You can waste a lot of time growing the wrong tribe.
I see it happen all the time – a person breezes past all the “ideal customer avatar” mumbo jumbo whilst rolling their eyes. I get it. Every online course has the obligatory ‘define your dream customer’ module and you’re sick of seeing it.
….But bear with me. There’s a couple of reasons I think it’s worth visiting.
For starters, there’s a reason everyone talks about it. Anytime time spent getting to know your ideal customer better is time well invested. It’s also something that you should revisit regularly – because things change and your understanding of who they are deepens every time you pause and reflect about what defines that dream customer.
The second thing – I think at least half the things those overdone ideal customer avatar exercises have you do are completely unnecessary.
For the majority of businesses, you don’t need to know exactly how old they are, if they have 2.5 kids, and what they ate for breakfast this morning. That stuff is irrelevant – for the most part.
One flashing neon sign you might need to revisit your avatar? If you survey your email list about what sorts of struggles they’re experiencing and their responses are all over the map. This usually means that you’ve collected a mishmash of people, rather than a focused, target audience.
I have a client who works in women’s health and she works with at least four different groups of women on various issues – menopause, chronic illness, pregnancy, and postpartum. Because of this WIDE focus, she’s always going to feel like she’s leaving people out in the cold, no matter what she’s talking about. It’s tough to juggle multiple audiences!
It’s so much easier for you to know who your one person is – meaning you can create content specifically for that one person, instead of trying to please and serve everyone. Focus is your friend when it comes to growing an audience!
Think of it this way – even though you could work with many different people, specializing in one segment of those people will help you grow your tribe (and therefore your business) much faster. For example, I know that 75% of my tribe members have businesses in the health field. This means that I’m always going to try and include an example from health because I know that my subscribers will relate.
Trying to appeal to everyone, trying to create content for everyone, and trying to serve everyone is going to really prevent you from resonating and connecting as deeply as you could.
Here are my top 3 methods for finding your ideal tribe member:
1. Make sure you’re targeting someone who can afford you.
Most soulful entrepreneurs LOVE to serve their audiences. It’s one of things I love best about working with this extraordinary community.
But the downside to this is that we can get so caught up in serving, in the mindset of “I just want to help people,” that the business side of your business gets a little lost.
You’re running a business – so you have to be attracting tribe members who want what you have to offer AND are willing to open up their wallets to get it. There’s just no getting around this.
2. Start with where you were
It’s no surprise that the people we’re often most passionate about helping are those who are in situations we can relate to. We’ve gotten ourselves successfully through whatever they’re struggling with and it’s natural to want to turn around and offer a helping hand to pull them forward to where we are now.
Make a list of the qualities that defined your situation – and there you have a list that will resonate with your tribe!
3. Talk with your favorite past customers
Who did you really love working with? Can you find any common similarities between these faves that distinguish them from your not-so-fave customers?
If you haven’t worked with many customers yet or haven’t found a client or customer that really fits your ideal… who are a few people you would love to work with?
Make a point of getting on a call with them. Let them know how much you adore them and how you’d like to essentially clone them because of how awesome they are.
Once you get them on a call, focus on gathering two answers from them:
- What’s their number one struggle right now?
- Where do they usually go to find out information or insight about that struggle?
A quick piece of advice… don’t just throw together a survey in the beginning.
You’ll get so much more out of a one-to-one call… like connections, a potential new client or referral partner and real answers with an opportunity to ask follow-up questions. Survey requests are too easy to ignore, even for your unicorn clients.
Take Action Time!
Send an email to 3 of your favorite past clients or people from your ‘dream client wish list’ to arrange a quick chat with them!
Cheers to your wild success,
