Who Are You Selling To? Really…

If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “I don’t like that content,” posted it anyway and it popped off, I hate to break it to you, but that’s some cold hard evidence that you’re not your ideal client.

Of course, sometimes it’s a matter of taste. But your taste isn’t the be-all and end-all, (unfortunately).

So, what actually is an ideal client?

Basically, the person you most want to attract to your business. They’re the person who needs what you sell, is most likely to buy it, gets the most value from it and, ideally, is someone you actually want to work with.

It’s not necessarily one specific person either. It’s a profile of the types of people your business is best suited to.

And when we talk about your ideal client, more often than not, it’s not you.

Which can be really tricky to understand as a business owner because you probably started your business with you in mind.

And that’s SO fine!

But when it comes down to it, you should probably have a few different versions of your ideal client.

WTF am I talking about?

Great point.

As a rule, I’d say you probably have 4–6 ideal clients.

Let’s say you have a jewellery brand and you sell sparkly rings.

Right off the bat, you’d assume your client is women around 25–40 who want to get married.

Perfect. That’s your first ideal customer.

Your second is men, who will be doing the buying of the engagement ring for the most part.

Your third could be a woman in her 60s who has just got divorced and wants to buy herself a piece of jewellery that celebrates where she is in life.

Maybe your fourth is a couple in their 50s who have just celebrated 25 years of marriage and want to update their rings.

And maybe your fifth ideal client is a guy in his early 20s who wants to buy their first proper piece of jewellery for their partner to show them how much they love them.

So many different people, in different stages of life, with different goals, so many aren’t you.

And you’ve gotta make sure that your content is speaking to one of those people somehow.

And how the hell do you do that?

Give each of your ideal clients a name.

Give them a photo.

Give them a summary of who they are, what they do for fun, what their job is, what their interests are, where they live, their age, what they spend their money on, what they care about.

Give them a story.

Because when you create content, you should be able to actually visualise who you’re talking to.

Instead of sitting there thinking, “Will people like this?”

You can think, “Would Sarah like this?”

And the content they’ll engage with can be SO different.

The woman buying herself a ring after a divorce probably doesn’t need the same content as the guy sitting on his lunch break Googling “how much should I spend on an engagement ring?”

Same business. Same product. Completely different person.

And that’s why trying to make every single piece of content appeal to you is a bit pointless.

You are one person.

Your customers are not.

So yeah, you probably won’t like 100% of your content.

But your ideal client will.

And that’s kind of the point.