The Business Lounge Podcast with Kimberly Ann Jimenez
Welcome to The Business Lounge Podcast! Each week we'll share proven marketing strategies to help you build an audience of buyers, create impactful content, and grow a profitable business without compromising on your values with your host, Kimberly Ann Jimenez!
Kimberly is an Online Marketing Strategist, Educator, Founder and Thought Leader in the online marketing industry.
Having worked with 33K+ small business owners & entrepreneurs across an array of industries over the past decade, Kimberly and her business partner Chris Harris are obsessed with helping you level up your marketing game, and grow your bottom line.
They co-lead their flagship program, The Business Lounge, which teaches business owners & entrepreneurs like you how to navigate the confusing & often overwhelming world of online marketing and build an unapologetically profitable business on your own terms (and without compromising your faith, your family or your freedom).
Join us at kimberlyannjimenez.com/businesslounge!
The Business Lounge Podcast with Kimberly Ann Jimenez
S6 EP30: Find Your Ideal Client & Seal the Deal: Your Step-by-Step Blueprint To Get Your Dream Clients!
Ready to attract and convert your dream clients? In this episode, we're diving deep into practical strategies to help you identify, attract, and win over your ideal clients, no matter where you are in your business journey. Whether you're just starting out, feeling stuck, or pivoting your business, this episode is your roadmap to success! Tune in now!
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Welcome back to the Business Lab Podcast. I'm your host, kimberly Ann Jimenez, and today we have a very special episode for you, like we do every single week. So we're going to dive into how to find your ideal clients and sell them on you, step-by-step, super practical strategies. Practical strategies so even if you haven't worked with your first ideal client yet, or you're feeling overwhelmed, or you're maybe pivoting your business or you're like I'm just not clear, I'm not clear on who I need to work with, this episode is going to be extremely helpful at any stage of your business. So let's dive right in.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Business Lounge podcast where each week, we unpack the hottest online marketing and business strategies so you can grow your business, increase your bottom line and make a bigger impact. And now here's your host, kimberly Ann Jimenez. And now here's your host, kimberly.
Speaker 1:Ann Jimenez. So I don't know about you, but when I was first introduced to this concept of the ideal client, it felt really weird to me. I had very little experience in the business space and I was just trying to figure out, okay, who can give me money. I did not really care about having the ideal client, that perfect client experience, until a little bit later in my career, and I feel like that's totally normal for most of us. If you're in those first early stages, it can feel really bizarre and just unnecessary to define who you want to work with, and really it makes sense, right? You're just trying to get paid for what you do, and so I think there is a level of that that is healthy. When you're hungry, you're willing to do whatever it takes.
Speaker 1:I remember my first client was a gallery in Canada Um, it had really awesome artifacts, um, and I ran their Pinterest account and I did not know how to price my services, so I was charging them $80. I think it was 75 or 80, $80 a month for, like, full service Pinterest to content creation, which in hindsight, was insane because I spent a lot of time and energy creating content for that platform. But they were so happy and it was a good client experience. But looking back to that season again, I can still relate. So if you're feeling like listen, I am, I will take anyone, anybody who will do business with me. I think that's actually pretty healthy. The main reason for that is because you want to have that hunger and oftentimes you need to work with a wide range of people to determine who is your perfect ideal client. So as you're mature and you grow in your business, you're going to start realizing oh, my goodness. And for those of you who are listening, who are, you know, in that hustle to breakthrough stage of the success path that we often reference both on the podcast and in the business entrepreneurship, you know that once you have had a little bit of experience, you understand who you don't want to work with, right, and so getting started often gives you again that big range of opportunities to work with a variety of different clients.
Speaker 1:But that doesn't mean that every single client is going to be the best possible candidate for your service or product or program. And the reason I say this is very, very simple. The majority of the time we're working on limited times and limited resources and limited energy, and there's going to be some clients and customers that will complain no matter what you do right, you can literally hang the moon for them and they will be unhappy no matter what. And there will be some clients that will be happy, but they require so much of your energy and your focus that it's almost not even worth doing business with them. And then there's clients who are literally ideal. They understand the value that you bring to the table. Again, whether you sell a service, whether you sell a program or some kind of product, they understand the value. They come back time and time again to do business with you. They leave you great reviews and they're generous with their praise and they talk to your potential customers about how great you are.
