Your RIGHT Target Market: Identify, Understand, and ATTRACT Your Ideal Client

In his book, Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You've Got, Jay Abraham illustrates the difference between clients and customers.

He cites Webster's definition to illustrate the difference:

* Customer: one who purchases a commodity or service.
* Client: one who is under the protection of another.

Jay states: "The difference in meaning is massive. And there is a massive difference in the way a person who does business with you could or should be treated."

Whoa... back up a minute here. Read that again. Let it sink in... really sink in... before you read on.

Ah yes... that client experience...

Oh, how we crave that, seek that, and will gladly and willingly pay more... sometimes a whole bunch more for someone who protects us... someone we trust... someone we'll give our money to again and again.

Why?

Because someone finally hears us, listens to us, understands us... and delivers exactly what we want and need.

Here's a quick story to illustrate the point:

Need a sporty new polo shirt? You can grab one at Wal-Mart for under 10 bucks... pretty much the same shirt at Neiman Marcus---$50-$60 or even more.

Now, why would any intelligent person pay 5 or 6 times the price for basically the same thing?

Jay shares this story:

"A man landed in jail following a drunken brawl during a Texas-Oklahoma football game. The next morning the Oklahoma judge set bail for $250, but the man was far from home and knew no one in town. The man pulled out his Neiman Marcus credit card. He reached a Neiman Marcus vice president, who arranged for the bail to be charged on his account, and the man was set free."

Try this one with Wal-Mart?

"Hello is this the Wal-Mart manager? I got myself a little pickle here in Oklahoma, and I was hoping you could literally bail me out..."

Here's my point: (and Jay's):

"Treat your clients like dear valued friends."

Invest your time and effort to figure out exactly what they want and need, why they choose to do business with you, and really understand how your clients think. This is the first strategic step in positioning your business for phenomenal growth.

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." Bill Cosby

Marketing Strategies Made Simple

There's so much confusion and just bad, self-serving, misinformation out there about what marketing is.

We're not living in the Information Age... we're smack in the middle of the Information "Overload" Age.

With that in mind, you must develop a fierce focus and the only way to do that is to start out with the end in mind... the big picture.

When your mind is clear, you focus on the key impact areas with great intensity.

The idea, concept, and practice of the Ideal Client develops a laser sharp focus of exactly who your prospect is ... and eliminates those that aren't.

But identifying your Ideal Client is only one component part of your marketing picture.

Consider these two brilliant simplified views from two of today's top marketing minds... and marketing "doers".

Dan Kennedy, legendary small-business direct response marketing guru, explains marketing as:

"There are three components to marketing-for anything, anywhere, at any time, at any price, to anyone, under any conditions. Every individual loves to insist his business circumstances are somehow different. Not so. Every business on Earth, past or present, requires three things to prosper. They are not in sequential order, because they can't be. One is no more important than the other. One does not necessarily precede the other, but you need all three in place simultaneously. Think of it as a three-legged stool. It can't stand with any leg broken or missing. It needs all three. It's a closed triangle. Each of the three components feeds the other two. If you will "marketing energy" flows laterally to and from each component, to and from the other two.

There's only one way to get it right:

Right Message--Right Market--Right Media."

When you focus on Attracting Your Ideal Client, you build the critical "Right Market" leg of the stool.
(with some Right Message---Right Media thrown in as a bonus)

Mark Joyner, author of two best-selling marketing books, The Great Formula and The Irresistible Offer, shares these three- part concepts:

The Great Formula:
1.Create the Irresistible Offer.
2.Present it to a Thirsty Crowd.
3.Sell them a Second Glass.

Again, our focus here is to focus on who exactly, and where exactly, is your Thirsty Crowd-that Ideal Client prospect.

Also Joyner offers and states another three-step concept, brilliant in its simplicity:

There are three--- and only three--- ways to increase the revenue of any business endeavor:

1.- Get your message in front of more eyeballs.
2.- Get more money per eyeball
3.- Sell more products to your existing clients on the back-end.

Everything you do to make more money in your business fits into one of these three categories.

But why is it that most business owners focus 95% of their time and energy on the things that don't fall into these categories?

When you focus your efforts on what works, it forces everything else to fall away.

You see, it doesn't matter how great your product or service is if you pitch it to the wrong market. Imagining having a whole crowd of people thirsty... hungry for what you have, what you do.

Thirsty crowds are everywhere. And, the first place to look is right inside your own business. The first place to look and examine... and completely understand... is to analyze the work you've already done. This will give you the clues, the roadmap to finding a Thirsty Crowd of prospects who want what you offer.

When you focus on Attracting Your Ideal Client, you position your business to reap more money per eyeball.

But...

As Dan Kennedy states, the components feed each other. A thoughtful discovery of your Ideal Client profile will reveal to you how to get your message in front of more of the "right" eyeballs, and an added bonus... doing this business analysis,in many cases, will result in more sales of products and services to your existing clients, and referrals from them too.

Finally, one more observation from a marketing expert to drive home exactly the importance of the Ideal Client idea:

Gary Halbert,(RIP, Gary) a true modern-day marketing genius, poses this question:

If you're going to open a new hamburger stand in town, what is the one thing you would want most? Many people say the best burgers in town, a secret sauce, or great cook, or commanding name, logo, or character like Ronald McDonald.

Nope, the one thing I want is this: a Starving Crowd.

Your first step in creating effective marketing is to find or develop a Starving Crowd, a Thirsty Crowd... to discover your "Right Market"... Attract Your Ideal Client prospect.