I heard this saying recently, “you get the clients you deserve.” At first, I wasn’t sure what it meant so I dug a little deeper, but my conclusion was and still is, that this is 100% true.
Think about it, if you’re accepting low-paying, nit-picky clients and you’re not setting their expectations for how you actually like to work, you’re going to keep getting these types of clients who you don’t even enjoy working for. Conversely, if you stick to your guns with your prices, you set client expectations, and you emanate confidence and passion for what you do, you’re going to weed out the energy-drainers and only attract the type of clients that you actually want.
Sounds perfect, right? It really is as simple as that. If you want to attract the right kinds of clients – the ones who actually value what you do and are willing to pay for it – here is how you do it.
Step 1: Create a growth plan and strategy
Choose your ‘one big focus’ for your business for the year ahead. Maybe it’s to win X amount of clients or to reach a financial goal. Whatever it is, write it down and work backwards to create actions that you need to take every month, week, and day, to reach this goal.
Step 2: do a full client portfolio analysis
Make a spreadsheet of all your clients and go through them all individually. Record what you do for them, how long it takes, your profit margin, whether they are easy/medium/hard to work with, if you like working with them, and whether you’d be happy to lose them.
Step 3: create your client personas
Now you have identified your best clients, create a client persona/s. This should outline their age, gender, occupation, education, family/marital status, goals, values, personal aspirations, fears, challenges, and pain points. The more detailed you can be with this, the clearer the picture will be of who you are targeting, what they want, and how you should communicate with them.
Step 4: tailor your marketing to your client personas
The mistake that many business owners make is being too generic with their marketing. They want to cast as wide a net as possible to “appeal to more people,” but what ends up happening is they make no impact at all. When you have your client personas, adapt your marketing message to target them. You only want to win these types of clients so address their specific pain points and position yourself as the solution or the guide that can help them achieve their goals.
Step 5: ditch your ‘D’ clients
Look back at your client portfolio analysis and identify your A-B-C-D clients. Typically, they are as follows:
- Clients who make up 65% of your sales = A clients
- Clients who make up 20% of your sales = B clients
- Clients who make up 15% of your sales = C clients
D clients are those low-paying, nit-picking clients who you’re not really happy with and who don’t contribute a huge amount to your bottom line.
The last step in the process of attracting the right clients is to ditch these clients. Not only does this give you more time to go after the ones you actually want, but it makes room for them too so that you can provide them with the service they deserve.
