I read somewhere, the other day that the only three things a successful Advice business needed were:
- A good value proposition
- Quality service and
- A good price
All great ingredients for a successful business but I would like to suggest that there may be a few more ingredients needed, maybe more of the ‘raw’ things.
One of those ‘raw’ ingredients I’d like to discuss today is getting a handle on your ideal buyers persona because this is one of the fundamental steps many business owners miss.
Who is your ideal client?
Really…. who is it?
Many Advisers respond with “professional person earning over $80,000 or, pre-retirees or young families. They answer with a label rather than their ideal buyers persona – there is a big difference. The difference really matters when you are trying to communicate through your marketing, through your website, through your digital profile. It matters because unless you can clearly articulate your buyer’s persona chances are your marketing is getting lost, not being responded to and you are not getting noticed.
Today I’d like to share one simple yet effective way in which you can answer the question “Who is your ideal client” more in depth and understanding than your competitors can.
I’m going to assume that you already have some clients because one of the best ways to work out what your buyer’s persona is, is to interview the clients you already have. You can outsource these types of interviews or, you can conduct them yourselves. Some of you may have a few buyer personas that you need to work out if you have more than one ideal segment. For example, if you like to work with Engineers and you like to work with young families, you will likely have to create two sets of interviews because the two segments are quite different.
You are limited only by your imagination in terms of the questions to ask! However, let me point you in the right direction!
5 Topics to consider when developing your questions [always good to limit the number too], could be around:
- Time – Why did they decide to choose to use a Financial Adviser when they did?
- Research – Find out how they gather information about a product or service they are looking for. Are they looking on the Internet, reading the paper, asking others? If they are on the Internet what words did they put into Google?
- Problem – When you can articulate someone’s problem better than they can, they usually credit you with knowing how to solve it. In this instance though you are already solving it. What you want to find out is how do they articulate their problem?
- React – How quickly did it take them to make a decision once they knew that you could solve their problem? You might be surprised to learn how long it takes!
- Response – How do they rate your response rate to solving their problem? Was it fast enough, too slow, were their expectations met? Again, you might be surprised by the varying buyer personas response.
Taking the time to learn the various issues and concerns that your clients have is absolute gold. They will welcome the opportunity to share their insights with you and the information you gather can help you in every part of your business not just the marketing. It’ll help you today but it will also help you forward plan.
Make sure you meet where they want to meet, it could be over a coffee [or stronger!], it could be over the phone. Thank them and make them feel included. I can’t tell you the number of times I have facilitated discussions like these between clients and Advisers and every time it’s a positive experience for everyone.
How can you possibly develop your marketing if you haven’t spoken to and understood the people you are trying to market to?
