fits in with your vibe. And it meshes with the culture of your business. So if you have a culture of being outdoors, or more urban, or kind of sports related running, jogging, they would really jive with that. Maybe they have an active dog that really needs a lot of exercise that would fit in well with your culture of your business.
Collin 02:46
We would also say that an ideal client is also communicative. We love when clients communicate their needs, changes in schedules, upcoming expectations for bookings, and appreciative and showing things. An ideal client again, here is somebody who is communicating to which is back and forth. It's not just you putting things out into the ether, it's them responding and then being proactive, as well.
Meghan 03:12
your ideal client should also be kind, and nice to you and your staff, if you have them, which seems pretty obvious seems
03:19
pretty basic.
Meghan 03:20
But we as humans can not be so nice sometimes. And then your most ideal client of all is a client that hits all of these points. And that does it consistently, that can be a hard thing. But those clients are out there.
Collin 03:36
If we all had clients that communicated consistently, who appreciated our services, followed our policies and procedures, and did all of these things together, they would be people that we want to keep around. Another aspect of an ideal client is that it is very specific to you. So the second part of this conversation is identifying who your ideal client actually is.
Meghan 04:01
Right? So how you create in your mind, or if you write on a piece of paper, a description of your ideal client, you could look at your existing clientele. And think about who are the five people that you want to work with for the next 30 years. That's a long time. So make sure that the clients that you pick you really, really like them. And then think why do you want to work with them for the next 30 years? What makes them stand out? What makes them your ideal client, your best client that you have?
Collin 04:33
Yeah, right. If you start talking through these questions, ask those questions. Do they check all of the boxes that we mentioned above? Do they agree to those policies? Do they follow them? Maybe there's something special about them that you can't quite put your finger on but you just love being around them? They'll ask Do they always haggle over my prices because that that gets really exhausting. When you have a client who maybe they communicate maybe they are consistent In a lot of things, but every time you tell them a price, they always ask you can you do it for cheaper? And again, as I mentioned, being consistent communicating. And then a really important one is, do they fit with your culture with the vibe of your business, this can be hard to put down in a checklist in a checkbox or a table and see who fits and who doesn't. This is something that you really do understand as you interact with somebody as you get to know them, as you get to talk with them, to see if they make a contribution if they fit well, or if they don't.
Meghan 05:33
So again, if you have existing clients ask these questions I know I had just mentioned does do they fit with the culture and the vibe of your business? Previously, when we talked about what is an ideal client, but this is really cool. So looking at your existing clients, now, if you don't have existing clients to look at, then look at your services and your service area, matching those two things by thinking, who do I want to work with? We don't want to work with everyone. We've said that before, but we would be too busy. And that would be way too much of a headache. If you took on every dog and every cat in your city, you don't want that. So if you don't want to work with everyone, we inherently have to start narrowing down the field here to a different kind of clientele. And that just takes some business creativity, and some thinking, also some introspection on your part. Who do you personally like to be working with? It's at this point where we have to start kind of niching down our business by selecting the clientele we want to work with. Now, a lot of people are going to say that they only want to work with the high end clients, you would think that those clients are going to pay your high prices and be the most amenable, but sometimes they're not. Sometimes working with high end clients means that they come with a lot of expectations and a lot of responsibility because you are dealing with powerful people who expect excellence and won't sometimes take no for an answer. You also may only want to work with working dogs, or bird dogs, you may only want to work with people who live in a certain area, maybe urban dog owners. So asking yourself is your ideal client, a commuter, or someone that works from home? figuring out your ideal client may be a little tricky, but you may only want to work with people who have working dogs or bird dogs. And you may only want to work with people who live in a certain area like an urban dog owner.
Collin 07:37
Right? So you may start asking your questions about the client. Again, what we're trying to do is we're trying to build a profile of somebody who we would love to work with all these questions built into that, is your ideal client, a commuter? Maybe someone that works from home? Or they're mostly travelers, or do they are they older, do they skew younger, all of these kind of things. Again, we're just trying to build this profile of somebody who we want to be to take part in our business who we want to serve,
Meghan 08:04
finding your ideal client means targeting the specific person that you want to utilize your services. So this means first figuring out the services that you offer. So if you only offer dog walking, your ideal client is not going to be someone who owns a cat. Pretty simple. And after you write down what services you offer, then you need to look at the specific breed that you may want to take on. So for instance, you may only want to take care of large dogs. So your ideal client would not be targeting the local dogs and rescue group because those are not large breeds. Another easy way to know your client is if you only take care of cats, then you would not be targeting dog owners. Again, this is not very hard. It's just really being introspective and knowing what you want what you want for your business. And if you already have existing clients knowing who they are, and who you want to be targeting in the future. So after you find out what breed or size that you want to take care of, then you narrow it down by who you want your actual client to be. And this can mean knowing and targeting their specific age, their workplace, or maybe even getting as specific as their income.