Speaker 1:That is the ideal client. It's that person that really matches your particular business in a way that allows you to give them the best results but also to have a really good relationship with them, a long-term relationship, because the idea here is really business principles right. It's so much easier and less expensive to continue selling your client on your next product, your next service, your next program and ascend them through your product suite than it is to have to find a new customer. So ideal clients are so important. And if you're in that beginning stage of your business even if you feel like I don't know about this, this feels weird we're gonna walk you through some really great steps that you can take to define who that ideal client is. And if you're a little bit more ahead or maybe you're a total pro and you've been at it for a long time this is the kind of business work, the deep work, that makes the biggest difference. Every single year I sit down with my team and we reassess who our ideal client is. We call her Sophie and really Sophie dictates everything that we do in the business and Sophie's not a real person, although we definitely use real clients in our business to draw from Sophie's characteristics. It's so helpful, especially when you're in the skill stage, to have that clarity as you grow and expand. There's so many opportunities and so many things that might be pulling at you in terms of you know ways that you could grow the business, ways that you could scale so many new options out there. It's hard to actually stay focused. So having an ideal client avatar will ground you. Having that clarity of who is my people and how do I reach them will not just make your marketing less expensive, it'll make it way more efficient and you'll be able to sell so much more when you talk to one person. So let's dive into some practical strategies that we can start implementing to really define who our ideal client is.
Speaker 1:Number one I want you to start thinking about creating your ideal client avatar. I already talked about that and you're going to hear me say that word a lot or that phrase a lot in this episode. Ideal client avatar that's just a profile on paper of who your ideal client is or customer is. Now, just to make it easy on your ears and easy on me, so I don't have to repeat myself over and over again, we're going to use the acronym ICA, right? So Ideal Client Avatar it's what we the terminology we use inside of the business lodge and in our bootcamp. So you're going to hear us talk about this a lot if you're not already in the business. So if you're there, you know that we call it ICA, and so your ICA is again that piece of paper that defines or aggregates all the qualities of your ideal client, and putting it on paper makes it real. So I want you to definitely at the end, once you're done listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1:Please put this into action. That's your homework for this episode. I want you to take action around here. We're not just about learning, we're about implementing. That's where the magic sauce actually happens. So creating your client avatar literally should be something that you talk about with your team. If you have one, that you sit down and analyze and, again, depending on whether you've done business with that person already or not, it'll be easier or a little bit more challenging. We're going to talk about that now.
Speaker 1:So, starting off, my best tip for you is to not start with this just dreamy, unrealistic client, but to actually work your way in reverse. And we actually just hosted a bootcamp, our traffic bootcamp, and we went deep into this process. So my partner, chris, talks about having your anti-ideal client avatar right. So your anti-ideal client is the opposite of who you wanna work with, and that's such a smart way of going about it. Who do you not want to work with? Who creates the most amount of problems in your business, complains the most, is never happy, does not achieve the results that you intend for them to achieve right, doesn't understand your product, doesn't appreciate the time and effort that you've put into it and just could care less about, maybe, what you offer.
Speaker 1:So we have to be realistic and oftentimes we just get in our heads about how amazing our products are, and the reality is you should not be for everyone. You're not for everyone and you should not be for everyone. The reality is, if you try to speak to everybody, you're going to speak to nobody, and no one wants to be vanilla, especially in business. You want to stand out. You got to talk to one person and, of course, you're going to do business with a variety of people. There's going to be tons of different people that might not even fit your ideal client avatar profile. That's okay.
Speaker 1:The idea here isn't to say that you need to have a million different you know avatars for all the different possible people that you will attract. The idea here is that you're speaking to one type of person and then everyone else who wants to join you. They're welcomed, but you're speaking to that one person. So that specificity is going to help you stand out so much more than if you just try to speak to everyone. There's actually a Spanish saying that my mommy always says. It's super funny. She says El que mucho alarga, poco aprieta, and if you speak Spanish, you know exactly what that means, but it's this idea of sticking your hand in the cookie jar right and then holding on to as many cookies as you can, to the point where you can't pull out your fist out of the cookie jar. And so oftentimes we do that in business.
Speaker 1:We're just trying to just attract as many people as we can, especially in those initial stages, and we're missing the ideal client. We're trying to speak to everybody and it just becomes convoluted and vanilla and you want to do the opposite of that. So, starting out, who is that anti-avatar? Who's that person that maybe isn't the right fit? And if you're just getting started and you haven't worked with that person, that's okay. Think about what would be the worst possible scenario and then, if this doesn't help because you're just getting started, that's okay.
