Understanding your ideal client in depth. MODULE 1 Problems Understanding your ideal client in depth. MODULE 1

1 Every consulting business starts with a thorough understanding of the problems and challenges that we help our ideal clients to overcome. This module of the course focuses on how to gain this understanding.

Are You A Specialist or Generalist?

Pros and cons Generalist Pros Widest range of(interesting) opportunities Intellectually stimulating Generalist Cons Commoditised Difficult to be memorable or to differentiate High marketing costs Market rate fees Specialist Pros Easier to create a brand Easier to attract an audience Higher fee and profits Specialist Cons Scaling may require higher cost resources More limited market size (but greater penetration)

Identifying the Problems of Your Ideal Client

Why start with Ideal Client Problems? If you don’t define the problems that you help to resolve, or who for, then your positioning becomes all about you! This will make your marketing nigh on impossible You won’t resonate with many or even any people You’ll be stuck selling to people you already know, and hoping for referral opportunities In short, your business will be based on luck!

What you’re aiming to understand What’s keeping your ideal clients awake at night? So that you can resonate with them How valuable are those problems to them? Be sure that they’ll invest in your services Does it require specialist skills, capability and/or experience to help resolve? Confirm that there is justification for high fees

Ideal client interview questions Where do you think most [name of the role they undertake i.e. CEO of x business type] struggle? What do you think their biggest concerns are? What do you think their hurdles are? How do you think those concerns affect other areas of their life? Where do you think [name of the role they undertake] want to be? Where do you see a lot of them striving to be, but they just can’t get to? What’s the vision? How would they want a service like [whatever it is you’re looking to offer in your business] to be delivered?

Statistical questions Ask question that you can create statistics from as you will use this later to create an infographic that in turn enables you to have conversations with more people

Research your ideal client problems Complete the following tasks: 1.1 Contact at least 5 ideal clients and run through the Ideal Client Problem Questionnaire 1.2 From your research complete the Problem Descriptor template