Collin 09:18
Right so millennial an example of this are millennials millennials have the highest rate of dog ownership here in the US. And maybe you want to have clients between an example range between ages 25 to 35. And make $75,000 a year depending again, on where you live, what your market is like and who you're trying to market to. The reason we're getting so specific here about painting this picture of who your client is, is because when it comes time to market and get targeted ads, whether that's Whatever method you decide, the method that you choose to market will be dependent on what kind of client you have. So you can think of it if you've used Facebook ads before you And select all sorts of sliders and buttons and things to figure out exactly who you want that ad to be seen to. And unless you know who you want, that kind of gets meaningless and you end up wasting money on those kind of ads. So if your ideal client is a baby boomer who's 65 and older, retired, and you, you need to start going to events, targeting seniors and heavily use Facebook, because Facebook actually skews a lot older than a lot of people realize, when we're building this Client Profile. Part of that is, Where do they live? If you're in a densely populated area and only want to accommodate clients in a four block radius, then that suddenly becomes your ideal client based based on that radius. If you live in a different kind of area, your race is going to be bigger, which may encompass a broader range of people types and people groups. Again, they become your ideal client because they fit within that radius. There are a lot of different ways where you can back into who your ideal client is. Again, we're throwing out a lot of different examples here, but it's all dependent on your business, your location and the goals that you have.
Meghan 11:09
Before we continue, we'd like to give a special shout out to our sponsor pet sitters associates. As pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members, pet sitters associates is here to help for over 20 years, they have provided thousands of members with quality pet care insurance. And if you work in the pet care industry, which you do, you can turn your passion for pets into a profession and take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom and running your business. Learn why pet sitters associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote today at pet sit llc.com. You can get a discount when joining by clicking membership pet sitter confessional and use the discount code confessional at checkout to get $10 off, check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again, at pets@llc.com. A good question to ask is where does your ideal client work? Do they have kids? This is important to us. Because typically, if the client has kids or grandkids, then their pet will be fine around our kids. So that's really kind of a screening question going in? Also, has your ideal client hired a pet care provider before? Or is this their first time?
Collin 12:19
Yeah, and again, that gets at you market to that person very differently than you would market to somebody who's used a pet service. Before. This may sound like an awful lot, it may sound like it's just a bunch of mumbo jumbo. These questions don't mean anything. But businesses do this all of the time, especially car companies, you may not know this, but if you read press releases, car companies will typically tell you who they envision that their car is for. And they do that, because they know that they're trying to figure out who to market this to. So a lot of times you'll read this and we'll say something like this cars for a 44 year old graphic designer who lives in Nebraska and has to handle winters. Well, that means that that car is designed for a very particular person. And they only expect that that kind of person is going to buy it. So they design the car with someone very specific in mind and then are able to market it very specifically. So when we are designing services, when we are running our businesses, we need to have very specific people in mind so that we are solving their problems, we are giving them solutions and giving them peace of mind.
Meghan 13:28
So writing out a description of your ideal client is very important. Sometimes though, your hand may be forced based on where you live, or what you have most accessible to you, you may end up saying, well, all of my clients are in their mid 30s. There, they work from home in the tech industry, and they need midday dog walks. Because that's what they need at that time. So you can either think pie in the sky and go get it. Or you can see what you have and adapt to them. It could be that your ideal clients are not in the area where you want to work, they may be too far away from you. So you'll either need to hire into that area, or charge prices to travel to that area or figure out what is closer to home and what's going to work best for you and your business to maintain profitability.
Collin 14:23
Well, and this starts getting into the third part of when we were thinking of our ideal clients is once we know what an ideal client is, once we know who our ideal client is for our business, we then have to go get them. We didn't have to start marketing to them. So how do we do that? Well, you tell your story to them. This gets a little tricky because it's so unique to each and every single person and their business. But it is really, really important. Because if you don't understand who your client is, you'll never be able to market to them accordingly and you'll never be able to meet their needs. You'll never be To connect with them with your story, if you think you're talking to one person, but it's actually being put out to somebody else,
Meghan 15:07
and you'll continue to think that you are for everyone, you won't market for everyone, and you'll miss who you want to be working with. Mm hmm.
Collin 15:15
Yeah, it's about consistency, and hit rates, basically saying, I know, in order to get my clients, the one that I have in mind, I have to do XYZ and marketing, I know I have to do door hangers, I have to do Facebook ads, I have to do email newsletters with this particular kind of wording and these kind of pictures so that they get it and they know what they're getting. I have to be involved in certain kind of groups. Basically, it becomes this all encompassing way of acting, behaving, designing how you project into the world. And that's why it's really important to know who your business is, and what your business believes, and align it with your own personal beliefs. Because we have to be consistent, we have to be saying things that we believe in, so that our clients see that when we're telling them our story, they are able to connect with that, because we are being open and honest.
