Title: Identifying Your Ideal Customer Base – **1PMP Series**
Guest: Chris Goldman
Peter: This week I’m joined by Chris Goldman, who is the biz marketing business coach and marketing strategist, and this is part of our Marketing Playbook series. We’re calling it Your Marketing Playbook. It’s a podcast series. Chris, how you doing?
Chris: Doing great and excited to continue our conversation about the One Page Marketing Plan by Alan Dib which we’ve become a certified marketing network for. And we are gonna be sharing with people all the great things that we’ve learned and how we apply ’em.
Peter: Yeah, so last week we talked about setting your business and marketing goals and how your business goals really should drive the marketing goals, not the other way around. . This week we’re gonna talk about selecting your target. . And that is in terms of Alan Dibs book, the One Page Marketing Plan is really his chapter one First Step.
Now, last week we said wait a minute. You have to, first, you have to set your business and marketing goals before you can do that. But now we’re ready to dive into chapter one with Alan. And just to put this in a little context Alan breaks the marketing journey or the marketing playbook into three steps.
He’s got the before phase and that’s where you’re selecting your target market, crafting your message and reaching your prospects with ad media. And then the during phase when you’re capturing leads, nurturing them. and then converting them into sales. And then your after phase, which is where you’re actually delivering a world class experience to your new customer or existing customer, increasing their lifetime value and orchestrating and stimulating referrals.
So we’re gonna go all the way back to selecting your target market.
We’re gonna do a little giveaway here. We’re going to give away 25 copies of the One Page Marketing Plan to the first 25 folks who send an email to free biz mktg.com. So free biz marketing.com.
Shoot us an email with your name and your information and just make sure you say that you want a copy of the one page marketing plan book and we will send that to you right away. So first 25, folks who respond, get a free copy of the book.
So let’s get started. Chris selecting your target market.
What the first question is, who is your target market? I can tell you who it can’t be. It cannot be everybody. If you are saying our target market is everybody, you’re literally saying, our target market is nobody. It’s like a, it’s like a chore in a family or something needs to be done at work and you say, Hey, this needs to be done, and nobody claims it.
Chris: It’s just usually not gonna get done. Same thing if you don’t really ask yourself, who is my target market? Then the goals that you’ve set. Have little chance of ever being met. And you don’t want this to happen by accident cuz it’s not. So Frank Kern has this thing called the P V p Personal Value Profitability and Alan Dib jumps on this in his book.
Pete, break that down for us. What does it mean and how do we use it?
Peter: So we’re trying to figure out our target audience, or our, sorry, our target market, which obviously is a target audience as well. But really we have to think about it in terms of market and we are trying to narrow down the folks that we are marketing to now, we could have, I’m not saying we can’t have multiple target markets, but we have to identify each distinctly because each is gonna have its own set of marketing materials, marketing messages and so on. So you want to start with one . What Frank is saying and what Alan Dib basically says in the book , I shamelessly stole this from Frank Kern, is here’s a way to identify your target market.
So you use this P V P which stands for personal fulfillment is the first P. So what you’re doing is you’re rating each of these target markets based on how much you enjoy dealing with this type of customer. That’s the first P, personal fulfillment. The next one is value to the marketplace, which is how much does this market segment value your work?
And finally, profitability. How profit is this? So the example in the book, it’s a photographer and we probably all know a photographer, somebody in the family’s getting the photography business and who’s their target audience or who’s their target market?
Everybody. Anybody that needs a picture taken as a target market, right? And they stop and say, wait a minute. Time out. Time out. Do you do weddings? , are you gonna do corporate photography? Are you gonna do family portraits?
What’s funny is we have a commercial photographer, Lee Tenneboe, that we worked with her for many years.
She’s awesome. LTen Photography. Shout out to Lee. She’s great because when she was in my b n I group, which is a networking group she would give a commercial for her business and the way she described her services. She does commercial photography, mainly real estate photography and business photography.
She says, I don’t shoot weddings and I don’t shoot babies.
Chris: That’s a great way. You’ve gotta know not only what you do, but also what you don’t do. We have that with best marketing, right? We have three Rs
Peter: Yep. We got the . Yeah. The three Rs that we don’t work with no offense to any of these target markets, it’s just that we don’t feel like we can really help a whole lot or compete. It’s retail, so retail establishments.
