When you're in alignment you stop selling and start attracting. You don't have enough hours in the day to talk to everyone who could be your ideal client. So you should be discriminating when talking to people so you can quickly identify whether they're somebody who would be open to your message. Those are the people who you will be much easier to turn into clients.
In order to do this and have your business in alignment you need to establish four criteria on determining your ideal client. It will give you clarity and energetically it will create a vacuum in the universe that needs to be filled with only the people who value and appreciate what you offer.
There are four criteria to the alignment process. Please note: a person is NOT in alignment with you unless they match up to all four criteria. Matching two out of the four or three out of four of the criteria will not get you a qualified prospect. And the four criteria might vary slightly between your products and services. The criteria might be more general for selling your lower end products and more specific if you are selling a higher priced product or service.
If the person doesn't match up with all four criteria you will end up with an unprofitable client or a client who questions your pricing and doesn't value what you offer.
The next thing you must understand is that there is no order to the criteria. When you have determined the four criteria of the alignment process you will have a complete, perfect picture of who your ideal client is.
The last thing to understand is that only one of the criteria describes your target market. The other three criteria describe you. All four combined then determine your ideal client profile.
Here are the four criteria to identify your ideal customer and put your business into alignment:
Alignment Step #1: Determine your business values
The best and easiest way to build your business is to develop a loyal customer base. People who are in alignment with YOUR business values will be more loyal customers.
Your company values represent the qualities which you think are important in operating your business. Prospects who share the same values will be attracted to you. These values must be demonstrated in your business through your communications and your actions.
Alignment Step #2: Develop a company mission statement
A mission statement is the specific purpose of your business. It is the reason your company is "in business."
The mission statement is to be shared with your employees and your customers. It is an external statement so that people understand the purpose of your business and the benefit of why they should do business with your company.
Your mission statement should not include any information regarding profitability, such as "the mission of our company is to offer xyz goods in a specific marketplace and be profitable." Your profitability is an internal objective only.
A mission statement is usually only 1-3 sentences long. It could include some of your values, what you offer, who you serve, and a benefit statement.
Alignment Step #3: Determine your business philosophy
This is the weeding-out process that is a critical step in the alignment process to determine your ideal client. Historically, traditional marketing has focused on defining your target market according to demographic, psychographic or buying behavior characteristics. This information is very important in determining your target audience. However there is additional information which is necessary for you to attract your ideal customer.
The most profitable customers for your business are those people who have expressed a desire to purchase your product and they share the same business philosophy as you do. This, in essence, is a mutual attraction.
Your company's mission is to deliver a specific set of services and products which fill a need for a specific audience. Your business philosophy explains why that is important. It is the bigger picture of why you are on your mission.
Think about your business right now. What must someone believe in order to understand the value of what you offer?
Alignment Step #4: Determine the demographic and psychographic profile of your ideal customer.
The first three steps in this process are about YOU. They include defining your values, your mission and your business philosophies. The last step is about the demographics of your target market. There are going to be some common characteristics of people who have a need for your products or services.
If you sell more than one type of product or service, the demographics and psychographics of your ideal customer could be very different for each product or service. If they do vary, you must make separate lists for each product and service.
Demographics are different if you sell business-to-business or business-to- consumer. For business-to-business, the demographics could include: industry type, location, size of company, professional title, and sales volume. For business-to-consumer, the demographics could include: age, household income, gender, location, family size, marital status, number of children and type of dwelling.
You can get even more specific about your target market with psychographic information. Examples of psychographic information are information on life stages, hobbies, spending habits, interests, religion and buying behavior.
The Alignment Client Profile
Congratulations. You have now put your business into alignment. From this day forward you only want to market to people who fit ALL FOUR of the criteria you just outlined in your alignment process.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment