IS YOUR BUSINESS ABOUT YOU, OR YOUR CUSTOMER?

Is finding your ideal client dampening your business mojo?

If business was sex and I was really in the mood to have some - there would be one thing that would be a boner killer every time, (I’m not a man but I can’t think of the female equivalent) - it’s the ideal customer avatar.

Every single online course I’ve seen has started like this. ‘Who is your customer avatar? It’s then gone on to ask what does she eat for breakfast? What does she read, watch do, brush her teeth with, say to herself before she goes to sleep, what does she dream about!

How the frog nog should I know!

It makes me not only lose the mood but also the will to live. The truth is I don’t know who she is. She is imaginary. She isn’t real. I’m just starting out so I don’t actually have any customers yet. I’m projecting information, filling in the gaps.

Sure I have an idea of who I’m going to appeal to and a target audience in mind, but I just don’t have that level of detail and what if some of the stuff I make up is wrong and sends me off in a completely wrong direction?

It’s like someone writing a list of ideal points they want in their date and meanwhile not looking at the real humans they meet as the possible one for them.

The truth is we are real people and just like that saying ‘you couldn’t make it up’ we are much more interesting, complex and amazing in real life. Would you really understand your customer if they showed up outside your fantasy? This is an out-there example, but I wonder if Christians would recognise Jesus if he actually showed up. I mean he was a radical before his time and preached total love and acceptance without judgment or prejudice. He threw out the rule book. But to most people, he is the rule book.

Is there a way to actually understand your customer and have an idea of their needs without making sh*t up?

Yes, there is a way and it’s called - You.

You are the one that can bridge this together because you are the one attracting the customer in the first place.

You are the one producing all your content for your ‘imaginary customer’ and you are writing things you think ‘they’ your ideal customer avatar want to hear.

There is a distinct possibility that you are toning yourself down or bigging yourself up, or dressing in a certain way that you think your imaginary customer wants.

Perhaps you are not being real or authentic to you and what’s the point of that. You might not be connecting to anyone either because you aren’t being you and your ideal customer is a figment of your imagination and not watching anyway.

What if you did it a different way. What if you looked first for your secret sauce.

What if you know exactly what you wanted to say and how you wanted to say it and you put it out there into the world for all to see. Then, assuming you have said it in a place where it’s possible to find you, your people will be interested. They will respond. They will nuzzle up to you and say hey - I love what you do. They get you and you get them and then pretty soon they want to be your customer.

Then when they are your customer you can see what they like and dislike based on the fact that they are actually real people! You keep doing it, they keep showing up! Before you know it you have lots of customers loving you, doing what you love.

Some of them might surprise you. Some of them might not be who you expected them to be. But they are real and complex and connected to you.

It sounds simple and I get that this might be a bit scary at first. Ok terrifying. We are not used to being our unapologetic selves and there’s a reason for that. We are scared to be rejected. We modify ourselves to fit in because when you’re a vulnerable little child the idea of not fitting in is like a big freakin’ deal.

We are wired that way because when we are small we depend on each other for our survival and I’m pretty sure in the past it would have been super hard to survive on your own no matter what age.

But we can tell those fearful parts of our old style lizard brain that we got this. W'e’ve got a Woolworth’s and a cafe on every street. We are not going to die if we get rejected. We are just going to move right along because we’ve also got this thing called the internet and it can connect you with people like you from anywhere on the planet.

You can connect with like-minded people on just about any imaginable subject. It’s wild and wonderful and you can use it to find the people who are interested in you.

The quicker you can put yourself out there, the more response and feedback you can get. It’s a dance between you and them. The perfect gift contains something of you and something that the giver really loves. The more authentic your message, the more your customers can connect and you can build the perfect combination of you and them.

You don’t have to worry about your fantasy customer when you can actually snuggle up to a real one.

We are creative entrepreneurs with years of experience building successful and rewarding businesses for ourselves and others. Now we want to focus on You.

Making you and your business look, feel, sound and sell like a total rockstar is our secret sauce.