Find, attract, and work with your ideal client: build your Customer Profile

1. Course introduction: It was a classic misstep. When Lauren first started her estate planning law firm, she and her partner accepted any client of any sort with any meet. After all, it was a brand new business. They needed clients to get that initial growth. So it wasn't the time to be picky fast forward a few years, Lauren, her partner and old 12 of their employees are working around the clock non-stop and yet never seem to get it right. There's always a client complaint, there's always a missed deadline. Something seems to always be going wrong despite all the hard work, all the effort and their expertise, they just never seem able to please their clients appropriately. When I met Lauren and talk to her about this problem, I asked her to describe one client she does like working with. Now remember as she side before taking a sip of her coffee and sort of thinking about it. And she said, you know, there is one clients and it was all my clients could be more like Paul. It turns out that Paul is the client who always answered e-mails and phone calls on time. He always sent the documents requested to deadlines. You always understood what he was being sent for review and if he didn't, he was able to ask the right questions. And most importantly, Lauren liked the work. The things that Paul needed done were the parts of the work that Lauren enjoyed the most Hall was Lauren's ideal client. So we did something we started slowly and socially referring the bulk of her clients on to other estate planning firms who better cater to their particular needs. And we shifted Lauren's focus on finding more Paul's. How did we do this? We did it by creating her customer profile, identifying exactly who Paul is, where he is, how he behaves, and how Lauren and her firm could connect with all of the paul's out there. On average in business, 50% of marketing spend is wasted on bad leads. These are all of the clients who don't pay you on time or aren't happy with your work, or don't really know what they want or don't communicate well or asking for something that is not exactly what you do. They're not bad people. They're not even bad clients. They're just bad clients for you. They are not door. Paul, this course is going to teach you how to identify your own Paul and create the description of your poll that you can use to get out there in the real-world and find more pulse. But not just that, you will learn how to speak Paul's language. You will learn how to connect with Paul out there in the real-world so that your efforts are always finding and attracting and conversing all of your pulse. Join me on this course to build your own customer profile, one that is based on preferences, needs, and on behaviors. Your comprehensive customer profile is going to include a description of why your clients like working with you, what's in it for them, a better understanding of what exactly your clients struggle with, why it's a problem for them and why they want you to solve that problem. Your customers particular language, how to make yourself understood. What you say is not about what you say, it's about what your customer hears and also a description of the full experience of working with you so that you can communicate that and presented to those poles that want to work in exactly that way. 2. Who is it for: This course is for anybody who is developing business and relationships. And this might include small business owners who don't just do the craft of the business, but are also attracting the main clients, sales professionals whose job it is to get out there and build those relationships and bring in great sales practitioners in professional services who are generally responsible for their own book of business, because that business is based on that direct relationship, account managers whose responsibility it is to nurture those relationships and speak that language and maintain those connections to grow those accounts and keep them happy. And customer service professionals who also are tasked with making clients happy, the better they can understand those client's preferences and needs, the better they can serve them directly. If anything in their describes you and your work and your efforts, then this course is for you, see the next videos for an explanation of how the course works and what you can expect, as well as the final project that you will compile going through this course. It's a journey through which we will first deconstruct your idea of your POL, your ideal clients. And then we'll put it back together in a way that you can utilize immediately. 3. What to expect: This course is made up of lessons, homework, and a final project, and this is what you can expect throughout the curriculum, video lessons with the core concepts. Every lesson for something new will also include a worksheet so that you can employ that right away. Work on an exercise which brings me to the worksheets. These are to guide your thoughts. You can download the ones that I present or recreate your own in Excel or in a Word document. The purpose of the worksheet is to give you a structure so that you can take what you've learned in the lesson and use it right away for your own business. There are also some articles on given topics. These are taken primarily from my blog and from my book, and they support the rest of the material that you are learning. Occasionally, I may add an additional resource, a link to an assessment worksheet, or a summary of what you've been learning. If there is more that you want from any of these particular resources, simply let me know my e-mail addresses and the description of this video. And you can reach out at anytime to request additional resources or additional lessons. 