Hey hey, hello and welcome.  Welcome to Episode 25 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Thanks for tuning in today, I know you have loads of options to listen to – so I really appreciate you lending your ears to me today!  Sending podcast love for that!

I know I’ve mentioned countless times on this podcast (and everywhere else if you follow me online and offline) that we need to know who our who is – BUT I’ve never dedicated an episode to it – until today!

Today we are going to go through who your who is, where to target them, how to target them and so much other gold.

Now if you’ve done this exercise before, trust me you are still going to want to listen in because we go deeper, much deeper than most.

More shortly, but of course, first up, let’s do our Discovery of the Week!

THIS WEEK’S DISCOVERY!

As I just said, today I am talking about getting to know your ideal client and one of the things I’ll talk about shortly is getting to know your competitors.   So, I thought a great little discovery this week would be Google Alerts. 

Did you know that you can set up Google Alerts?  Go on Google News and set up an alert for key terms in your industry, the names of your competitors and the economic factors most likely to have an impact on your business.

But do yourself a favour: Don’t have the alert delivered more than once a week. You don’t want doing your homework on competitors or what’s going on in the world that may or may not impact your business, to take the place of your real job, which is running your business!

To set up a Google Alert go to https://www.google.com.au/alerts and follow the prompts.

And just a PRO TIP too – you can set up a google alert for your own business or your own name so you know when people are talking about you or references you – which can help with ensuring you’re there giving value, continuing the conversation.  Pretty cool hey!

As always, just a little disclaimer, my discoveries are just that and I am in no way affiliated with any of them but promise to tell you if I ever am.  I just love them and from the response of my listeners, you guys, you are loving them too!

Hey and if you have a little discovery, or something you use in your business that you’d like to share, please do so.  Email me at jenn@jenndonovan.com.au or tag me @smallbusinessmadesimple.  I really love to know what tools you use to help make your life simpler!

KNOW YOUR WHO IN BUSINESS!

How many times have you said, “My business could get really big if I could just find the right clients”? If you have, you’re not alone: There’s not a small business owner that I know who hasn’t had that thought, at least once.

The good news is that there are many ways to find the right clients. Here are four steps that can be applied to any business to help you find them.

1. KNOW YOUR WHO!

I’ve spoken so many times on this Podcast and knowing your ideal client.  Ideal customer.  Know who you are attracting and if that’s not who you want to attract, then get to know the person you want to attract into your business.

For example if you are attracting customers or clients who are price driven and they are driving you up the wall – then you need to look at why you are attracting those people, and start attracting people who you want to do business with – the people who aren’t price driven!

Effectively understanding who makes an ideal customer allows you to build your entire business, message, product, services, sales and support around attracting and serving this narrowly defined customer group.

News Flash – NOT EVERYONE IS YOUR CLIENTS OR CUSTOMER!  I know lots of business owners who are afraid to market to a niche group for the exclusion of other sectors – thinking that they are missing out on money from the groups they aren’t targeting.

I absolutely guarantee you that if you target your marketing to a niche group – then your business will grow quicker and more profitable than if you spray and pray targeting everyone with everything.

Pepsi toppled Coke in the 80’s by focussing on one small section of the population and they’ve been competitive ever since.  They niched down, marketed to that group, the marketing worked not only for the target market but created what we now refer to FOMO – Fear of Missing Out.

OK – so let’s get down to business here – let’s start the process of knowing who your who is.

I’ve have spent almost a day creating the most comprehensive workbook on defining your ideal client. 

It digs down deep into who your who is, when I say comprehensive, I mean it!  This workbook is what people would normally charge 100’s for!  But for you it’s free today.   Simple go to www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/client and you can download the workbook there.

Finding and serving an ideal customer is just so important for a business, whether just getting started or long established.  A focus on discovering a narrowly defined ideal client will save months of wandering in the dark trying to be all things to all people and make your business more profitable.

And I’m not going to sugar coat this, so many small business owners don’t get this. They don’t understand their ideal client; they don’t understand the power of knowing your ideal client.  Their business never grows because they don’t know who they serve and therefore how to market to them to attract them.

Please don’t be this business owner.  Put aside an hour this week, download the workbook and get stuck into it.

