There are two things at play when you’re coming up with your single target market:
Firstly, you need to have a clear idea of all the different stages in your industry that your prospect could be in when they go from a clueless newbie to a winning pro. Why? Because every one of those stages is a completely different category you could be serving.
Secondly, once you have those stages down, you must pick the group you know you can deliver amazing results for, and you enjoy working with me the most! (Too many people forget about this part.)
And so, before you do anything else, your very first exercise is to create vivid, real-life prospect avatars for each of those groups.
For example,
when I break down the real estate world, there are four different categories of prospects…
The first one is Betty.
Betty is the brand new real estate agent. She’s all excited, but she doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know about all the paperwork yet, or how to have a sales conversation with people. But she’s got high hopes.
Then we’ve got Veronica.
She’s been in real estate for two years and has made it. She’s got her feet on the ground, working with clients, and knows what to do. She’s turned into a competent real estate agent. She just needs more people to work with and be good to go.
Then there’s Ginger.
And Ginger is the stereotype of a successful realtor with the Cadillac, the assistant, and the buyer agents… and it’s all about her. She’s always busy with a whirlwind of activity around her.
And lastly, there’s Martha.
Martha is building an organization. She’s building a team with buyer agents and specialists and leave managers… all that stuff.
Now here’s what’s interesting… Only when we had those four avatars down, black on white, we discovered that our best spot, the target market we can have the most success with, is taking Veronica and helping her grow into a Martha.
On the other hand, whenever we encountered difficulties working with somebody already a Ginger. When we tried to retrofit our systems into an already busy structure. That’s always been an uphill battle and a less-than-ideal experience.
But it wasn’t until we clearly defined the customer avatars that we could identify the problems and our biggest opportunities. Anyway. Here’s some “homework” for you if you choose to accept it 😉 Set aside some time and do the avatar exercise above. Determine who you want to work with and who you can help the most.
Because here’s the real “secret” behind your Before Unit: You can only start getting in front of people and attracting prospects… when you know who those people are.
For more on customer avatars, head over to the podcast.
