Everywhere you turn online these days there is someone else telling you that you need to identify your IDEAL client.   What is of great disappointment to me is that everyone appears to be impatient to get to the “tell me what do to” stage, that they don’t have a grasp of why we do this, and how to use the information once you have gathered it.

I am NOT going to tell you how to identify your ideal client in this post.  The tactics can wait, and if you are too impatient and only want the tactics, then I wish you every success, because without the overall strategy your tactics will fall flat and then you will be the person in the FB communities telling everyone that marketing doesn’t work.

I am however going to set the record straight as to what this exercise (yes exercise, not shopping list) is actually about, for and how it is to be used to create empathy and compassion.

• Your ideal client is an exercise, a profile of a person who embodies the attributes of a person you would enjoy working with, who has problems you enjoy solving.
• The purpose of the exercise is to enable you to UNDERSTAND your clients with incredible compassion and empathy so that they know that you get them.
• Your ideal client may or may not be a real person.
• Your ideal client creates a framework for you to build your stories, your content, your marketing around. It allows you to speak to someone, to create a sense of personal connection rather than a bland third person experience of words that become meaningless.
• Your ideal client may be a combination of many different types of people.
• Your ideal client will not magically turn up in your schedule just because you have completed an ideal client exercise.
• Your ideal client is ABOUT YOU just as much as it is about THEM (yeah, I know, that’s a surprise isn’t it).
• Your Ideal client is just that, an IDEAL.
• Your IDEAL Client will change over time, this is not a set and forget exercise

These are real statements from real clinicians I have heard and or read recently that made me want to freak out a little…

• My business is failing, and I don’t think I can make rent this month. I’ve had 4 new clients booked this week, but I’ve cancelled them all and referred them out because THEY ARE NOT MY IDEAL CLIENTS. (WAAAAT!!!! You can’t make rent and you’re giving away client’s)
• I’m a newly licensed clinician who wants to be in my own private practice, where do I go to get my ideal clients? (OMG is there a Client shop somewhere that I don’t know of?)
• What do you do when your Ideal Client asks for an appointment after 3pm and you don’t want to work after 3pm? (one of the most terrifying responses to this was, well then, they are not your ideal client so refer out – No that’s a personal preference for YOU the clinician, and guess what your IDEAL client may actually be the type of person who requires out of normal business hours appointments, especially if you want PRIVATE PAY client’s who more often than not are, working during normal business hours)

What appears to have happened is that those recommending the concept of Ideal Client have done such a good job, that we as an industry of clinicians have completely personified the exercise and turned this IDEAL into an expectation of who we will treat or provide services too.

I’ll say it again; this IDEAL may not exist in 1 person – let alone enough people to fill your case load.

So, in essence the exercise itself has over delivered.  But now we have swung a tad too far into the extreme.

And we as health professionals are not alone.  I see this in all service-based industries.  Lawyers; Accountants, Hairdressers; Corporate Consultants; Personal Development Gurus…

The purpose of identifying who you are ideal client is, is to help you identify

• Who you are.
• Who you serve.
• How to take that message to the market.

It is to allow us to step into the heart and mind of our potential client’s so that we can let them know that we get them, and we are here to help them because

1. A confused prospective client will not buy your services.
2. A prospective client who does not ‘know’ you will not buy your services.
3. A prospective client who does not like you will not buy your services.
4. A prospective client who does not trust you will not buy your services.

A prospective client will buy your services when

1. They feel like you understand them
2. They feel heard
3. They can trust that you are real and authentic

Therefore, the purpose of creating an IDEAL Client is to learn how to communicate with people you can help in a way that allows them to know you, like you and trust you.

So please for the love of all things that makes us the experts in human behavior, can we stop waiting for this ideal to turn up on our case load.

It is time that we put away our shopping lists, demands and unrealistic expectations and learn WHY marketing is integral to who we are as clinicians, and then HOW to implement a marketing strategy that allows our prospective client’s to know us, like us and trust us so we can help the people we are best able to help.

If you are now more confused than ever, there is no need to be – when done properly with the right intention, completing a thorough and exhaustive ideal client exercise and then be shown how to turn that information into all of your marketing copy and collateral, then then you will be on your way to creating a case load of clients that lights you up!

And yes, I would be more than happy to help you with this.

Please schedule a call with me where I can share with you my 12-week coaching program that does not have a fancy name, but is powerful, affirming and will change how you do ALL of your marketing so that you actually get results.

Jo