Any questions or queries about it, head into my Facebook group – Like Minded Business Owners, ask your question and I’ll be in there to answer them for sure.

Can you hear it in my voice just how important this is?  I really hope so.

2. KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO BE FAMOUS FOR – YES YOU!

You can’t determine who your ideal client is if you don’t have a firm handle on what your business is and what it does best and what you want to be famous for.

I’ve run into too many small business owners over the years who still haven’t mastered the basic “elevator pitch” and can’t simply explain their business when asked “what do you do?”.

Tell me “we teach children soccer” or “we install energy-saving commercial generators” and I know that you know who you are.

If this is an area that you think you need to work on – go back and have a listen to Episode 4 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast – all about Knowing your Expertise.  There’s a great little exercise in there for that one too which will help get this bit right – because if you don’t know what you do – then how are your prospects supposed too.

Remember a confused buyers never buys!

3. GET TO KNOW YOUR COMPETITORS.

Don’t say that you don’t have any. We all have competitors, and to succeed, we have to get to know them, understand what they offer, who they cater to, what their price points are, where they operate, where they find opportunities, where they succeed — and where they fail. By getting to understand your competitors this way, you will see the openings for your business to find more clients and, perhaps, the things that you must do better to get more business from existing clients. And when you make the list of your competitors, be sure to include both traditional competitors and the businesses that are disrupting your industry, bricks and mortar and online.

One of my mentor’s stories about a dishwasher repair man who had many competitors within this business district and struggled to get new clients.

So, it was suggested to him that he do a competitive analysis – find out what he was really competing with.  Which he did.

He wrote a list of his competitors and rang every one of them and graded them 1-5 on their phone manner, supply availability, their enthusiasm etc and then rated his business against the same metrics.  From there he knew what he needed to improve to start winning customers – he knew what he needed to start marketing to hit the pain points of his prospects to win their business.  Seems so simple doesn’t it?

For those interested, I’ve got a table in the show notes with that same competitive analysis tool – so if you’re interested, simple go to the show notes at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au and check it out.  If you’ve never done a competitive analysis – maybe todays a good day to start.

4. GET TO KNOW WHERE THEY HANG OUT AND BE THERE!

Where do your ideal clients hang out?  I’m not talking coffee shop here (!) and but online and offline where do they hang out that you can market to them.

Do they read the papers or magazines, do they live in their inboxes reading emails, are they in LinkedIn groups or Facebook Groups or on Instagram?  Maybe they are Twitter people or avid Podcast listeners like yourself!

Marketing is simple when you know where to market and what source is best for engagement!  Wherever they are, be there, participate there, give enormous free value there so that they are so curious they click, download, start following you or request to connect.

Then find out the best way to market to them.  The best way to create a lead to lead them from lead to list to sale to fan.  You get this right – then business will grow.

If you’re not sure about all the ways you can create leads – again head over to my show notes – I have a list of 46 of them in there – clearly there’s too many to read out – but head over to the show notes and see them all listed – yep 46 of them.

46 Potential Lead Source Ideas

1.          Webinars

2.          YouTube

3.          Podcast

4.          Direct Mail

5.          Speaking

6.          Seminars

7.          eBooks

8.          Magalogs

9.          Tear Sheets

10.        Referrals

11.        Influencers

12.        Squeeze Page (or Landing Page)

13.        Video

14.        Website

15.        Adwords

16.        Advertising/Promotional Materials

17.        Click Pop-ups

18.        Books

19.        Telephone

20.        Lead Magnets

21.        Surveys

22.        Affiliate Programs

23.        Backlinks

24.        Newsletter

25.        Free Media & PR

26.        Joint Ventures

27.        Retargeting

28.        Blogs

29.        Facebook

30.        LinkedIn

31.        SEO & Organic Search and Keywords Searches

32.        Twitter

33.        Instagram

34.        Billboards/Signage

35.        Sponsorship

36.        Exhibiting

37.        Radio

38.        Television

39.        Online directories

40.        Networking

41.        Letter box drops

42.        Markets/Fairs/Festivals

43.        Content Marketing

44.        Align with a cause

45.        VIP Events

46.        Paid Social Media Adverts