Meghan 16:12
And it's also, like you mentioned knowing who your ideal client is. But it's also knowing who your ideal client is not, there's going to be a lot more of the knots. And then of the ISS, if that makes sense. Yes, if that makes sense, because you know who you're not going after, if your ideal client is a millennial, you are not going after the baby boomers, you are not going after the retired people. So you can specifically target your messaging to those people. And this means both online and offline. Just because you have 1000, Facebook likes or 1000 Instagram followers, doesn't mean that they are your ideal client. This is really for Instagram, because just anybody can start following you. And you get those crazy spam accounts that keep following you anyway, if you run, at least we do. If you run Facebook ads, target only your ideal client. And one way to define your ideal client is to look at who is following you on Instagram, who's commenting on your Facebook feeds, connecting with you on LinkedIn who is really engaging with you. And obviously, they're going to need to live locally wherever you service. But the people who are really connecting with you on social media, maybe your ideal client,
Collin 17:29
right? Well, you mentioned offline too. And one way to do that is we mentioned very early on about having that five clients that you love and would like more of give them some business cards or flyers to those top five, or maybe those top 10 and ask them to pass them out to their friends, because typically people who are similar run in similar circles. Think about it, if you could have one client, bring on another client, that's an exact copy of them, because they run in the same circles, that would be awesome. And you can allow them to start targeting the people who you want to get each person bringing in more and more copies of themselves because they run in similar in similar circles. That means you're building in a better ideal client list. And you're not having to do most of that work.
Meghan 18:16
Now, of course, it's this is not a guarantee, this is not a foolproof plan, that there'll be the same client. But it's better than continuing to provide service to clients who don't respect your time or policies, or who you just don't want,
Collin 18:30
right. And in this, when somebody refer somebody to you, you give them a business card and they bring on somebody knew that that person who referred to the referral gets a bonus, they get X percent off their next booking or something like that,
Meghan 18:43
of course you run your business how you want to if you don't want to give a discount, then don't just just a suggestion, right? It also helps to identify their goals, identifying your ideal clients goals, do they want a tire dog at the end of the day, when they come home from work? Maybe then you suggest daycare, or if you don't provide daycare suggest to drop ins while they are gone. So they can get in their walks and exercise
Collin 19:10
alluded to this earlier, but identifying their pain points, things that they stress about things that they need solve that everybody has a problem. And we can help solve some of those. So maybe they have a puppy, they've got lots of energy, maybe they need house training, suggest resources for that and services that you could provide to help with that as well.
Meghan 19:30
So now that you are working with your ideal client, or are marketing to your ideal client, how do you maintain that relationship with them?
Collin 19:40
Well, they're your ideal client. So be their ideal pet care provider. And you do this in a couple different ways. You are communicative with them. You are openly talking about the failures, the successes, the problems, the how you overcame them with them. You're not holding anything back And you're letting them know how things are going when their dog is with you.
Meghan 20:03
Or even just updating them throughout the day, if you provide boarding, then sending pictures and videos and updates throughout the day,
Collin 20:12
that you're being dependable when you say you're going to be there at noon, or in your time window, you're there in that time window and your date. So they don't ever have to second guess whether you actually showed up or not.
Meghan 20:23
And then being consistent, being being reliable always being there, having the client always know that there is going to be someone there, whether it's you or one of your walkers, someone will always be there to fulfill their need. And then
Collin 20:37
the last one here, I think is really important. It's listening to their needs. It's getting feedback from them. When you ask, how was My How is the service? How was the stay listening, whenever they tell you that, if they say, Hey, you know, I would really appreciate if you offered this kind of new service, see if that could be beneficial to you. And if one person's asking for it, most likely somebody else would need it as well.
Meghan 21:01
Ultimately, your ideal client is someone who gets their exact needs met by what you are offering.
Collin 21:08
So let us know. If you've done a similar process to this. Let us know if you found your ideal client. Let's know how you market to them and how you Hey, everybody, we have Natasha Banyan back on to give us a little bit more information about the game changers summit that she's putting on in the first week of October and everything going on with that. So Natasha, thanks for joining us once again. And the first question I have is of this being online in this kind of fast pace interactions and fast paced information that's going to be coming out How can people prepare for this kind of summit. So
Natasha 21:44
the way to prepare is just have a good breakfast, I would say we are going to start first thing in the morning. So the show is going to happen for three days. It is available from 9am to 9pm. We're also going to have the speakers live interactive. So if you are up with us, you can talk live, engage, you can ask your questions, it's going to be pretty high. That's my thing. So just just be prepared to let go right in there. Anytime you want to learn something new, you got to ask, Someone once told me you're only as good as your questions. So no question is a stupid question. We are here for you. That's the reason we're putting on the show. So we can give as much feedback and input to our industry as we possibly can. So just come be prepared to have fun and be prepared to get takeaways and follow up if you also have a question of your own.
