The key to getting and keeping clients is making a connection between what they want and what you have to offer.

Here is an introduction to what that means and how we will approach it in this course.

You already have a best client.

Everybody does, and there is a universal definition for what a best client is.

Find out what that is and how it applies to your business.

It's time to apply it all to your business: who is your best client, as distinct from a competitor's or neighbor's.

Using data you already have and looking at it in a new way, we will start to build that list.

To attack the material in this course, we must start by differentiating demographic data from psychographic information.

A customer profile is more than just the description of a person or of a type of person.

Understand all the elements to consider and how they feed in to an ideal customer profile.

You'll come across a lot of terminology, all about customer profiles and associated topics, and you've

already heard quite a bit of jargon in this course so far. So before you go on, here are some basic terms and how they are used in the course.

Why should you bother building a customer profile?

It's because 50% of marketing budget is said to be wasted on unqualified leads. Find out how these things are connected and more reasons to build a customer profile.

Now this all seems like a lot of work.

So you might be wondering, is it worth it? I mean, what is the worst that can happen?

If building a customer profile is about knowing who you want to target, then it's also about knowing

who you don't want to target.

Here is how to identify the clients you want to avoid.

Creating a customer profile is part of your marketing strategy.

Here is a basic outline of what marketing is, what it will do for you, and how to build it around your ideal client profile, so you are targeting the right people.

Nobody wants to buy your product. Nobody buys for fun or to do you a favor.

What you sell, what you do doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what you solve for your clients.

Find out what that means for you.

A deceptively simple exercise that will make you better at understanding your clients and what they want from you.

I've already used the word demographic several times in this course, and I've also told you that demographics

are not the point of your customer profile.

But that's not to say that they don't matter at all.

Psychographics add another dimension to your customer profiles. They start to look at personalities and behaviors. And as such, they may be the most important part of your customer profile.

Clients always know what they want.

They don't always know what they need.

Understand the distinction and how it will serve you in your communications.

What do you sell?

The answer may not be what you think it is. Because the point is to understand what your clients are actually buying.

There is often a difference between what you sell and what you solve.

What you sell is defined by what the client buys. What you solve is defined by your expertise. Match your needs to client wants.

We have established what your clients want and we've established what your clients need.

We must also address the fact that your clients will have fears.

Find out how to understand them and address them.

It's time to bring this all together: who is your ideal customer?

One of the great things about this approach to building your customer profile is that it allows you to really put yourself in their shoes and to live the whole experience with you the way they do.

Use this data to understand what they do and how they do it.

Storytelling uses a narrative arc that typically includes three stages: the introduction of the conflict, the pursuit of a resolution, and finally the situation resolved.

We're going to do something similar here.

We're going to look at the three stages of your customer story as it relates to before you enter the room while you are in the room and after you have left the room.

Before you enter the room - meaning before you and your client are speaking to one another - your clients know that they need something. Before they know that they need something, they know that they want something.

Understand the customer journey starting before you are ever involved with them.

In the next phase of the story, you are in the room with your client: you are now interacting and talking to one another.

The art here is to connect what you do, the need to the client's success, the want.

And what about once your work is done and you have left the room? Why should you care about that?

Because it is the moment of magic when everything we have been building towards until now actually happens.

Constructing the narrative of your client's life before, during, and after you are in the room gives you insight into their experience. Now you can take what you know about their behaviors and what you know about their experience, and put yourself fully into their shoes to understand what it is like for them to work with you.

You now have the information you need to build your customer profile. Time to get to work! 

There are three areas of information that you want to have about your customer to inform the customer profile. Those are the customer problem, the required solution, and the customer behavior.

Your customer profile is a foundational document in your business. It should influence most of the decisions that you're making.

Here are four examples of how to use it in the day to day running of that business.

The work in this course requires analyzing information and data, and I've received several questions about how to collect this information and additional approaches or tips for gathering all the data.

So let's review the four main ways to collect information about your clients.

Throughout the course, I've been mentioning how you can use this work to update your marketing plan and your customer experience, tactics, and more. Well, now that the work has been done, let's take a closer look at the different ways you can use this in your business.

A customer profile will affect your goals and how you measure success. With the new information you have now, you can review the goals that you had set up originally, and you can update them accordingly by building a more accurate total addressable market.

You have to offer a great experience and give the client a reason to want to stay and to want to come back.

Use your ideal customer profile to provide exactly that.

Every single way in which your clients interact with your product or your store or your brand is all about communication.

Here is how to use what you have learned to make that communication effective.

The previous lecture was all about communication in terms of how to talk to your audience. Now that you know more about both who they are and where they are, the next step is to determine what to say to that audience.

Nothing stays still and times always change.

Your product or service has to keep up with that. Use your customer profile data and continue listening to your customers, and to keep your product up to date.

Building partnerships in your business is a great way to solidify your presence and to grow, and having a customer profile can help you make sure that you are building the right partnerships with the right people and businesses.

I've already mentioned that getting a new client is not the point.

Keeping that client is the point.