4. Why me: I am a small business and I spent most of my career working in small businesses, but I've also spent a large part of that career catering to corporations and large businesses. I've seen both sides. One thing that small businesses and large businesses have in common is understanding their clients. Everybody in business has to understand their client. The nature of that client might change for small businesses and sales professionals, the clients are people external to them, but incorporations you will find plenty of departments who are catering to their colleagues, another department within the same organization. They still need to understand that client. They still need to be able to describe the client preferences and how they serve them. A customer profile is a universal tool in business, but how to get one that is truly functional, that drives action. I could be sitting at a table with five other woman who fit my exact description. My same age, they live in my same postcode. They were born my same month. They do a similar job. They like the same TV shows, they like the same foods, and yet a particular service provider making sure to only one of us, we may have completely different preferences when it comes to one service or product over another and make all of my coffee and a stove top yell at him, aka the person next to me prefers a fancy cappuccino machine that they have on their countertop in their kitchen. The reason we each have that particular preference has nothing to do with a demographic description. It has everything to do with our past experience and our preferences and our behaviours. That is how I learned to build customer profiles, going deeper and understanding what is driving buying decisions. This is the method I have used for building customer profiles in all of my businesses. And it is the method that I use with my clients. Now, every business who uses this method can follow some of the same reasoning and yet create completely bespoke customer profiles that works specifically for your business. And when you're done, I've remained a resource. I am alive person. You can contact me to request additional lessons and additional resources and you can hire me for a consultation to review your final project 2, it's time to get started. Jump into the pre-game section of this course. 5. Pre Game: The point of understanding your customer is to create a profitable connection between that customer and your product. Side note, I will call it product throughout the course, even if what you sell is a service. I'm doing this for simplicity sake, but also I do want to get you thinking about your service as a product, something simple to explain in package. In this pre-game section of the course, we want to get you in the correct frame of mind to do the rest of the work. And since the rest of the course is all about your client, let's start with a quick look at your product, that thing, which you will want to get in front of that ideal client. Let's stop thinking about it though as your product and learn instead to think about the problems you solve for your customer. That's what we're tackling in this pre-game section. 6. Why build a customer profile: Why should you bother building a customer profile? It turns out I have a fairly simple answer to that. It's because 50% of marketing budget is said to be wasted. An unqualified leads, 50 per cent. Think about what that means of all of the money that you spend, half of it is wasted, thrown out, which means that half of your time of your efforts and your resources are also completely wasted in your marketing efforts. A customer profile will get rid of this problem. It will tell you who to target, and you must know who to target. Don't think that everybody is your customer. That's not correct. Everybody is not your customer. Take as an example, this CPA. A CPA could easily say, of course, everybody is my customer. Everybody has to file their taxes. And that much is true, but it does not mean that of all of those people, every single one is that CPAs ideal client. Because people are different. Some people will buy based on price only. They just want the cheapest option available. Is that CPA the most competitive pricing or not? Some people prefer to use online software. They just don't want to talk to people unless they don't have to. They're not going to hire a CPA. Some people want as little interaction as possible. Some people want as much interaction as possible. And each CPA knows which one of those they offer or which one they prefer. Some people are perfectly organized and consent over all the information they have, whereas others are going to need the CPA who can wade through shoe boxes of receipts. And that's just a few examples of how buyers, even for universal service, like a CPA, are different. That's always worth having a customer profile so that you can identify the people with the correct need. The people that need your services in the way that you offer them. They have the correct buying journey. They want to work in the same way that you work and the way they buy will match how you sell and how you deliver your services. Because they have the correct expectations. You know that the way you each work and communicate and interact is going to match and it's going to be a great relationship. You want a customer persona, you want your customer profile, because having a strong customer profile means finding and connecting directly with people. You can relate to, people you can have a conversation with where you're speaking the same language, where you understand one another and have the same expectations. It also means you're talking to people who are interested. They not only have the need of the thing you do, but the specific need that matches how you do business. And of course, because you want to talk to buyers, not tire kickers, you want to spend your time on the people who will actually buy from you, that the people who are going to ultimately turn around and buy it from the other guy. And this is why you want to build your ideal customer profile. 7. Who are your worst clients: Let's take a quick moment to think about some of the traits of your worst customers. If building a customer profile is about knowing who you want to target, then it's also about knowing who you don't want to target. Some of those features will be the obvious ones, like whether or not you are competing on price versus quality of service versus level of service and so on. But there are some universal traits of the worst customers and you need to be aware of these so you know, when not to take a customer on, or perhaps even when it's time to fire a customer. You don't want to work with customers who do not communicate. If you don't know what they're thinking, then there's no way that you can make them happy. These are clients who simply don't respond to any of your e-mails or your voicemails or your texts, you need to get something from them and you just can never actually get it. But it also includes the clients that communicate incorrectly. In short, if every touch point you have with this client results in a lost in translation moment, then they're not the right client for you. You don't want to work with clients who don't know what they want. These are clients who are not able to make concrete and firm