The Wealth Building Magic Of Knowing Your Ideal Customer [Case Study]

If you read my blogs once in a while, you know I’m obsessed with helping you with the process of knowing your ideal customers. In fact, my entire business is built around it. But I didn’t plan it. Like many other entrepreneurs, I discovered my secret sauce by accident. Actually, it is the result of a huge mistake that I made a few years ago.

Here’s the backstory: For years I had been building visibility and credibility for my private clients with tremendous success using optimized blog posts combined with social media and email marketing. I recognized that most businesses couldn’t afford to hire me to handle their content marketing, but I could teach them how to do it themselves. So,?I launched an incredible online course called?Blog School.?

To get the word out, I began giving a free webinar and offering free strategy sessions for people who were interested in getting more help. After the first few webinars, I had 63 strategy session appointments on my calendar. I was really excited.

But after 63 strategy sessions, only two (yes, two!) people signed up.

I was devastated. I knew my course was valuable because I had already taught it three times the year before and the attendees were getting results. However, they had been people I already knew (past and current clients).?So, what went wrong? Well, shortly after asking this question, that’s when?it hit me – I was attracting the wrong people! My webinars got tons of attendees but not enough of them were ready for?Blog School.

I made a huge mistake because I didn’t know my ideal customer.

I made a decision right then and there that I was going to figure out who were the perfect fit candidates for my course and not stop until I had nailed it. I started at a logical place, which is where I should have started in the first place.?The more I dug in, the more I discovered and I was able to create a?prototype of my ideal customer. I gave her a name. I found a photo that looked like her. I updated my website content, I updated my sales pages, and I created a new and much different webinar.?

What happened next? Blog School filled up! And every attendee turned out to be a close match to my ideal customer prototype. Sales conversations were easy and fun. I was able to charge (and get) a higher fee than I ever imagined possible. This eureka moment was when I made the decision to focus my entire business on helping other businesses build wealth by knowing their ideal customer.?To date, I’ve guided over 70 other businesses using the process and formula I created for my own business. Here’s a case study:

Knowing Your Ideal Customer Case Study – Christine Luken

I met Christine at a local Chamber of Commerce event. She is a brilliant entrepreneur who coaches people on how to better manage their personal finances. In fact, I highly recommend her book?Money Is Emotional,?which I just finished reading. (See the link below for more info on Christine and the book.)

The other day Christine and I began the process of identifying her ideal client*. She wants to grow her business and get more visibility for her book. That involves creating compelling content for her website and all her marketing. She wants to be able to make an emotional connection with her ideal clients the instant they land on her website.

As part of this process, I ask people to choose one or two of their favorite clients to think about as we work through identifying their perfect-fit client.?

During the process, Christine suddenly realized that both of her favorite clients are Catholic. In fact, she realized that a large percentage of her client base happens to be Catholic.?

She?knew it –?but she had never really?thought?about it before.

The area where Christine lives has a high concentration of Catholic churches, so it’s not a surprise that she has a lot of Catholic clients. But here’s what is interesting – both of her favorite clients send their children to Catholic school. Something they specifically deal with is struggling to figure out how to save for college while they are paying for private school.?That struggle is one of the reasons they are open to working with a financial coach in the first place!

One of Christine’s big goals this year is to get more speaking engagements. Armed with this new knowledge, she can now create a talk or workshop that will help parents understand how to save for college while they are paying for private school.?

Now, Christine won’t turn away a couple that doesn’t have children in private school. But through the process of identifying her?ideal client,?Christine discovered something that will allow her to make some really smart business decisions this year.?

This is the kind of aha moment that happens all the time for my clients and what makes my work so rewarding.?

To find out more about Christine Luken,?click here.

*Note: The two words,?clients?and?customers,?are interchangeable.