Tag: leverage

Your Ideal Client: Getting clarity on who you should sell to !

abiodunjoseph

One of the major challenges business owners are faced with is to assume that your product or service is for everybody. At least as a start up you have to communicate to a particular set of people that understand and resonate to the value your product/service wants to bring on the table, even if you are a retail shop, you are selling clothing to people who wants clothes, that’s too broad, or you are selling to white collar workers ! (of course everybody wears clothes).

So is important to figure out who your tribe is and communicate that value to them though one of the big takeaways here is that there might be some few iterations as to who your ideal client is as your business starts to progress but when you are thinking of your ideal client what I want you to realize is that your ideal client is always you. Yes ! You heard that right, your ideal client is always you. Maybe for example, you dive into modern traditional outfits and the reason you venture into that business was because fashion designers are giving you headaches with host of disappointment and not delivering a standard job that befits what you really want. The value for you is to get modern getting traditional outfits meticulously designed and delivered timely. This is the definition of value to you and you want to communicate this value to a particular tribe.

During the time when Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen engines were making huge noise Ferdinand Porsche wanted a car with a silent engine and that’s how the Porsche electric car was designed.

My ideal client is a young mission driven business owner who want to scale his business to the next level, generate an income that support his lifestyle and automate most of his business processes but confused on the next action steps to take, how to motivate employees to deliver good results and how he will build a strong business system that can strive at his absence.

And because I have personally gone through this experience, I am able to proffer viable ideas to scale through these phases bigger, faster and forward.

So I want you to look at who your ideal client is whether or not you are really clear on it yet. Most retail business have a laid down system they follow i.e buy it and sell it so a handful of them might not really connect to their client, but your ability to know your own story and see what you get out of your journey that helps shape your value and what’s important for you, if you can communicate that effectively to somebody you will gain their ears among the many noise out their because you are not only selling emotions you are selling relationships and you are doing that based on the value you share. That is how you communicate your message to an audience that resonates with you. Your audience might not have the exact same story like you in terms of the form but the content is the same. There are tonnes of people out there that resonate with the value that makes you start this business your voice is to speak their language (value) to them. Before you ask for the sale, create the product you wish you had. Always present value before you ask for value.

So your ideal client is always you and your ability to get clear on what your journey was that made you resort to where you are now, that make you create your business and what value were revealed to you throughout the process because thats whats you want to start incorporating into the second foundational pillar which is your messaging.

See you at the Top

Abiodun Joseph

Expand Your Reach: Today’s focus: Cake business owner.

abiodunjoseph

In this episode of Expand Your Reach i will be accessing a typical cake business and dishing you a step by step system to maximize some of the potential revenue residents in your business and be sure you are not leaving anything on the table.

  • Your leverage points: which business(es) compliment your business that if you reach a strategic relationship with them you can have access to their client base and open a new avalanche of clients

1.    Event planner/decorator: you can meet with an event planner and ask her if she can introduce your cakes to people who request for her service (since most of her ideal clients are people celebrating weddings or birthdays). Give her a taste of your cupcake and tell her you will give her a modest commission on every client she refers to you and you will also refer her to your clients who need her service. Imagine you form a strategic relationship with 10 event planners (worst case scenario, one will refer you in a month

2.    Photographer: you can use event planning strategy for this as well

3.    Schools: Most modern private schools (primary or secondary) have your potential clients who can afford your cake among the students’ parents. Meet with the school management and introduce your product (give them a cupcake) tell them you would like to introduce your cakes in one of their PTA meetings to the parents too. Tell the parents you have beautiful and delicious birthday cakes, ready to be delivered on their children’s birthday in the school. After the PTA meeting, share your card, collect their contact and send them a reminder sms. Imagine you have a strategic relationship with 5 schools, at least, one student will make cake in a week

4.    Companies: GTBank started this initiative for its customers and the experience was amazing, you can form a strategic alliance with a top business who relates with is customer one-on-one. Using the 80/20 rule, propose to them that when  their most loyal paying client is celebrating his/her birthday, they can have a system to compensate them by presenting a birthday cake and create a good customer experience for him/her which will generate tons of word of mouth. Imagine you meet with 20 companies, 18 turn you down and two accept that two might have one customer celebrating birthday every week.

5.    Small chops owner, Fast food restaurant, resort, Massage or spa etc. These are businesses whose products complement your product and can be used simultaneously with yours. Form a strategic relationship with them, when someone come to buy their product they can introduce your cakes to them, you can even ask if you can display your cake in their store (you never can tell, they might help you sell one cake in a week) you are leveraging on their space and staff (pay them a commission on every cake sold)

The interesting part is that, these ideas do not disrupt the existing system you have in place in running your cake business, they can be utilized simultaneously. You are expanding your reach with no cost or risk.

If you don’t have a pipeline of opportunities, you might not maximize the full potentials resident in your business

And if you will like to dive deeper on this, or you want to know how to craft a persuasive proposal to meet with this business and form a strategic alliance with them (Human being are naturally selfish, you must be able to present to them in clear statement what they stand to benefit in the relationship before you can win them to yourself) drop your comment in the comment box below and let’s get started.