subject: I Know Who Your Ideal Customer Is, But Do You? [print this page] I Know Who Your Ideal Customer Is, But Do You?
Do you ever get frustrated trying to sell a product or service that you know is great, but people just don't want to buy?
Do you have lots of customers buying cheap items and then spend most of your time dealing with customer services?
Do you spend your hard earned money on advertising, make a sale and then never see that customer again?
Ok, questions over, but if you answered 'yes' to any of those above questions then it's time to change your mindset. It's time to understand who your customer is and exactly what you're trying to sell them.
Let me explain...
Crazy Passion
Firstly, trying to sell something to someone when you know they don't really want it is a difficult task.
However, there are people out there who are so passionate about what they do that they'll pay almost anything to learn more about or improve something.
Take golfers for example, they have an irrational passion and will pay crazy money to knock a shot or two off their scores.
Any customer who has a crazy passion like this will almost be begging you to sell them something to improve the way they do things.
Urgent Problem
Maybe your customer doesn't have a crazy passion, but if they have a problem which needs solving urgently you're onto a winner.
Imagine your car has just broken down. You're miles from home, late for a dinner party and it's raining. Do you shop around trying to find the cheapest recovery service? No, you have an urgent problem and need a solution quick.
If a recovery truck stops and the driver says he'll take you and your car home now he wouldn't need much of a hard sell to get you to hop in.
Affluence
When deciding what sort of product to sell consider this. You can either sell a high volume of low value items to non affluent customers or a low volume of high value items to affluent customers.
I can tell you now that more customers isn't necessarily a good thing, especially if you're only selling them low value items.
The overhead of customer services when selling low value items to lots of people can soon become unmanageable.
If you have the choice, sell high value products to a select few affluent customers. Your life will be so much easier.
Recurring Purchases
Something else to consider is, do you sell your customers something that they only need once a year, or even once in a lifetime? If so, your advertising dollars are likely to get you very few sales per customer.
If at all possible sell your customer something that they need regularly. Anything which your customers consume or use up so that they have to replenish their supplies will encourage repeat purchases.
This way the lifetime value of each customer increases significantly and again, your marketing becomes much easier and better value.
With recurring purchases you don't have to constantly find new customers. Keeping existing customers is so much easier than finding new ones.
Conclusion
If your customers don't have a passion for what you sell, they don't have an urgent need, they don't have a lot of disposable income and they're only ever likely to make one purchase of a low value item then things aren't looking too good.
However, now consider the affluent customer with a crazy passion or an urgent need and who will buy expensive items from you on a regular basis.
It's your choice, but I know which customer my business mindset tells me to choose. Don't think that you need every customer you can possibly find. You don't. There are some customers you're better off without.
