by Vicki Flaugher, CEO of SmartWoman Guides

Who is your ideal business client? Who is it that could benefit most from your services and products? If you said “Everyone” – go back to GO and do not collect $200.

Too often, beginning entrepreneurs don’t take the time to really figure out who is their ideal business client. Even if you have an offering that can appeal to a wide audience, it’s imperative that you have a specific, clear, and quantifiable understanding of exactly who that client is.

Here are some questions to help you identify your ideal client is for your business:

• Demographic – gender, ethnicity, culture, geographic location, familial status
• Age
• Family orientation and attitudes – marital status, parents or not, traditional or alternative
• Spiritually oriented
• Where did they come to you from? – learning state (beginner/advanced),
• Are they originally referrals? – who sent them and why
• When they buy – after X amount of research, emergency/crisis basic, in advance
• What is their buying cycle? -what time of day/month/year/life circumstance
• Buying pattern – how much, how often
• Terms  – cash, credit, in house financing, monthly billing
• Common concerns
• Type of communication preferred – email, direct postal mail, phone, physical visit

Remember: Knowing clearly who your ideal client is will inform your marketing,  your website copy, your emails, your sales scripting, and everything else. Talking to your prospects and screening them and only taking on clients that fit your required profile will save you money, time, and heartache.

To listen to the SmartWoman Radio show about this topic:

I found this great website for female entrepreneurs and thought you might want to check it out.

Filled with helpful how-to articles, videos and tips,  the site is fun, well-layed out, and easy to navigate. The owner of the site, Kate Skow, and I may do some things together soon, so check it out and go visit her.

EntrepreneurGoddess.com

One of my primary goals in developing this blog is to unify the field. In my own research for help with my entrepreneur adventure, I have found many resources, but mostly they are scattered and frankly, they vary in their relevance wildly.

In the larger business journals, you only get a smattering of female focused articles, mostly ones that compare how we do against men (how many businesses we start, how often we fail, how effective or not we are in obtaining financing, etc.) I guess that can be helpful, and I hold out hope that the larger establishments come around to fully embrace our power group, but for now, we have to turn to more progressive thinkers.

Since there are many types of female entrepreneurs and lots of business models they follow, I intend to gather together the tools and help we all need to be successful. Not just the hard fact type of help but also the emotional and psychological assistance. Entrepreneur Goddess is a good example of what I mean.

So, go visit her and tell her I sent you. And, if you have a favorite female entrepreneur focused website to recommend, be sure to post it. The more we all communicate and share, the stronger we become!

Vicki Flaugher