When I make a Connection Call or One-on-One Coffee Meeting, I ask my new contact the same 3 questions. It’s great research for me, it’s fascinating, and it gives me a handle on how I might be able to help them.
What’s pretty amazing is that most often, the entrepreneur will give me a different answer for each of those 3 questions. It’s our goal in building a successful business to have the same response for each question, but it rarely happens right from the start.
I’m going to ask you those questions in a minute, and I want you to write down your answers, but first, I’ll share that if you have the same answer to 3 out of 3 questions, you’re golden!
If you have the same answer to 2 out of 3, then you’re definitely in a good place, and really only need to do a little work to improve your situation.
If you have 3 different responses to the 3 questions, then you’re in good company, but are probably sensing a disconnect, a disparity in your business and don’t know why. It’s those 3 different avenues that are giving you that sense of being off-balance.
So I want you to get 3 post-it notes and on each of the notes, write down the answer to each of the questions. Let’s pretend we’re a Health and Wellness Coach and I’ll show you what I mean.
Ready?
1 – What customer request do you receive most frequently?
Who comes to you most often? We get a variety of people requesting information about our services, so stop and look at your records. Is there a particular client type/request you get more often than others? As a health coach perhaps you are most frequently approached by thirty-something moms who would like your help in getting back into shape “post-baby”. In this case Post It Note #1 says Mid-30’s Post-Baby Moms
2 -What service makes you the most money and who do you do it for?
What’re your QuickBooks reports telling you is the best source of income? As a health coach, when you look at your financials, you may discover that most of your revenue last year came from men 40 to 60 who wanted to reach a higher level of health after a medical problem. Note this is different than the number of requests – it’s specifically the biggest financial result. Post It Note #2 says Men 40-60 Post Medical Issue
3 -Who do you LOVE working with?
What service do you offer that brings you JOY? Who do you get EXCITED about working with, to reach their goal or solve their challenge? As a health coach, your favorite type of client/service could be women after menopause ready to improve their energy and stop taking some medications. Post It Note #3 says Mid 50’s Women Regaining Energy & Health
As you can see, this Health Coach has clients and money coming in, but there’s an imbalance in their incoming traffic –
they usually get women after childbirth,
the most money comes from men recovering from a medical problem, and
they get the most joy from working with post-menopausal women.
What to do? They can continue being vanilla and targeting anyone and everyone, but whether they grow or not is LEFT UP TO CHANCE. Who needs that??
They CAN take control of growing their business by targeting all their marketing and strategies on just one of those groups. It doesn’t mean you turn everyone else away, it means your message is focused on the 1 group you chose.
You probably think the answer is to target the MONEY group and a lot of people do make that type of choice. I see things differently. I feel you choose JOY first the money follows. You can build a successful, profitable business full of joy by targeting the type of client that makes you the happiest. And this in turn builds your revenue.
I would love for you to connect with me and share your 3 Client Avenues. Email me at susana@clearpathstrategy.com with the subject line 1-2-3. Tell me what 3 responses you had for your business.