We don’t do restaurants and we don’t do real estate. So we’ve got the three Rs. The PVP is looking at personal fulfillment. So for me personally, I like working with business owners. I enjoy working with business owners that are in a business that is service oriented, where they are supplying a service to somebody.
So the ones that we have focused on in terms of service is professional services. So we work with some law firms and CPAs. We work with home service contractors. Again, they’re providing a service. And then the last one is health and wellness. So those are the three primary niches. But they all revolve around service, not, they’re not selling things online.
They’re not, they it’s not like a brick and mortar store. It’s selling something. They’re providing a service. So for me, the personal fulfillment is, that’s just what I enjoy.
Chris: Yes.
Peter: I have found personally for the work we do, that the business owners that have service type businesses understand the value that we provide.
They understand that they are professional at one thing and they want to focus on doing that, and they would rather hire a professional to the marketing side of the business. And then the last bit is PVP is profitability. And for us, the way that we have reached profitability is through scalability.
And in some respects, I say it’s like we’re making Christmas cookies for folks. We’ve got one dough recipe. , we’ve got a couple different cookie cutters. We’ve got the Christmas tree, we’ve got the angel, we’ve got the snowman, and then we’ve got different colors of sprinkles. But for all these businesses we work with, we’re still making Christmas cookies.
We might make a different shape, might put a different sprinkle on it, but at the end of the day, we’re still making Christmas cookies. So that’s how we have gone to become profitable in what we do. It’s through the scalability. Doing the same thing over and over again. Obviously we’re filling the needs of the particular customer we’re dealing with, but that’s how we’ve reached profitability because we’re just doing the same thing over and over again and we get good at it.
Chris: And I would say all three of these are really critical to understand because we all know what it’s like to work with a client or a customer, that it is just not enjoyable. And a lot of times that’s not enjoyable because we don’t bring the value to them. that we know they need. And so it’s not that we don’t like the person or we don’t like the company, it’s not enjoyable in the workflow because we’re not in a groove together where we benefit each other and in the end of the day, it’s not profitable for anybody.
So you look at that personal fulfillment, value to marketplace and profitability. All three of those have to be cranking in order to optimize your selection as your customer base, your target market. Then what he says next to do is really interesting. What’s the language that Alan did use as Pete for your target market?
Peter: So he’s talking about creating an avatar,
Which we’ve probably all heard. And this is. the ideal customer and what you’re trying to do, some of the things that Alan talks about in the book is really digging into that person, not just it’s a cpa, okay? It’s a cpa, and you’re trying to understand more about them, like what keeps them awake at night?
What are they afraid of? What are they angry about? What are their top daily frustrations? What do they secretly desire most? What is their day like, what websites do they go to? So you’re really trying to peel the onion here and really uncover the I guess for lack of better terms, the, not just the demographics, like how old they are and that sort of thing, but also looking at things like.
Chris: what motivates ’em? What leads them, right?
Peter: What is their psychographics? What is their personality? For example? Alan reveals in some of the materials that we’ve worked with in the target market exercises that their demographics skews male 37 to 60. But then he talks about psychographics that are open to personal development and want to level up. So I could relate this to the kinds of customers that we work best with. Almost to a T. They all want to grow
Chris: Yeah, they’ve been, they’re successful, they’re established, and then they’re right at the cusp of that next level, and they’re wanting to, what do we do to get to that next level? And that’s where we help them win online. . So in our terms of what we do, we talk about customer profile quite a bit, which is developing, if you will, this kind of description of an avatar.
Who are they? What are the philosophical drivers? What are their pain points? For example, right now in my house, I have some people doing some bathroom remodeling. Bathroom remodeling. But the reason we got there is very different than our. let me explain. We had a leak about three weeks ago that we discovered the leak’s been going on, obviously for weeks, months, and possible years now that we’ve got it all ripped out.
So we become aware of this leak. We call, we’re in an emergency situation, so the companies were calling, that’s their niche. That’s their niche. That’s what they go after. And so they came to our house. They stop the leak, they get it buttoned up, and then they hand it off to a team that can remodel it to a place where it’s usable again.
When we had our kitchen done, there was nothing urgent about it. We were just sitting there asking, wouldn’t it be nice to have new counters? and wouldn’t be great to have a little bit different look. So the companies we landed with were ones that are not trying to do urgent repairs. They’re ones that are mainly about cosmetics and usability.
