Somewhere around the year 2002, I really started to dislike, no despise, my after-the-fact bookkeeping clients. It seemed all of these clients were grouchy, demanding, nasty and not doing well in their own businesses. One afternoon, I had reached my limit and instead of staying at my desk working, as I normally had in the past, I left and went to St. Mary’s by the Sea. St. Mary’s is a beautiful park on Long Island Sound near to where I live. I don’t know if it was the change of scenery or not, but something magical happened that day. That short respite gave me what I needed to begin looking at and thinking differently about my business and who I wanted to work with.
You see, for my company, this service was a problem every way you looked at it – from clients not paying on time to not paying at all; work being submitted late, work not being submitted at all; clients not responding to our questions – you name it, it happened. I was unhappy, my staff was unhappy and most importantly the write-up clients were not happy. The point is just because you have the skill to provide a certain type of service does not necessarily mean you should offer that service.
I recognized I was not placing any value on this service so why did I expect my clients to?
For your business to be its most attractive to others, you must value and enjoy all the services your company provides. It is only then, you are in perfect alignment and can attract to your business those clients who you enjoy working with.
The first step to identifying your ideal client is to become crystal clear about who it is, you are meant to serve. Once I became clear that we should not be offering after-the-fact bookkeeping and who my ideal client was, I was able to communicate that in my marketing materials, 30-second speeches at networking events, and, on my website. My ideal clients were able to see and identify themselves in my marketing message and how we could help them. In essence, we became magnetic.
You too can become magnetic and work with clients you love. To start to figure out whom you like to work with, answer these 2 questions. They will have you well on your way to establishing who your ideal client is!
1) What is not perfect/working for me right now? For example, it may not be perfect for you to have a client who does not pay you in a timely manner. It may not work for you to have an employee who comes late to work everyday. Once you start considering what is not perfect/working, you will find that you can develop a very long list of characteristics.
2) Now look at your list and identify the opposite of these characteristics. For example, it is perfect for clients to pay us on time, every time. It works best for me when my employees are on time when arriving to work.
Once you have answered these two questions, read through your answers to question #2 and read what you’ve written. This is the start point for your ideal client.
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