I may be dramatizing a bit, but we did have a wild river adventure. My dad suggested we go tubing, which sounded like a relaxing way to cool off. Not so much.

For those of you who are thinking of how it is tubing the Salt River, much to my surprise, my tubing experience was not at all like that. This was a mountain river running at full speed due to a long and snowy winter.

Let’s just say that I have a new appreciation for nose and earplugs.

I should have taken a clue from the girl who rented us the tubes when she clearly stated that we should not wear anything in the river that wasn’t strapped on. I took her advice. The rest of my party did not, including my husband Mike.

He decided he had to have a hat on and decided to wear mine. Luckily, I didn’t really like that hat because it’s no longer with us.

Yep, that’s right, he lost my ball cap. But neither of us miss it. I had another at the ready because I’d packed a spare from the extensive collection we have at home.

We have so many ball caps he could have floated several down the river and it wouldn’t make a dent in the stash. We, in fact, have more ball caps than is reasonable for two professionals who only wear them on weekends and during vacation.

We’re like most entrepreneurs and business owners who have an abundance of hats. Only instead of filling a drawer with them, most try to wear all their hats at once. It looks ridiculous and defeats the purpose altogether.

When you try to do it all in your business, you end up doing none of it very well.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have this problem. This last year is the perfect example. As many of you know, Melissa Perkins, our long-time account manager, left last spring. I decided not to replace her right away. A lot had changed from when I first brought her on board and I wanted to re-evaluate the role and figure out what the company really needed.

That’s not what happened. I ended up doing a lot of the work myself. Leaving me feeling overworked and frustrated because I don’t have the time to do the things I need to be doing, like writing this newsletter.

I’ve been trying to wear too many hats. I bet you are, too. Maybe it’s time to let some go. Ask yourself:

• What are you doing that doesn’t bring you joy?
• What are you doing that you aren’t very good at?
• What isn’t being done but needs to be to get your business to the next level?

It’s much easier to let a couple of your hats float away than to have them yanked from your head as you’re pulled underwater. Though maybe they’ll end up with the hat, sunglasses and flip flops that we also lost on our tubing adventure.

You Need Marketing Help If…

…You Don’t Know What Direction to Take

In marketing, there are hundreds of different decisions that need to be made, all of them with multiple different options and routes to take. This can be extremely overwhelming, especially for small business owners who are also trying to run their company. A feeling of overwhelm is common, it happens to the best of us, but it can be difficult to make objective decisions on risky strategies.

For instance, investing when you already have limited resources. Whether it’s your people, your time, or your money; you want to make sure that you’re choosing the right things. A small business marketing consultant can work with you to determine the best course of action, put together a plan, and get you one step closer to your goals.

…You Don’t Know if it’s Working

Marketing can be difficult to measure if you don’t know where to look. If you follow your strategies and do A, B, and C… how can you measure success? Is it one or the other? Is it a combination of everything? Knowing what’s working and what’s not will not only free up your resources, it will allow you to take your business to the next level. Working with a small business marketing consultant is a great way to get some help figuring out what you’re doing right and what needs to be changed.

…Marketing is “On Your List,” But Never a Priority

When you run a small business, your to-do list is never ending. However, marketing shouldn’t be seen as something to do really quickly at the end of the day. There are systems and tools that you should be using to get the most out of your efforts and small businesses need to make it a priority to get the best return.

Consistency is key in marketing, so in order for it to perform well, you need to make sure you get the right processes and procedures in place. That’s where a small business marketing consultant can help. They’ll work with you to develop a strong, consistent, and confident habit of marketing that you can implement for years to come.

Don’t Get Overwhelmed — Marketing Takes a Team

Marketing is must in any business. It helps you promote your products or services to your ideal client, which then goes on to increase conversions, sales, and brand recognition. The better your marketing strategies are, the more opportunities you’ll have for your business to succeed.

A lot of small businesses opt to handle their marketing in-hour (do it yourself). A recent study reported that roughly 2/3 of small businesses do their own marketing, despite admitting that they don’t have the knowledge or expertise needed to successfully do so.

We believe this is the right choice. It’s important for small businesses to be involved in their marketing is some way—there’s nobody who knows your business better than you do. But it’s also important to get help when you’re in over your head.

Between our work and personal lives, we wear a lot of hats. Sometimes it can get overwhelming. If you’re struggling with taking off some of those hats, give our August newsletter a read. I share a story about how nearly drowning made me realize the importance of letting go.

It’s Easier Than You Think…

How do you find that seemingly impossible to find ideal client? It’s easier than you think.

This is how to find your ideal client. Start by identifying who they are. As you work through this process, you’ll discover where they are. Then all you have to do to find your ideal client is to show up (virtually or in the real world) at the places you’ve identified.

Start by creating an ideal client profile. I walk you through the process in my ideal client webinar including a template you can follow. Or better yet, take a shortcut, and use Hubspot’s free Make My Persona tool.

Step 1: Identify

Identify who they are. Start with your existing clients or customers and make a list of your favorites and the most profitable. Who’s name is on both lists? That’s your ideal client.

