John C. Maxwell in his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership discusses the Law of the Inner Circle. Simply put, you become who you spend your time with. In business the same rule applies when it comes to building a customer base. As you think about your business, developing a clear picture of who you want to attract as customers is critical to the success at any stage in business. Do you want to become an elephant or a mouse?

Positioning, marketing and sales is the life blood of any business. In the beginning phase of your start up operation, you probably spent the majority of your time, energy and resources in the pursuit of customers. Knowing your potential customers spending habits, pains, needs, where they live, socialize, work, exercise, shop, age, gender, desired profit margin, etc. is important in your efforts to attract ideal clients for your company. Developing an ideal customer profile for your products and services before you begin to market and sell increases your efficiencies while ensuring your focus targets the customers you most desire. All of your positioning and marketing efforts should be directly connected to attracting your ideal client.

If you were to ask any business if they were to start their business all over again what would they do different, most would answer they wouldn’t work with “X” type of customers. Over time, successful mature companies learn the financial rewards in spending time with the clients who value their services most. However, in the initial phase of launching your business it is natural to take any and all customers. It is very easy to get caught up in the emotional rush of going out on your own. The fear of the unknown will drive you to say yes to just about anybody who is interested in your products and services.

Who are the potential “X”’ customers referenced above? Mice. If you are attracting mice in your business you haven’t done your homework on who is most suitable for your products and services. It doesn’t take much effort to attract mice, once you acquire one, mice typically require more work for sales and service, value you and what you offer less, and bother you more. Mice carry a disease known as unproductivitis – a crippling disease that causes your business to lose valuable time, energy and money due to working with the wrong type of customers.

The more mice you attract the more they tend to multiply in numbers. How do you get rid of mice? First, do your best not to take them on as customers. If you begin to attract a nest of them and the symptoms of unproductivitis begin to show, I suggest you call the exterminator ASAP to get rid of them. In other words – fire them! Cure your disease immediately or you may never escape the clutches of these tiny critters.

If you conduct thorough research on your ideal client, you can build a positioning, marketing and sales plan to attract your ideal clients, and if executed with great precision and tenacity, elephants will come your way. Elephants require more work to attract them to your business. However, the financial and psychological rewards are much greater. Ironically, elephants are difficult to acquire even though you know exactly where they are located. For instance your new business may provide technology solutions for companies. Taking a stroll around town or through the phone book you will locate several potential elephants that could benefit from your solutions. Hunting elephants requires a bigger gun with high powered ammunition. In business the bigger gun could represent a large menu of services or products versus a smaller line up of items to offer. The ammunition embodies the messages you are firing to bring the elephants to you. Superior magnetic messaging will carry the language and solutions that draw elephants to you.

Why only work with elephants? Elephants live longer, typically carry larger streams of revenue, and carry a higher lifetime value. Lifetime value is the amount of revenue your clients produce annually times the amount of years you plan to be in business. For instance, if you earn $250 per elephant annually and the mouse earns you $25 and you plan to be in business for 20 years, the elephant is worth $5000 over your career as opposed to $500 for the mouse – a 1000% difference.

Elephants respect your time and seek out your advice. They believe in long lasting relationships, bother you less and value you more. Remember, elephants are scared of mice so you should be too.

It’s counterintuitive to think you can hold out for the elephants and say no to the mice. However, successful organizations and professionals have no problem with saying no to mice. The quicker you learn to say no to mice, the better off your business will be.

Here are some questions to help you build your ideal client profile – the elephants:

• Who are the elephants you want to attract?
• What are the pains your elephants have?
• How do your products and/or services ease the elephant’s pain?
• What does the demographic profile of your elephants look like?
• What signals and messages do you need to send out to attract the elephants?
• What is the most efficient and effective way to distribute your message to the elephants?
• How much do you need to earn financially on each elephant to be profitable and meet your financial objectives?

The comparison of mice and elephants doesn’t stop at your customers. As your business grows and you build a team, make sure you are building a herd of elephants. Elephant team members show up on time, say please and thank you, do what they say they are going to do, carry a passion for your business, and have the capacity to grow with you. Elephant team members attract elephant clients – mice team members attract mice clients. Lastly, make sure you see yourself as an elephant. Remember, like species attract like species.

 

Travis Ray Chaney is a co-creator and Transformation Guide with Dynamic Directions. For more information on Dynamic Directions, please contact Travis Ray Chaney at tchaney@dynamicdirection-d2.com

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