Let’s face it. Who in their right mind doesn’t want to work only with their favorite clients. Imagine if your clientele consisted of ideal clients who are easy to work with, treat you like an expert that you are and don’t keep unrealistic expectations from you. 

You must be imagining your clients right now and thinking yeah right... all this sounds really good but is close to impossible. But are you even trying to attract your ideal clients? Is your brand positioning and marketing clear on whom your services are for? Is your onboarding designed to disqualify “pain in the ass” clients? 

If not, then this blog will help you attract your ideal clients and get rid of the annoying ones. 

‍

Are you perfectly clear on who your ideal clients are?

Brands are built around your target audience’s needs and problems. Highlighting the benefits and solutions of your services for those problems results in Effective marketing. But to do that, you need to be aware of your target audience first. Your ideal clients don’t get revelations that your brand caters to them. You have to portray it in every single element of your brand.

To do that, you need to contemplate on a few questions. 

Who are your favorite past clients? Explain why they are your favorite. Once you have identified your favorite clients, list down the qualities that you look for in an ideal client. They may be similar in terms of the problems they face, or the values they share. Now it becomes easier for you to answer if someone is a perfect fit for you or not.
‍

Who are your favorite past clients? Explain why they are your favorite. Imagine if all your clients were like these clients.

What qualities do you look for in an ideal client?

How would you determine if someone was a perfect fit for you?

Create a Clear Message - Articulating Your Unique Positioning And Differentiation

So now you have identified your favorite clients, the ones you would like to work with. But how do you attract these clients? This is where your branding and messaging come into play. Your brand is not your logo nor your website. It is a promise to a specific audience, and the trust in consistently delivering that promise.

Your content, website, marketing and everything about your brand needs to speak loud and clear to the clients you just highlighted above! Your message should be specific enough that your ideal clients would hear about your business and self-identify as your perfect client.

For example, targeting women is not specific enough. Nothing about it tells your audience that they are the ideal customer. But women between the ages of 25 and 40 who do yoga? That’s specific and allows people to clearly self-identify as your ideal client. Your target audience’s ears would perk up if they heard that, and they would think this business might actually interest them.

In the case of MadMo, Ecommerce businesses don’t interest me. I want to cater only to service businesses. But service business is also a very wide target market. My processes and services are tailored for small service businesses that are flexible towards change. Hence “We work with 1-3 person service businesses looking to transform their brand.” 

For your target market to count, it must be specific enough that your ideal clients would hear about your business and self-identify as your perfect client. 

‍

Be Where Your Target Audience Is

Solopreneurs or small businesses don’t have that much time or resources to market their services everywhere on the internet. So how do you prioritize between so many platforms? The simple method is to be where your target audience is. 

Once you have articulated your unique positioning in the market. You need to get out there and expose your brand to as many potential clients as possible. That’s why you should find out where your customers spend most of their time. Be it online or offline, and then constantly interact with them.

Are they on LinkedIn? Or Facebook/Instagram? That depends on your business. But once you have identified your target audience and where they spend most of their time, you have to double down on that channel. Connect with your audience, build a community, engage with them. But keep in mind that you have to build relationships and not hard sell your service! No one likes a hard sell.

‍

Getting Rid of the Annoying Ones

We often think that having bad clients is the fault of the business owner. Who is not meeting expectations or managing clients poorly. But an important part of working with great clients is recognizing the annoying ones and weeding them out.

‍

Defining Your Red Flags

How do you know if someone’s going to be a bad client? A simple way to answer it is that they will take away the time and freedom you went into business for in the first place.

Some examples of annoying clients are as follows:

A prospect that expects you to be available at all times. These clients have paid you money and now they expect you to be at their command. Weekends aren’t weekends anymore because the client expects you to reply at 9pm on a Saturday night.

Clients that expect results immediately. They think that hiring an SEO expert would get them on top of google search results the next day. Or by hiring a digital marketer and spending some budget on their ads they'll be overrun with sales from the very first ad. These clients are impatient and very hard to please.

Clients that want freebies before getting into contract with you. These clients don’t trust your expertise. They waste so much of your time in proposals and onboarding that you no longer remain profitable in dealing with them. 

Prospects who offer equity instead of cash. If someone is offering you equity in their business, they probably don’t have the confidence that their business/startup would someday be a million dollar success. Besides, being paid in cash is important for running a small business and having a healthy cash flow.

Lead Questionnaire Forms and Disqualifier Questions

An important step in working with your favorite clients is to filter out the annoying clients as early as you can during the onboarding. Get to know about your prospect and their business by making them fill out a lead questionnaire form. Assess if they are the right fit for your services or not. Using onboarding questions let's you filter out bad prospects early on in the process. Never be afraid of sending business away. Narrowing your focus is what makes you attract your ideal clients. 

‍‍

Raising your Prices

Many freelancers and small businesses who are just starting out set their prices very low. They don’t mind getting underpaid as long as they are attracting clients. But if you are dependent on low prices to get business, you're going to have a hard time creating a successful business or attracting clients. These clients want the same amount of work as the high paying clients but at a lower cost. You definitely don’t want to be working with them. If you want to attract better clients, who value your services and expertise rather than just the price tag, you need to raise your prices. But the prices need to reflect on the value you provide!‍

‍

The Bitter Truth

You don’t want every client. If you think having more clients and having a full schedule will help you become rich or help you achieve the freedom that you always wanted. Spoiler alert. It won’t. The only thing you’ll certainly be getting is BURNOUT. 

A key factor of running a successful small business is to work with your favorite type of clients. They are willing to pay the premium prices because they value your services. They let you call the shots as they trust your expertise. But your service business needs to stand out even if you are in an overcrowded niche.