Collin 22:36
Right, having direct access to the speakers throughout the day is really huge, right? We expect to have those kind of interactions when you attend in person. So still being able to do that. And those questions, as you mentioned, no matter how small, insignificant or how silly you think it is, if you're thinking it, probably someone else has that same question too. So bring it up and don't walk away confused when you'd have direct access there.
Natasha 22:57
Yes, we want to engage that is a purpose of a summit. Again, we all miss kind of like the interaction, the online thing is happening. So we want to make our increasing experience as much as we make our virtual experience. So we're going to be there for you ready to get it done. Right. So how does the flow work
Collin 23:15
throughout the day? Are these back to back to back? Are their breaks for people throughout the day? What's that look?
Natasha 23:21
Yeah, so this is a summit not a conference. So on the summit is going to be three days the first day and the seventh is going to be start. So we have speakers talking all about how to kind of start your business you may have figured, you know, I jumped into this and may have had a game plan or not a game plan but either way, myself, we'll start the show, we'll kind of talk about starting your plan and sticking to it. Then we will have insurance providers that will come in and talk about the insurance of your business. So if you are aren't there, they will cover the insurance aspect to know a lot of us have had questions in our Facebook groups on what is covered what isn't covered. So we're going to get that squared away. Our automation for software that I love, we have pocket suite coming in, she's going to be talking all about how to run your business from your cell phone, which I've been doing for the past five years, so I cannot wait to share that with you guys. We have just a solopreneur that's going to knock down some of the stereotypes of only having to hire staff. We'll have myself that's all about staff. But then we'll also have Jess it's all about solopreneur ship so a little bit of both. And then if you haven't got your website just the way you like it or you do want to blog and work on your stos and contents not quite your thing. We have mckaela from pet marketing unleashed and she's going to talk all about it so first day is all about getting you started. The second day is this scale, my favorite. eo we have Sarah from Jaz HR if you are looking to hire on auto pilot, she is going to show you how to hire get your message board out there and get your knockout questions going. Just do your job and get applicants coming to your doorstep. That is one of my secret tips using Sarah and Jaz HR. We have my personal friend is Kayla from docs design. She's going to tell us all about branding. If you guys are now on her design membership group she gives a lot of free content away each week for us, but she's gonna go deeper on what it actually means to have a brand in your business. My partner's Collin and Maggie is going to go all into a marketing through podcasting as you guys know, they are knocking it out of the park. And we're so excited to hear what they have to say regarding their experience and how marketing has changed in the podcast world. Melanie as a virtual assistant if you guys have or haven't hired a virtual assistant please do so time management set it and forget it is what she is all about. So she will talk about hiring a VA our friend Miguel he's going to go on to military mindset overcoming obstacles Can't wait because we've needed him to see her and he's really inspiring. And one of our favorites Jamie true from financial literacy she's gonna go our PPP girl,
26:14
she's going to
Natasha 26:16
give us some quick nuggets on our money and our finances so I say to really exciting in a rolling all when is the final day on the sale we have Tori mystic from where I repeat, she's going to go all into Instagram I have dissected with her she's got all the tips we've shared. Also Virginia with bookkeeping, she's gonna talk about the difference between a county and a bookkeeper, it is actually a difference. We're gonna have Regina doing a lot of our q&a sessions, Lindsay and Miss Mallinder Instagram guru herself is going to talk all about community and what she's done to really grow it in such a small city. So we cannot wait to share this with you guys.
Collin 26:56
If you didn't get the notice there, there's a ton of information there. It's going to be jam packed and being able to interact with people and get all those type of questions and feedback and interaction with them. There's gonna be a lot of brains in the room and a lot of great people a lot of just wonderful, wonderful people sharing their information, sharing their experiences, it's going to be a lot of fun. We're so excited to be a part of it. And people can go to SS s summit.com to get signed up now and get that on their calendar so they can set that time aside, either.
Meghan 27:32
And if you want to get the all access membership, you can get 20% off with the code PSC 20 you can give us a call at 636-364-8260 or send us an email at feedback at pet sitter confessional.com or connect with us on any social media platform at pet sitter confessional. We would like to thank pet sitters associates for sponsoring this episode. We appreciate you taking your most valuable asset your time and listening to us today. It really means so much. And we thank you so much for all of your support that you have given us over the past over a year. And we can't wait to continue putting out new episodes every Monday and Wednesday. Thank you so much for listening, like