Those are two different pain points. We talk about values. What is it that drives the values of your target market? For example a high-end hair salon is reaching a different group of people than an average barber. Both of them love their customers, but they’re different customer bases getting similar services.
But even within their conversation of what they do, cutting hair, they would tell you they take a completely different approach. Now, we also want to talk about personality and what problem. This is key. What problem as a business do you solve that brings them in your. is it an urgent issue? Is it something they’re shopping for a long time?
Is it a service they desperately need and they need it tomorrow or they need it over the next year? So there’s a different length. The second thing who do you want your CU target market to be? In other words, what are the customers you don’t yet serve that you believe you should be serving? And you wanna be careful here because a lot of times for example, you may be a person who provides a specialty service.
You do high end dentistry, maybe you’re just working. In cosmetic dentistry and that’s your baby. And you decide, you know what, let’s start doing all kinds of dentistry, just whatever people need cleanings and just basic dental work that is not specialty. Will that shift from specialty to doing everything for everybody?
That’s a big change and you wanna really think that through.
The other thing you need to know is who is out of reach really who’s out of reach that needs to stay out of reach. Let me explain. One of my mentors says this, you need to know where you play and how you win. Know where you play and how you win. So for example, if I am a person who’s opening up a corner store coffee shop in Seattle, and I wanna provide high-end coffee to people, I probably shouldn’t say, you know what I’m gonna do?
I’m gonna go after loyal Starbucks customers. That’s not going to end well for me. However, if I’m going after the customers that say I drink Starbucks when I have to, but I really don’t prefer. . Now I’ve got a customer base I can go after. Here’s another example that is from my real life. Last August we had a car accident.
Pretty bad car accident got rear-ended. And I called a friend who is a lawyer and I said, Hey, I need some help right now. And his first question was, is anyone injured? And I said, no, no one’s injured. Just the car is really messed up. And he said I focus on personal. , here’s what I know about property damage, and he gave me a whole list of things to look out for property damage, and then referred me to a lawyer who deals with property damage.
That’s a lawyer that knows where he plays and how he wins right now. He said, by the way, if something comes up a month from now that you’re hurting that you didn’t know, give me a call back because that is what I deal with. Always know where you play and how you win. Now, this also gets us into. , who am I competing with?
About how do I win, who am I competing with? And a lot of business owners, they think just like we need to go after everybody. They think I’m in competition with everyone. and that’s simply not true. There are millions of people in virtually every market to be potential customers and small businesses are all trying to just get a piece of that huge market base.
So you wanna make sure that you understand. That it’s okay that there’s other businesses out there doing the same thing I do. I just want to be the best at what I do, reaching the people that I’m trained to reach. I e If I don’t know who I’m trying to reach in my target market, I have no shot.
Peter: Exactly that’s a great point. Very good point, Chris.
I wanna remind folks that we are giving away the free copies of the One Page marketing plan book. Just send an email to free biz mktg.com By the way.
Was there anything else that you wanted to cover?
Chris: Yeah, I’d add this, Pete is we’re giving away these books for a reason, not as some kind of gimmick or just a hook for you. It is because we love it when we see businesses do really well. And we love it when people jump in to read and begin to research. What is a pretty complex thing? Marketing. And so we want to get the best tools into your hands so your business can thrive.
Cuz when your business thrives, everyone in your community does better. And that’s our goal.
Peter: One of the reasons why we’ve gravitated to the one-page marketing plan is that it, it creates a simple and clear plan for marketing. Putting all your marketing on a single page is great because now you can hold it up and look at it. and you have an idea of everything that’s happening in one easy to use or easy to look at form.
And you can share that with your team members your other owners in the business with professionals that you work with, your bank, your accountants and others. And it really takes the mystery out of marketing and so that’s why we’ve gravitated toward it.
If you’d like to get some help with coaching, we are certified one-page marketing plan coaches. and we can provide the coaching if you’re interested in that. On our website, we’ve got a button where you can book a consultation with us and we’ll just find out what your needs are and see if you may be a good fit for coaching or other marketing services.
Again, the purpose of giving these books away, we’re just trying to spread the word, and I think Alan Dib has done a great job with the one-page marketing plan.
Thanks, Chris. I can’t wait to get together with you again next time. Next time we meet, we’re gonna be talking about your specialty, crafting your message.
Chris: I love it. Yeah, I have a profitable week everybody, and we just hope and pray for everybody to do really well as we all rise together in business.