decisions. And when they do that, they're just setting you up for failure. It's also the client who asks for endless revisions are countless remakes of the things you're doing. The client who can never make up their mind. What's tricky about the client who doesn't know what they want is another way that that exhibits itself is in the client who loves everything that you do without question. A client should occasionally have a question or a comment or a request as they analyze your work and sign off on it. If everything is always accepted as is, without any deep analysis, you get the feeling the client isn't really looking at it, then you risk for the problems down the road when they do, take a closer look at it and think of all those questions, comments, and requests that they should have asked way sooner. And finally, of course, the client who doesn't pay. The client doesn't pay, but they always have a reason, so to speak. Now, every client is allowed a glitch or a distraction or a moment's error. This isn't about the person who is late paying an invoice one time. This is about the customer with whom every single invoice is a problem. And generally it's always a different problem. There's always a reason, as I say, but you're starting to suspect that they are excuses rather than reasons. Don't spend time on clients who don't pay you, or who never pay on time, or who never accept an invoice without querying what's on it. Once they have shown you a pattern of pay resistant behavior, than know that that's what they're going to do every time and it's probably time for you to move on. Don't be afraid of identifying the worst clients for you as well. It's all part of knowing how to identify the best clients. 8. Nobody wants to buy your product: Nobody wants to buy your product. Nobody buys for fun, or to do you a favor. Nobody is buying a can of Coca-Cola out of concern for the Coca-Cola Company's end of your results. They want to quench their thirst with something sweet. Nobody buys a website without carrying what goes on that website. They want to have an online presence or a store front or communication channel. Nobody hires a plumber to not come over and fix something. They want something fixed, probably a leak. People by an outcome, they bite the result of your product or service. That is the solution that you provide. Quenched thirst or client communication or a fixed leak. What you sell, what you do, doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what you solve for your clients. The first step in understanding your customers is to understand what you solve for them. In other words, how they are thinking of your product. They are looking for a solution. To get you primed for the exercises to come throughout this course. Take a moment to write out, how does your client describe success? What is a successful outcome to them? How would they talk about that? And how do you contribute to that success? What is it that you do that gets them where they want to be? Use the worksheet that you'll find right after this lesson to give this a quick try for yourself. 9. Jargon removal (worksheet with project): I have one more exercise I want you to try before we get started. In fact, I recommend that you try this exercise now and then come back to it again at the end of the course and try it one more time. See what's changed for you. I call this the jargon removal exercise. I do this anytime I am working on the loyal customer side of my offering. In other words, anytime a business hires me to improve their connection with clients through customer profiles, value proposition, communication and more. Here's what I want you to do. Write out what you do for a living. Give it a few sentences. What I'm looking for is a short paragraph that explains your product, what you offer, how you work, what you do. Once you've done that, I want you to go through that text and circle all the words that are industry specific to your job, to your industry. They might be common or even mainstream words. But in these sentences, they are specifically about your work. Once you've circled those words, I want you to rewrite that short paragraph without using any of those words. I want you to find replacements for those words that are not about your industry. I can give you some examples. I did this exercise with a room full of mortgage brokers and I made them remove the words mortgage, investment, interest rates, downpayment, and financing. They had to talk about what they do without using any of the words you're seeing on this list, and of course, real estate. Another example is when I did this with financial advisors and we removed the words stocks, investments for retirement portfolio, and even savings account. One woman in the room struggled particularly with that. But once we started talking about putting your money in a place where you let it sit for a while. And because you've made a commitment to leave it, a little bit more money gets added to that pile every month. It started to click for her at that point. Yes, it's long-winded, but it made her understand that her clients see it in that second way. Use the worksheet that you'll find after this lesson and give this a try. It's really not as easy as it might first seem. It is a good step in moving out of your own context and into your customers context. See what you can do. 10. Wants and needs intro: Think back to all of your time in business and try to remember if you've ever said a version of the sentence. My clients don't know what they want. I have to help them figure it out. Perhaps you've been to a training that taught you that, or maybe you've heard somebody else in your business say that. I hear it quite often and when I ask people to elaborate on that sentiment, they'll say something to the effect of my clients come to me asking for one thing. But then as we're talking, I realized that they need something different. Note the change in words there. I realized that they need something different, but then they express that as my clients don't know what they want. I put it to you that your clients know exactly what they want. They don't know what they need. Let me explain this difference. What your clients want is their own success. They want a certain business outcome or life outcome. They want something that is actually going to happen long after they've finished working with you. Your product, your service is a means to an end. In order to achieve that thing that they want. Your clients need your expertise. They need your product, they need your service. And you are