Your Ideal Client

I’m sure you’ve heard about profiling your ideal client. The idea is to define what makes the perfect client for you and your business so you can target more of them. It makes perfect sense.

Ideal clients for me are:

1. Running a financial planning business model

That is, they are committed to addressing all of the the clients key issues rather than cherry picking the low hanging fruit just to make a product sale and get paid.

2. Ambitious

They want to grow and develop a meaningful business in terms of size and profitability, OR to create a highly efficient lifestyle business that serves them without requiring 60 hour work weeks.

James Harvey is a great example of this. One man and his PA generate a significant amount of annual revenue and he still goes sailing for a week every month. Nice work if you can create it.

Anna Sofat at Addidi is an example of the other; her vision for Addidi is impressive as she attempts to create a business that serves the unique needs of women and their money.

3. Decisive

They make the decisions that have to be made, even when they are tough and unsettling.

Ken Welsh at VWM was decisive when faced with some difficult re-structuring decisions involving his staff. In a 12 month period there was some significant turnover in his team but now he has a leaner more motivated group in place and is reaping the rewards.

4. Open to advice

There is no point paying considerable sums to your adviser if you are not prepared to take the advice. Gary Neild is always quoting this point back to me when he is under the kosh with a difficult decision. James Harvey always used to tell me that when he did resist some of my suggestions, nothing actually changed in his business.

5. Prepared to invest in themselves

They invest at an appropriate level in terms of time commitment and financially. They are not trying to do things in double quick time or on the cheap.

But I also think this ideal client thing goes further. Not only are you trying to attract more perfect (or as close to perfect as you can get) clients, but you are trying to reduce the number of clearly inappropriate clients. I can’t tell you how liberating this is in any type of business. Why is it so liberating?

• You only work with people you like
• You only work with people that want what you sell
• You don’t get stuck sorting out silly situations that were created solely because you took on someone who wasn’t right for your offering
• Your team don’t waste inordinate amounts of time on the few, while the many are neglected.
• You get to put most time and energy into those clients that are most deserving in terms of revenue’s they generate and appreciation they have for what you do.

What does an ideal client look like for you? Are you running a business that works only with ideal clients?

If not what can you do about it this week?

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