Step 2: Describe

Describe them in detail. To find more ideal clients, you have to be able to describe them in detail. Through the process of creating an ideal client profile, you’ll identify their biggest challenges and discover where they hang out.

Need help? Try Hubspot’s Make My Persona tool, it walks you through creating an buyer persona (ideal client profile). Hubspot makes it easy with this free tool.

Step 3: Home Turf

Connect on their home turf. If you’ve done the work to create persona then this step is really easy. Remember those questions about the websites and blogs your customer reads? Or the questions about the groups they belong to? That’s where you’ll find your ideal client.

Go Deeper

Read our related post for an in-depth exploration of target markets, ideal clients and how to get embrace this concept in your business.

I know it sounds a little nuts. Beside Lyft drivers, who actually enjoys doing airport pick-ups and drop-offs?  I do, and I’m not even getting paid.

Let me explain. Living in Phoenix, AZ has a lot of benefits and for its size, the airport, Sky Harbor, is one of them. Despite being one of the largest commercial airports in the US (or maybe because of it), Sky Harbor is well designed. The airport is basically built as a series of interlocking concentric circles or loops.

While this might sound really confusing for driving around, it works really well. It’s nearly impossible to take a wrong turn.

If you miss a cut off, no worries, simply stay the course and wait for the next one. And if you still don’t get your turn, you’ll eventually loop back around to your starting point and the chance to take that first exit again. Add in tons of signage and it’s almost impossible to get lost.

On this last trip, as I was driving through a loop, it occurred to me that the airport roads are a lot like the modern buyer journey.

Like nearly everything in our lives, the Internet has drastically changed how we buy stuff. It’s democratized how we get information. Want to know something? Just Google it and answers await. Same goes for buying just about anything; Google it and you’ll probably find someplace that sells it or will at least tell you what to consider when buying it.

And that’s how the buyer journey has morphed from a straight line into something that most closely resembles a pile of spaghetti. Online shoppers are no longer coming in only through your front door (your home page). They’re also entering through your windows, chimney and, in some cases, root cellar. Digital marketing has made for an extremely complex buyer journey.

The problem with complexity is that it’s easy to get confused and more than a little lost. Which when talking about driving means lost time, but when talking about potential clients means lost revenue (dollars in your pocket).

To ensure your prospects end up where they want to go (and hopefully it’s the same place you want them to be), you have to create a buyer journey that’s a lot like driving around Sky Harbor airport.

Regardless of where I enter, I immediate see large signs directing me toward my destination. And if I shouldn’t make the turn in time, I immediately see another sign directing me toward my next opportunity to reach my destination. Even if I end up driving in circles, I’m never in doubt about where I should be headed next.

And that’s the secret. You can’t expect the buyer journey to proceed in a straight line, so you always need a clear direction about where to go next. If I didn’t have signs to direct me in my endless loops, I’d get frustrated fast and demand that my family use Lyft for their many airport drop-offs. Instead, I find the experience of playing airport taxi strangely meditative. There’s something comforting about driving in circles knowing that I’ll eventually get back to that sign directing me out of the airport.

A successful buyer journey needs to be designed in the same way.

Give me lots of opportunities to loop while I’m learning about your offering, but make it super clear about what to do when I’m ready to take that next step and stop at my destination.

But it’s the basics that create strong, lasting small businesses. And the one that I see overlooked most often is having clearly defined target market criteria.

Target Market: A Four Letter Word for Small Businesses?

Yes, Kitty, our Grammatical Activist and editor supreme, I know target market has more than four letters. But for most small businesses, it is a dirty word. Mostly because it sounds technical and like something the big guys need to worry about, not me

Let’s make this easy. You don’t need a target market.

Because you’re right, when looking at the usual approach, it’s not relevant to small businesses. The process is too complicated to fit our busy schedules and provides a result we don’t need.

You NEED ideal clients.

Tomato or “tomahto,” what’s the difference between a target market and ideal client? It’s subtle but epic. Target market focuses on a group, a set of demographics, numbers of a page. Ideal client focuses on people.

The ability to create relationships with customers is a small businesses’ number one advantage. Our businesses are run by real people serving real people. And we’re able to do it far better than any large company.

Embracing the idea of going small to  be big can create a lot of fear and doubt. I’m often asked:

How Small is Too Small?

“But I’ll never get enough business” is the number one objection I hear when I mention selecting and focusing on an ideal client. It’s OK to be skeptical and a little fearful. The ideal client concept feels very counter intuitive. When thinking of success, we think more is always better—more money, more freedom, and of course more clients and customers.

Focusing on an ideal client doesn’t mean you say no to everyone else, though; it means you’re giving yourself permission to say no to some people. By being deliberate and focused, you’ll make more money, have more freedom and with fewer customers and less work.

Gyms are the perfect example.

Recently, I’ve been working on being more active and paying a lot of attention to fitness options available near me. While my choices for regular gyms are slim, I have my pick of Crossfit gyms, ballet bars, or martial arts studios. There seems to be at least one in every strip mall.