the experts in the product that you provide. These are two different things, what your clients want and what they meet. Your clients know the first part, what they want. They don't know the second part what they need. And rightly so because if they had all the answers about what they need, well, then they wouldn't need you. What they talking about, what a client wants versus what a client needs is using two different types of language. It's important to use both, but in the correct context. Understanding the difference between what your clients want and what your clients need is the first step in understanding who your ideal clients is. I want to share a few examples I've taken from websites at random of wording that focuses on what clients need instead of what they want. This is an example for an SEO company, their website states, we help our clients to optimize their website to generate organic traffic. A business that is not in the business of search engine optimization is probably not sitting around talking about wanting to optimize their website or wanting to generate organic traffic. They're probably sitting around talking about how can they get the phone to ring more? How can they get more purchase requests through their website? How can they get more interaction? That's what they want, even if what they need in order to achieve that is website optimization and SEO services that create organic traffic. A second example from a CPA firm, which reads, our client accounting services team offers a unique bridge between the data required by management and the capital allocation needed to produce, analyze, and react to the demands of ever changing business environments. Once again, most businesses are not sitting around saying, we should probably find a CPA firm that can create a bridge between our data and the capital allocation that we need. Know that company, that client's company is more likely sitting around talking about, why do we keep hemorrhaging cash? Or why are we never making as much profit as I think we should be? Or why are my tax bills always a surprise? And a third example from a marketing strategy firm. Our firm provides companies with the roadmap to implement strategic marketing initiatives to drive a heightened customer experience across every customer interaction. Their clients are probably not thinking about marketing initiatives and heightened customer experience. That might even be the language that they use when they come to talk to the marketing agency because that's what they saw on the website. But when they're trying to fix the problem, the problem they're trying to fix is about better communication with clients, broader reach to the market. Why do not enough people know that we exist? Why do people not understand what it is that we do? Why do we never get repeat business from customers? Why are we only closing 10 percent of our proposals? And I'll add an extra example which is any website or language that uses the word leverage. In these examples, these businesses are all talking about what they do, but not what the client actually buys. Remember in the previous section, how we made that difference. These websites are talking about what the client needs, not what the client wants. As long as a business is focused only on what the client needs. In other words, only what that business does, then that business going to struggle to fully define their ideal customer profile because they're not thinking like their customers. They're not putting themselves into the context in which their customers operate. In this section of your course, we will do some in-depth exercises so you can understand these differences. And you're going to create a distinct description of what your customers want, what your customers need to achieve, what they want, and what your customers fear that might make it difficult for them to make a decision. 11. What your clients want (worksheet with project): What do you sell? No, wait, that's a trick question. Most people answered it by saying the thing that they do, I sell SEO services or I sell shoes or I sell bookkeeping services? And yes, as we established in the previous lesson, that's not what people actually buy. People will only buy the things that they want to buy. They associate that product with their long-term goals. And while they are exchanging money for your product, they're actually thinking about more website traffic or running marathons, or no longer having to use QuickBooks. Those are the things that they are buying. It's that outcome that they're guessing. Because that outcome is the thing that they want and people only buy what they want. So let's work to understand what your clients want. Start with that initial question. Take your service or product and say what it is. I sell shoes or it's SEO services. Have that in your mind and now answer the questions of what your clients actually want. In a business-to-business environment, they will want things like having more clients, having better clients, having more time, saving money, making money, more productive employees, more recognition. Being the first, being the best. Your clients want, what they want, understand and articulate what it is that your clients want to achieve. To do this, we have an exercise, and I want you to spend some time on this exercise. It's not as easy as it might initially seem, because we tend to get caught in our own jargon, in our own universe. And what I'm asking you to do is step outside of yourself and truly pretend to be your clients. This should be pushing the limits of your comfort zone. And so the questions I'm about to explain using the worksheet that you'll find after this lesson to work your way through this particular exercise. First of all, describe your client's ultimate desired outcome. How is it that they would describe this image of success? What do they want to know? What do they want to do, and how do they want to feel. Then explain how this client actually came to call you. What is the journey that they went through? What prompted that phone call or action to contact you? What happened just before that? What was the need that was brewing? And what were they working on just before that? What was the initial trigger to this whole journey for them? Finally, write down how they are going to use your products. Why are they going to use your product? What is their desired results? What's ultimately, do they want out of this entire experience? Grab the next worksheets and spend some time on this. 12. What your clients need (worksheet with