Speaker 1:There's a bunch of other things that you want to do and oftentimes, when I'm talking about ideal client avatars, I get three major complaints. Number one Kim. This feels sterile. Like seeing someone on paper and you know, writing down their name and figuring out what age they are and whether they're married or not. And you know, I don't know what particular heritage you know they have or what, um, their occupation is. All of that feels super sterile, like I. I can't connect with this person, and that is totally normal, I completely understand.
Speaker 1:The problem here is, oftentimes we're too focused on demographics. Right, we're painting a picture of this type of person that fits that age range, that is in this particular generation that you know goes to work and does their nine to five, a certain occupation, that has certain interests. But we can connect with that. And the reality is, if you use psychographics, you're going to get to know your ideal client so much more than if you just use demographics. And so psychographics really are those intangibles that we can't always put on paper. What are their values, what are things that they deeply care about, what are some of the ideas or dreams that they actually have? All of those intangibles are very, very different than just having someone on paper. That kind of, you know, hits all those marks. So for me, when I think about our ideal client you know Sophie I know that having the time and the energy to put forth in her business as well as in her family life is extremely important for her.
Speaker 1:Now she's a mom of two. She absolutely loves being a mom and being a businesswoman and she doesn't feel like she needs to compromise on one or the other. She's also extremely committed to making her dreams happen and she's doing it as a legacy. It's not just something that she's doing for the money. She wants to do it because she wants to make a bigger impact in her community. She wants to truly help people out of a place of sincere service and commitment to humanity. She sees the idea of going after her dreams and doing work that is fulfilling as a moral commitment. It's her responsibility to get her gifts out there in the world and serve other people and multiply those gifts. She also happens to be a Christian and she absolutely loves the Lord. She's doing kingdom work, not just work for the sake of earning a living, although she greatly values profitability and she knows the importance of actually being able to put money back into her business to grow and create jobs and make an actual impact, not just for the sake, again, of having a really great personal income, which is something that she, of course, values, but to bring other people into her business and provide them with a living as well.
Speaker 1:So these are just some of the psychographics that Sophie has, our ideal client avatar. Notice I didn't tell you how old she is or where she lives or what kind of business she runs, although all those things are really important. It's about that connection, and so I want you to start thinking about it in that perspective, because that way you can really connect with your ideal client. And remember, mine has been 10 years in the making. This has really come from speaking to so many of our clients, to having a lot of daily feedback that we collect, to being able to work one-on-one with hundreds of people and now coaching and training over 30,000 people in 32 countries. So I had a lot of experience, a lot of feedback. I've had time to really think about who is our ideal client. And then there's ideal clients for some services, like our service-based business, or the service side of our business is different than maybe the business launch membership, and so we also want to think about that later on.
Speaker 1:But we're going to start with one ideal client, and that actually leads me to the next kind of complaint that I get, which is Kim. Maybe it's not a complaint, but it's a question or a point of confusion. How do I go about it if I'm running two different types of businesses? Or I have services, for example, and then I also teach courses, and there's totally different people for both of those. So the answer to that is when you have different businesses and they don't share an ideal client avatar, then of course you want to build an ideal client avatar for each of those individual businesses. But if, for example, you have a service-based side of your business, maybe you offer services as like that premium you know offering in your product suite and you also offer courses, maybe at the bottom, that introductory level of your product suite then it's okay to have multiple avatars that are slightly different.
Speaker 1:I just don't want you to get overwhelmed. I want you to think about what is that one service, that one product or that one program that you really want to send people to? What is that most important kind of signature offer in your business? That is the thing that brings you the most amount of money but is also very fulfilling and something you want to grow and start there and then branch out. It's so much easier to do it that way than it is to just try to create seven different profiles and try to market differently to different people. It's just not really the best time of your time, energy or your money.
Speaker 1:So I would say stick to one. And then I hear I don't even know where to start because I haven't worked with that person yet. Or I've worked with a lot of people but I'm not sure that they're the ideal client. And so, again, that comes from wisdom and it comes from time and it comes from energy and patience. But what you can do is take an educated guess. That's what I do.
Speaker 1:At the beginning, I researched my competitors. I got into Facebook groups, I searched to see what people were asking on Quora, I looked at Google searches and YouTube and I really studied my market. I started to try to get into the heads of my ideal client and I took educated guesses. I wasn't sure how old Sophie was. I guessed that maybe she was in her 20s, but after a while I realized no, actually she's mid-30s to mid-40s. That's kind of the ideal age range and it's okay to not have it all perfectly laid out. This is a living document in your business and your marketing strategy that should change and flow as your business matures. So no pressure on getting it perfect from the get-go. All right, awesome.