Why are these specialty gyms flourishing while regular gyms are struggling? It’s simple: they specialize.

Regular gyms are expensive. They require a lot of space, equipment and staff. You need a lot of loyal members just to keep the lights on. Specialty gyms are much smaller, require less equipment and often offer limited hours, requiring a much smaller payroll.

Regular gyms are struggling because they are trying to attract weight lifters, basketball players, swimmers, yogis, and cyclists. They’re trying to offer something for everyone, which basically amounts to a lot of expense without much payoff. Smaller specialty gyms are growing because they are offering a targeted product to their sports’ enthusiasts—their ideal client.

Are You Sure There’s Enough?

Let’s focus on an ideal client from another point of view—yours. Because at the end of the day, it’s all about you. I’m joking (mostly), but there are some major wins for you in embracing specialization.

When you focus on the people that you most want to work with, you tailor your offering to their needs. It positions you as their hero and THE go-to expert. You’ve shown that you not only understand their needs and challenges, but have created a solution just for them. It benefits you because:

• You don’t have to compete. Sure, there are lots of other people who do what you do. But because they don’t have your expert status, they aren’t viewed at the same level as your business. You’re no longer fighting to be noticed because you’re standing apart.
• You don’t have to spend time learning related skills or teaching your team something they’ll do only once or twice. When you tailor your products or services to meet the needs of your ideal clients and everything else falls away. Focus on what you do well and forget the rest.
• You don’t have to spend 10 hours a day networking or thousands on advertising, trying to find enough new customers to keep the doors open. Knowing your customer inside and out simplifies everything in your business—especially marketing. Everything thing you do to attract new customers is done with with your ideal client criteria in mind. If they don’t read the magazine, visit the website or attend the event, you don’t need to either.
• You don’t have to work with people you don’t like. Yes, there will always be challenging clients and customers, but you can have fewer of them. Part of choosing an ideal client means picking the people who you work really well with because they share your values, personality traits or simply get the benefit of what you do. You get to do the work you love for raving fans.

To get there, you do have to know your ideal client so well that they’re like family. You must know where they work, what they do in their spare time, what they value, what causes pain, and how you can help.

Finding Your Ideal Client

So how do you find that seemingly hard to find ideal client? It’s easier than you think. Start by creating an ideal client profile. Download our Ideal Client Workbook to start the process using the steps below. Or use the link above to walk through the process in my ideal client webinar.

Full disclosure, we can’t take all the credit for developing this process. We borrowed from the folks at Hatchbuck. One of the reasons we became an Agency Partner with Hatchbuck is because they made the ideal client profile process easy.

Step 1: Look at your business.

• Who do you absolutely love working with?
• What type of work would you like to have more of?
• Who purchases from you most often?
• What type of customer makes the biggest purchases?
• Who are the biggest drain on your resources?
• What type of client terminates service or returns products most often?

Using your answers, look for common themes. When thinking about the customers you love working with or want more of, how would you describe them? These characteristics are your ideal client criteria and the basis for creating Buyer Profiles.

Step 2: Craft an identity.

Buyer profiles turns ideal client criteria into real people. When preparing your profiles, give them a backstory. Ask questions like:

• What is their name?
• What is their age or stage in life?
• Where do they live? What is their home life like?
• Where do they work? What type of work do they do?
• What is their level of education?
• How does a typical day look?

Step 3: Discover challenges.

Think about the difficulties your profile faces and use insights about the daily wins, struggles and processes to uncover what motivates them.

• What problems does your persona have?
• Where do their obstacles intersect with your expertise?
• What specific challenges can you help them overcome?

Step 4: Validate with market research.

Now that you have a rough draft of your buyer profile, revise with real-life data.

• Meet with and interview clients or customers in person.
• Send out an email survey. SurveyMonkey is easy to use and reasonably priced. The free version is all you need in most cases.
• Make use of market research tools — refer to the list below.

SizeUp LBI

The Town of Gilbert offers SizeUp for Local Business Intelligence. Size Up is a free online tool designed to help businesses grow by making smarter decisions through data analysis. It provides highly specific data on revenues, salaries, health insurance costs, suppliers, competitor information, and much more.

InfoUSA

InfoUSA helps businesses find prospective customers. It’s a tool to create lists (drawn from their database), using criteria like age, income, home value, ethnicity and geography. This is a paid service and the cost is determined by the size of your list.

You can get access to it for free through many public libraries. All you need is an active library card, making InfoUSA an awesome resource for small businesses.

Think with Google Planning Tool

Google’s free Think with Google Planning tool is the ultimate resource for digital target marketing. It allows you to see what people are searching for on Google, check out what is being watched on YouTube, what devices consumers are using to search for the products and services they want, and how they are using those devices, as well as many other cool market research options.

You Can’t Eat Just One …

Or can you? For many small businesses, a single ideal client or buyer profile is all you need. But depending on your vision, goals and nature of your business, you may have as many as 2 or 3.

When making this decision, you may need to do some market research. You need to know if there are enough of your ideal clients to meet your goals. If not, you add another profile or two to broaden your prospect pool.