project): What do you sell? Good back to that first answer from the previous lesson, the one that I said was wrong. You're allowed to talk about that now because that thing that you do, that's what your clients need. And that's what we're talking about in this lesson. What your clients need is your area of expertise. It's what you know how to do. Who's your technical ability, and it is your experience applied to the client situation. It allows them to achieve the thing that they want. This is the connection between you and your client. What is it that you know that your client doesn't know? What does your client needs to have in order to achieve their desired goal. So what do your clients need in order to achieve what they want? As we saw in the previous lesson. Maybe they need a better websites. Maybe they need a written sales process. Perhaps they need training and development. Maybe taken altogether, they need a lot less software, or in fact they need more software. Perhaps they need more reporting, or they need better exposure to the market. Maybe what they need right now is a whole set of new products or to enter a new market. How are you connecting the dots between what your clients want and the service that you provide. Your clients understand their world better than you do, but you understand your craft that are then your clients do. That's why they need you. Here, you must define what your clients need in order to achieve their desired goal. We've got an exercise to describe what it is that your client needs. But note that challenge as we learned in the previous section, I want you to talk about what you do without using the jargon of what you do because we are still in your customer contexts. So grab your worksheet from the previous section and make a note of all those words that you are not allowed to use in this upcoming exercise, you'll find the worksheet for this right after this lesson. And in this exercise, I want you to write out what your client needs. Start by taking that previous exercise and make a list, summary list of all those things that your client wants. Now next to each of those, right? What they need in order to achieve those particular ones. Just make a matching list. This will get you thinking about your expertise at how it matches up to their wants. And again, without using your jargon. Once you've completed this list, describe how your client is going to use your product to achieve what they want. What is it that you do that allows your client to get where they want to get. For example, a web development or web support agency might sell code and plugins and integrations and system updates and security. But the problems that solving is more clients for that end clients. But our storytelling, easier scheduling of appointments, answering FAQs, and so on and so forth. That's the difference between what you sell and what you solve. 13. What your clients fear (worksheet with project): We have established what your clients want and we've established what your clients need. We must also address the fact that your clients will have fears. Every decision caries risk the decision to make a purchase. The decision not to make a purchase, the decision to do nothing at all. The decision to wait a little bit longer, the decision to jump right in without wishing, there's always a possibility of a negative consequence. To truly understand your customer context, you must also understand what that customer fears, what might be holding them back, worrying them, keeping them up at night. Those fears will strongly influence their decision-making and you want to understand how they are making decisions. So let's delve into your client fears. For this third exercise, I want you to make a list. All those fears your clients will have, whether they are open fears, subconscious fears, and anything in between. Start by listing all the risks that exist for your clients in buying from you. Be honest and be realistic. Think about The time that it will require of them. How long it takes to get to know you, make a decision about your purchase and then receive the benefits of your product. Think about the loss of funds they have to pay. You. Think about the displacement of resources. If they're spending time and people and money on you, where are those time people in money not going? And think about the opportunity for misunderstandings in terms of what they're buying and what their expectations are. On the other hand, completing these exercises and this course means that those miscommunications will stop happening. Once you've answered the risks they run in buying from you list the risks they incur if they do nothing at all. Here, consider how else they might solve their problem if they're not using your product or how they might decide to live with the problem. If they don't want to do anything with that decision impact your clients more in the short-term or the long-term? How long can they function and still be productive without solving the problem at hand? What other disruptions might add cars? And finally, what are the risks for them in working with you if something should go wrong? Because something can always go wrong. This is a single coin with two sides. So effectively two lists for 8.3. First, make a list of everything that could go wrong at your end. If you or your team make a mistake, miss a deadline, misunderstand the clients, get distracted from something. Anything also caused by an external force that impacts your company and your performance towards this client. Then make the same list. But from the customer's perspective, what if they make a mistake? What if they miss a deadline? What if they misunderstand something coming from you? What if they get distracted? Or what external forces could impact their side of this work. This will give you a good overview of all the things that your clients fear. 14. Bringing it all together (worksheet with project): Well, that was quite the journey. We've traveled through your customers psyche to reveal their desires in life, the resources they need to move forward, and their deepest fears. The information you'd have now is the foundation of your customer profile. This is all the most important knowledge you require. In the next section of the course, we'll look at how all of this works in action. But before we do that, let's bring together everything we have learned. So far. You should be able to connect every Want to a need and a possible fear. There's a worksheet that you'll find after this lesson where you'll see a table to write out exactly