Last week I talked about crafting a tagline from your dominant strengths that you can use as your guide for selling more while being your best self. This week we’ll talk about preparing your ideal client profile.
The products you sell will speak to specific people, whether you have a company or work for someone else. Either way, there are variables and connection points within that target group, with that room for you to find your niche based on your needs and what you bring (think Apple vs. Microsoft and how they’re targeting different audiences).
Let’s face it, when your prospects like who you are and what you bring, it increases your chances of closing the sale.
When you become more selective in who you prospect and interact with, people you enjoy being with, and appreciate what you bring, you create value and a win-win for both parties.
The industry you’re drawn to often serves as an indicator of what’s important to you. While some salespeople feel they can sell any product, they are rare or more focused on short-term vs. repeat sales in a long-term sales cycle.
When you’re clear on what you bring and need, it’s easier to find a product, business, or company culture that nurtures you.
Creating your ideal client profile
While creating your ideal client profile may seem like you’re limiting who you do business with, it’s actually the opposite. While it’s easy to fall into the scarcity trap and serve anyone you can close, you’ll attract and close more clients the further you narrow down who you best serve. When we get clear and focused on our message and speak to that one person we would love to have as our client, anyone who relates to that message will connect.
When you focus on prospecting people or businesses that would be fun and energizing to connect with, you create a different game and reality for yourself. Remember, when you’re using your dominant talents, you’re in the zone, energized, and learn faster. Why not use this to your advantage and be the pro in an area that’s fun for you with clients you enjoy spending time with?
What can you create if you include your needs in the process with your targets? Would your performance increase or decrease? Would that make the sales game more fun?
To do that, consider the following questions:
1. Who are you?
What are the benefits you provide your company as a salesperson? Include yourself in the equation; in other words, what do you bring as a person that makes you unique? Use the tagline exercise as a guideline that was posted last week.
2. What business are you in?
What industry—Tech, dental, creative arts,…? Selling to—business owners, consumers,…
3. Who would you like to sell to?
List their characteristics, like personality, business owner, employee, age range, male/female, urban/rural, income range, education, and other demographics, interests, profession, etc. Dream big.
4. What are their current needs or problems?
What keeps them up at night that you have a solution for? What’s important to them? How can you impact and help? How can your products help?
Include you in the equation, who you are will be how your prospects and clients experience the brand. For them, you are the brand, and you are unique. Look at your strengths and see which ones help you create solutions and be of service.
5. Competition
Many of us are in business offering what could be perceived as the same products, yet when we take a closer look, they’re very different. Just think of how you experience one car brand compared with another and what it feels like to interact with one company over the other. Some of it is marketing, some of it comes down to the small details and quality in materials, emotional experience, design, performance, and more. We choose products that we connect to that we feel will enhance a specific area of our lives.
How are your products different in experience, quality, handling, materials, speed, system, market size, business size, etc.?
What’s important to your prospect?
It’s easy to compare yourself to other companies that carry similar products, let’s say dental implants, as that’s an industry I’ve been in for many years. While the products have a similar principle, the experience of using the different companies is vastly different. From the size of the companies, people, number of parts and pieces, products offered, features and benefits, and support.
Are the products really the same? Then why compare?
For some clients, it’s important to purchase from a big company, and for others, they prefer a startup environment where they can impact the business and be heard just like the employees that are drawn to small-medium and large businesses, different personalities are drawn to different products.
What do your competitors have that you don’t, and what do you have that they don’t?
Create two columns and write down “what they have” vs. “what you have”.
6. What are the benefits your products provide as a company? What problems do they solve for your clients?
Use the information from “what you have” that you created above and list what problems these products/features provide and how they solve your prospect’s problem.
Start with your overall solution, whether it’s simplicity, a luxury experience, or revenue-generating, without talking about the parts & pieces. How will they feel when choosing your products? Create a couple of short pitches around each of them.
Ask probing questions to find out the issue for each prospect, focus on one solution at a time, and let them do the talking unless they ask you to.
What makes you different?
Look at your tagline combined with your company tagline/mission and play with words to create an elevator pitch for you and the company/product you represent.
Did anything shift in how you approach your prospects from doing this exercise? Please share it below.
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