Speaker 1:So I hope that you're getting a lot of ideas as to what you could be doing with your ideal client avatar to really nail who that person is in your business. So we're talking about the questions that you need to ask yourself about your ideal client, and so I wanted to outline four of the most important ones. And again, if you went to our traffic bootcamp, definitely go back through session number two, because we're diving so much deeper into your ideal client avatar. You definitely want to review that, and I'm mentioning that because I know the majority of our business college members and our bootcampers and the people who are in TBL coaching listen to each one of our episodes, so I wanted to mention that too.
Speaker 1:So, number one, you want to really ask yourself the basic question right, who is your ideal client? Who's your ideal client? And I know that that can be overwhelming to think about, but you want to know exactly who they are, and we already talked about demographics versus psychographics. Write it all down how old is she, how old is he right? What kind of job? Do they have to be owned in business or do they have their own career? Do they own a business or do they have their own career? Are they high powered executives or are they on low level management? You know all those things are really helpful. Do they even have a degree? Right, they might not have a degree, that's okay. Maybe they're still in high school, maybe they're in college. Really, outline what is their occupation. Look at things like okay, how many kids do they have? Are they married? Do they want to have children? If they don't have children already, where do they live? How old are they? What generation do they belong to, so on and so forth. And then you want to talk about psychographics, right, which is really question number two what are their problems? What are their problems and how can you solve those problems?
Speaker 1:The end of the day, this boils down to the most basic level of entrepreneurship, which is solving a problem. That's what we do, right? We look at problems in our world and then we solve them with a product, a program or a service. It's that simple. So the reason we're thinking about what their problems are is because you're trying to enter the conversation that is already happening in their heads. You're trying to figure out okay, what is it that they're struggling with? Maybe they're conscious or unconscious about this problem, and so you wanna really think about okay, how can I actually create a marketing message that hits on that particular problem? So I'll give you an example One of our bootcampers.
Speaker 1:She sells really awesome. It's basically a meal supplement for cats. And so she realized that there was just not really a product in the market that was a holistic supplement Most everyone in the market is focused on dogs and so she created this amazing product. She formulated it and it's a physical product that she sells. And so we were thinking about okay, what is that conversation that people are having in their heads, right?
Speaker 1:So we recently adopted our super cute cat, achilles. He's amazing and he actually adopted us, but that's long story short. We are very into wellness and if you're again in our world, you'd know that we're health freaks around here. And so I was thinking, okay, how do I actually feed my cat? Right, I feed Achilles a homemade cat diet that really hits on all of his needs his dietary needs but still do it from a holistic standpoint. And I was just killing myself trying to find a good cat food recipe that he actually wanted to eat, because you know, cats are super picky, super finicky and nothing was working. And having a product like Holly's who's our amazing shout out to Holly, our amazing boot camper that would have made my life so much easier, right?
Speaker 1:So, in my mind, the conversation that was happening in my head was like I don't understand these cat food labels. I don't know what percentage of protein you know a cat should actually have. Do they need to have grains or carbs? Do they need to have fats, or are they totally carnivorous? Do I put in, you know, some berries and some veggies, like I do for my dogs, or do I just focus on the meat? And so just that's the conversation that I'm having in my head.
Speaker 1:That's what you want to figure out, and the way that you figure that out is by asking you have to talk to your ideal client. You have to talk to a lot of people and figure out who your ideal client is, because you might be talking to people that just don't fit the bill. Y'all, they just don't fit the bill. And so again, having those conversations whether it's DM chats, whether it's jumping in again if you haven't worked with your ideal client and looking to see what are some of the questions people are asking on YouTube videos, on your competitors, facebook accounts, on their Instagram, etc. Etc. That can give you clues as to what's really going on behind the scenes. And then you also want to take note of the questions that you get asked, right? You get emails and DMs and chat messages, like we do. We actually keep an entire feedback bank of every question that comes in through any of our channels, and we have a massive spreadsheet that our team curates and has together and that's where I get the ideas for these episodes, by the way, from your feedback. So it's a really awesome opportunity to just have that conversation.