these three things. For each want. Describe the need that will achieve that want, and the fear that it could race. Underneath the table. There's a section for you to write in prose. Write this all out in full sentences as if you're telling the story of your customer. Side note, when you hire a copywriter, a web designer, or sales consultants, anybody who is helping you with client-facing needs, gives them this story. They will thank you. As you work on the story, you can also add any particular demographic material that is required. If it's required. For example, if you sell handyman Services, you probably only serve certain postcode. Or if you sell a product that is only applicable to women over 50, then add, well, women and over 50. The story you will write with this exercise is the most apt description of your customer. A story is more compelling than a description. And this story doesn't talk only about your clients. Instead, it tells the story of your client. Has it includes your presence. You are a character in this story. With this customer profile, you're automatically making the connection between your ideal customer and your business. You have written yourself into the customer story. It's okay for this to be challenging. And in fact, if you are struggling with this or aren't sure about the result, remember that I do this live with clients as well, not just in online courses. A onetime consultation with me includes you sending me any material you want in advance and 90 minute virtual meeting and you'll get a follow-up report with my review and next steps. And the cost is 550 US dollars. E-mail me at Rebecca at RG breaks the.com at any time, either at this stage or at the end of the full course, when you want to review your work together. Attached to this video, you will find a summary explanation of the difference between wants, needs, and fears, as well as a couple of examples. And use the worksheet after this lesson to get you started on your homework. Enjoy. Let me know how it goes and I'll see you once again in our next section. 15. Customer Journey intro: We have written your customer story in searching you as a character. Let's spend this section exploring that connection between you and your customer story. Storytelling uses a narrative arc that typically includes three stages, the introduction of the characters and conflict, pursuit of a resolution to that conflict. And finally, the situation resolved. This is the happily ever after. We're going to do something similar here. We're going to look at the three stages of your customer story as it relates to before you enter the room, while you are in the room, and after you have left the room. Your solution exists in a context, the customers context. That context is not a single moment in time or a single instance. It has a beginning, it has a middle. And the truth is, it probably has no end. 16. Before you enter the room (worksheet with project): Your clients know that they need something, a technical solution to a current problem. Without this acknowledgment, there would be no sale. But this need is a consequence. The client didn't start with the notion of picking up the phone and calling you. They started several steps before that, recognizing a concern and their business or an impediment to future performance. Before they know that they need something, they know that they want something. And to achieve that something, they then need a service or product or intervention of some sort that will get them to what they want. Before you were in the room, your client is going about their life and working on their job without thinking of you. This is where they're needed actually begins before they even think of you existing this smashers because your client isn't in it for insert the name of your product. They're actually in it for what? Insert the name of your product will allow them to achieve. Your product fixes the problem, but it's not even about that. It's about the client being able to do what they can't do now, what they can't do before they have worked with you. It's about what you enable by fixing that problem. When we can travel back in the client's journey to understand their starting point. We will understand what they are truly buying. The better you understand what is happening at this stage, the better you can match your service to the clients want rather than to their need. There want talks to them about them. To do this, use the worksheet that you will find after this video to describe what can your client not do without you? What is it that they want to achieve that they can't right now? Why do they want to do that thing? It's going to make some positive change in their life. What is that? What are they expecting to happen afterwards? In order to do that, your client will both need to know something and be able to do something. What must they know and do? All transformation happens with knowledge and action. Be able to describe both of those. In doing this exercise, there will be some repetition with your clients wants from the previous section. That's okay. What you're doing now is pushing that information into a context. Almost like creating a case study for your customer profile. 17. While you are in the room (worksheet with project): Congratulations, you have been hired. Now you weren't in the room and ready to deliver. This is where the needs starts to lead the story. The art here is to connect what you do, the need to the client success, the want. This is where your expertise comes to play as you perform your service. However, remember that this is still about the client. You might be the main driver of the story in this particular parts, but your client remains the protagonist. As you provide your service, keep in mind what your client goes through. Are they being updated on what's happening behind the scenes or do they have to participate in some way? Are they aware of everything that is expected of them and everything that is happening to solve their problem. You want to keep speaking their language and you want to consider the experience from your client's point of view. To do this, perform a two-part exercise. First part, introduce your service. Know how to talk about your service without talking about what you do. But instead talking about what the client gets. Explain how this is going to work, what exactly is going to happen? Help manage the client expectations here. Also manage them in terms of time, how long is this process going to take? Get that out up front, make sure the client's expectations are