Written by: Linda Dent, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Are you a wild dog, giraffe, or hippo?
Read on to discover my own unusual way of figuring out my ideal client characteristics.
Just over two years ago, I started my journey as a business coach and the question, “who is your ideal client?” kept popping up.
Who is your ideal client?
“Hmm! Anybody who would like to be coached to grow their business” was my initial standard response. Perhaps you can relate. Not too many leads from that marketing tactic, though.
This, of course, is not useful for the connections trying to help you get your business off the ground, so I decided to use some props at my local networking event.
So I walked into the event hall with a large pink box containing 3 soft toys – an African wild dog or Painted wolf, a Giraffe, and a Hippopotamus and introduced them as my ideal clients.
Confession: They are my soft toys, hehe!
That brought to mind some lyrics from a great song by Cat Stevens:
“Ooh baby, baby, it's a wild world.
It's hard to get by just upon a smile.
Ooh, baby, baby, it's a wild world.
I'll always remember you like a child, girl.”
What do African wild animals have to do with client profiling?
I don’t think of myself as creative, but occasionally my right brain takes over and delivers the wackiest ideas, so one day, I fetched my soft toys and looked up their characteristics. For example, wild dogs are opportunistic predators. They hunt in packs. They are focused and driven and have boundless energy. This reminded me of one of my clients who is always coming up with fresh ideas, leveraging their networks, and ultra-focused on their business vision.
In this case, I could help them with clearly setting their targets and measuring the results. I would also point out their blind spots and potential risks - there might be larger competitors (lions) or other networks they can intentionally join (new terrain)
Do you see?
A business doesn’t always have to be hard, sometimes having a bit of fun and doing some creative thinking can generate new ideas for your business.
Are you a wild animal?
Business ownership can be ‘wild,’ but with the creative mind of a child, you can join the Cat, Dog, Giraffe, or Hippo and find your ideal target clients.
Finding a business partner or coach that you can trust to have your best business interests at heart, guide you along the trickier parts of this exercise, helping you to identify your ideal client profile is one way to success.
Valued Insights, Focussed Action
Reach out for a Virtual Cuppa with Just Ask Linda to have a conversation about this article and my simple 3-step coaching process for business owners who want to build businesses that fund their dreams.
Linda Dent, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Linda is a Business coach with a solid background in the Banking Industry. She believes in building businesses through long-term relationships and a partnership approach to grow and empower the small business owner through planning, actions, and regular reviews of actual results vs. planned results. She is the Founder and CEO of Just Ask Linda Business Coaching, which was born out of a desire to Grow, Learn, Empower others and Enjoy her work, her very own GLEE philosophy. From understanding your unique strengths and how they apply to work, establishing where you are now and where you want to be in your business, getting to know your numbers and setting goals, managing your time, or rather how to do more of what you love each day, building a loyal team of employees or just listening to the business owners’ major business challenges and offering up new thinking, you can Just Ask Linda. If she can make a difference in a business owners’ life, helping them overcome Money, Time and Team challenges to grow a successful business and share some part of their business journey; then she will be full of GLEE. Owning a business is an adventure, and she loves the one she is on.