Speaker 1:No one grew a business hiding behind the computer, so I want you to get out there, roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty and figure out what is that conversation that your ideal client is having in their head. And then the next one is where do they hang out? Right, super simple. Where do they hang out, and then you're going to take your booty over there. Super simple, where do they hang out, and then you're going to take your booty over there. Whether it's Facebook or YouTube or Twitter or wherever, that's where they're hanging out. That's where they spend the majority of their time. For us, our people hang out on Pinterest, they hang out on YouTube and they hang out on the podcast. Occasionally, they jump into Instagram and Facebook because that's where their people are. So they're doing it for business purposes. So that's kind of where we need to be, and you see us on all those platforms.
Speaker 1:But you don't have to start there.
Speaker 1:I didn't start there. I have a team. You might be starting on your own right. So I was there, I did that for many, many, many, many, many years, and so you want to look at where's one place where you can stake your flag and just go all in right, really master that one platform and then expand from there on and finally, what are their desires and goals? What are their desires and goals?
Speaker 1:See, most of us stay on the surface level of an ideal client avatar and we think about okay, what is their problem? How do I solve it? But you need to dig a little bit deeper than that. I talk about the onion method and you want to peel that onion right. You want to continue asking the question but why? Right?
Speaker 1:So for me, if you think about my example, the question or really the problem, the conversation that I was having in my head about feeding Achilles the cat a holistic diet, the conversation that I was having in my head about feeding Achilles the cat a holistic diet I wanted to feed him a holistic diet. I was having trouble figuring out what to feed him. But the but why? Was much deeper than that. Right, if you ask me, but why? Why do you want to feed him a holistic diet instead of just going to the store and buying regular cat food? Well, I want to make sure that he lives a long, healthy life, and I noticed a big difference when we started feeding our dogs homemade food, and so I want to extend that to him. And then you can keep asking but why? Well, because I want to be a good cat mom. But why? And you can keep going down the different levels of that question until you really understand what's at the core of that behavior.
Speaker 1:Right, if you understand human psychology and you understand human behavior, you know there is always intrinsic, deep reasons for why people do the things that they do or say the things that they say, and so, again, getting to that core of that desire or that goal can then help you again craft a marketing message that resonates with them. So the minute I saw Holly's product, I was like, boom, that that, that is perfect. I wish I had that when I was starting out feeding Achilles. And so that's the idea here is really understanding. Why are you doing this? You're doing this so you can speak the language of your ideal client, so that your Instagram posts and your Facebook messages and your podcast and your YouTube videos speak to that one person. And everyone else who loves it can come and gather and enjoy and buy. But you're speaking to that one person, getting to know them personally so they feel like you understand them better than anyone else. And that's how you stand out, that's how you sell yourself, that's how you convince them that you are better than all of the other competitors that have been there longer, that have more funds, that really have more experience. And that's the magic of diving deep, doing the difficult work, the uncomfortable stuff that sometimes isn't easy, but it's so worth it and, more importantly, it's highly profitable, and we love talking about profitability on the show.
Speaker 1:So I hope that you enjoyed this episode. I'm so excited to hear your feedback, your questions, and they'll help inspire the next one. So make sure that you come over to Instagram and let us know what you think about the show. Tag me, dm me, whatever you want to do, we'd love to answer your questions in an upcoming episode and if you want us to dive even deeper into creating an ideal client Avatar are really just convincing people on how right to how to actually use the ideal client avatar. What are some of the the questions or the obstacles that you're facing? We'd love to dive into all that in a future episode. So I hope that you enjoyed it. I love you.
Speaker 1:I hope you continue moving forward, not just in your business, but also in your personal life.
Speaker 1:We love pouring into every single one of our listeners.
Speaker 1:I hope you're getting a lot from the show, but I also hope that you're turning around and diving deep into your purpose, into your commitment Moving forward.
Speaker 1:I don't know what is going on in your life or your business right now. I know it's crazy times and a lot of us are going through a lot of things, and so if you're feeling maybe a little discouraged or you're worried or there's a lot of fear going on right now, I just want to reassure you that God has selected you to live in this timeframe for a reason. He's put gifts and amazing skills into your life for a reason, and you're here to bless other people with it. So continue moving forward. Continue going for your dreams. This is hard, it's challenging, but it's so freaking worth it, and I'm telling you there is no better, in my opinion, no better way of contributing to the world as a society than to be an entrepreneur and to create a opportunity in the world and to contribute at a higher level and have that commitment right To not just build incredible freedom for yourself but also for the people that you serve. I love you, I mean it, and I'll see you in the next one. Un beso, bye for now.