realistic. And also point out what it is that they will need to do what is expected of the client themselves. Always given take and nothing can happen without input from the client in some form or another, make sure that they know and they are prepared for that input. The second part of the exercise is to explain the experience of working with you. There are three main areas you can address to explain this experience. The first one is communications. How will you and the client communication with one another? How frequently, through what medium, and so on. What about the exchange of information? And I mean, more specifically, are you needing to receive documents from a client? What sorts of actual, tangible, or consumable information does the client need to share with you and do you need to share with the client? If you can explain that upfront, the client will be ready and able to prepare that material and know how to transfer it to you and vice versa. And explain the resources, the tools. We talked about, how much time this will take. Be specific here, about how much time for the clients and at what intervals which people should be involved. What else might they have to contribute to this experience? Explain all of this upfront so the client knows what to expect and the process is smooth. You don't actually want surprises throughout the customer deliveries. 18. After you left the room (worksheet with project): This is what it is all about. This is the moment of magic when everything we have been building towards until now actually happens. And you aren't even there to see it after you leave the room, is when your client is that they're happiest. You have already entered the room, you have performed your service, and the client is happy with the outcome. But let's get back to the very beginning of this whole story. We said that the client didn't start with the notion of picking up the phone and calling you. But rather they started several steps before that, they recognized some issue or concern in their business that didn't allow them to accomplish what they wanted to accomplish. This is what I mean when I say that nobody wants to buy your product. Nobody is buying your product for the sake of buying your product. They're buying it to unlock an opportunity and to get something done. The proof of your value is in that thing happening, that opportunity becoming real. They will see that benefits, the benefits from oldest work. Only once they've accomplished this step. It is the aftermath that makes them happy. So having solved their problem and already left the room, what does the state have to do with you? Everything. It is by understanding this stage, that moment of happiness, that moment of success that your client lives. That you can move back in time and serve your client when they need, you know, what comes after, to understand what happened before and what has to happen during. Want to know what you're building towards. Perform this last exercise in this section, using the worksheet after this lesson in order to understand what is your client able to do now? What has changed? How are they able to accomplish something now that they couldn't accomplish before? What is the outcome of that accomplishment? Why do they want to do this? What is that end result that they are after? And find a way to know what their return on investment is. How does this result make everything that came before worth it? A note on this last question, get information from your client, talk to your clients after the fact to find out about their satisfaction, about how happy they are with the service. Try to get testimonials in terms of understanding the value to them. Avoid asking them, what is this worth to you want a terribly, or what are you willing to pay for this type of results? And instead, ask them questions about how this has improved their business, how it has improved their life. Get your clients to tell you the qualitative outcome. You can then decide the quantitative outcome. This might influence your pricing. The better you understand the value your clients ascribed to your service. 19. Final project intro: If you've been following each lesson and doing the exercises, you should now have a collection of various worksheets, notes, descriptions and Britain ideas possibly towering over your desk. As I speak, you have the information you need to build your customer profile. Now, we can put it all together. In this section, we will cover how to compile your customer profile description, how to use this product in four key areas of your business. And then you'll find a list of some additional resources for you to check out. 20. Customer profile (worksheet with project): There are three areas of information that you want to have about your customer to inform the customer profile. Those are the customer problem, the required solution, and the customer behavior. First of all, it's a customer problem. Starts from memory. Leave all of your notes and exercises aside for a moment. Write down off the top of your head a description of the customer problem. As you define it, you should have a lot of information at your fingertips now, because of all the exercises you've done. So start with what you can muster up from memory. Remember that you are not to talk about yourself, only about your clients and their work or their life. What is the problem and why is it a problem to them? What is it that they're trying to achieve? Once you have done what you can just from memory, go back to the wants exercise, look at the fears exercise, and also look at what is happening before you enter the room to make any corrections and fill any gaps. It may be helpful to, to look at the exercise for what happens after you've left the room. This helps you focus on what it is that they are trying to achieve. The customer problems should be a description of life from their point of view. What are they trying to do and why do they want to do that thing? This is the first part of your customer profile. Now, do the same thing for the required solution. Start from memory. What solution does the customer need for their problem? Remember that you have to avoid your industry jargon and any other buzzwords. Describe all of this using customer language, only. Complete what you can from memory and then go back to that client, needs exercise. Go back to look at what happens while you are in the room. Complete a detailed description of your service without ever using your jargon, but purely in the context of your customers use. Finally, describe the customer behavior. This might be the most transformational part of your customer profile description. Based on the work done so far, describe what your customer is doing. Describe what they're saying. With all of the analysis that you've performed, you should find it much easier now to see the situation from your customer's point of view. Use that to describe some of what they might do in terms of behavior that would indicate that they are a good customer to you. This is the section in which you can include any particular demographic details if they are relevant. And that's a big if you want to create a description of your client, what they do, what they say, what is happening in their life before they pick up the phone and call you to connect to your story, to your customer's story. You have to insert yourself. You have to do that using their language and in a way that is comfortable for them. By understanding their behavior around this particular problem, you will figure out what to say to them, how to say it, and when to say it. You will be able to make yourself a part of their story. 21. How to use it (worksheet with project): Your customer profile is a foundational document in your business. It should influence most of the decisions that you're making. Here are four examples of how to use it in the day-to-day running of that business. After this lesson, you'll find a four-page worksheet. I want you to fill that in explaining how this work from this course will influence your business and what actions you are going to take to implement it all. The first area we'll look at is obviously fails the transaction of selling to the client. This is about knowing who to approach, how to approach them, how to move them from interest in your product to being a paying clients. In the sales arena, you'll be able to answer questions such as, Who are you going to target? How are you going to qualify them adds a good target for your business. How do you intend to communicate with them? And how are you going to support them in the long-term? All of this placing your customer at the center of how you answer these questions. There's also the marketing arena. Marketing is about placing yourself in the market in a way that connects with and resonates with your clients. How are you resonate with your audience? Where are they gathering information? What is that information and how are you part of that? You will answer questions here such as, what language do your clients use? How can you make sure you're using the same language? What topics interests them? What are they talking about? What are they asking about? What do they find useful? And what is it that they're trying to learn? These are all ways to decide how to insert yourself into those conversations and connect with your ideal client or your customer profile will also influence your product development. Understanding your customer profile will allow you to make your product better and continuously innovate. And this isn't about what impresses your industry. It's about what impresses your clients and what's going to make their life better. How does your product serve your client? You should have a really strong description of the spine out entirely from the customer point of view. Knowing that what features can you improve for your clients? What features can you add for your clients? What can you do that will make your product or service even easier to use? You understand your client now. So you understand how to answer these questions in a way that resonates with them. Finally, let's look at business developments, the awareness of your product, the best tactics that you can employ to get your clients to act. Think about where your clients are. First of all, you want to be there to what is going to make them talk about you to another potential client. What will increase their loyalty? What causes the client to be loyal to a business in the first place? How can you push them to action? How can you get them to do the thing that you want them to do? Answer these questions and any more that you find relevant to your business, to put the customer profile into action for your business. 22. Conclusion: Congratulations, you have completed the course. You have learned everything from what your customer is doing and think about before you've even entered the room all the way down to what your customer fears and might be keeping them up at night and keep going to all the things that your customers thinking and doing long after you have left the room. And of course, everything in between. If you only take one lesson away from this course, Let it be that it is not about you. It's always about the customer, what you do and what you sell. Only master's in as much as it serves a customer need, know what your expertise is and know what difference it makes in the life and in the story. Your own personal Paul, your ideal customer. So what's next to build your action plan? You have the resources and now you have the knowledge and insight you need to write out your full customer profile. Don't be afraid about making a document that is too long or too wordy. That information is the foundation that you will use to build a sales plan, to build marketing language, to build your business development efforts, and so on. You'll be able to hand that document off to copywriters and designers and sales professionals. They can extract from that what they need to do their job. Follow the actions through, determine exactly what needs to be done to make the most of his customer profile and embedded through out to your business. And the place to start is always the path of least resistance, whatever is the easiest thing to do, do that thing first, it's a big exercise and it's also ongoing if additional resources are helpful, remember that I can be one of those resources. You can bring me in for a onetime consultation to review your final work, your customer profile and action plan. Or you can hire me to go through all of the material that you've collected bit by bit and get direct feedback on every step of the process. Or if you're not sure exactly how to use me, just get in touch and we can talk. Do you want more resources specific to this course instead, additional lessons, additional worksheets, some parts of the course on which you need more clarification. Also let me know. I will add more resources to this course at anytime. Take your customer profile, take your action plan, share it with your employees, get everybody on board, and go out there finding and working with your fabulous, perfect Pauls.