The Art of Attracting Ideal Clients: How to Define Your Target Market
Attracting ideal clients for your health coaching business starts with defining your target market, and having a good understanding of the problem they want solved or the goal they want to achieve. A marketable ideal client is someone that knows they have a problem, want to solve that problem, is looking for a solution, and has money to invest to get access to the solution (your coaching program or other offer).
When you know who it is that you want to work with, you can be crystal clear in your marketing language so those people will be instantly attracted to you.
In today’s episode you’ll discover…
- A limiting belief trap that many coaches fall into as it relates to defining their target market that holds them back from targeting the right people and enrolling clients.
- Our signature formula designed to help you decide what makes an ideal client identity valuable in the sense that they can easily be converted from a follower into a paying client.
- How to add layering to your target market that takes an otherwise vague ideal client identity to laser-focused and crystal clear so it’s easy for someone to say, “yes, that’s me.”
More than likely, you’ve heard us discuss the importance of defining your ideal client identity on some of our other podcast episodes. That’s because it truly is one of the most important decisions that you can make when starting your business. When you know who it is that you want to work with most you can be crystal clear in your marketing language so those people will be instantly attracted to you.
What we’re going to discuss today will be a new spin on this topic so we urge you to stick with us until the end of this episode. We’ve worked with hundreds of coaches inside our Wellness Business Accelerator program and we’ve helped many of them define their ideal client identity using a very special formula that we created.
Today we’re going to share part of the Wellness Business Accelerator program with you with a sneak peek into one of our lessons. What you’ll learn today comes from our lesson called: How to Finally Nail Your Niche Within 30 Days to Fill Your Program.
On a side note, we’ve been hard at work over the past few months updating our signature program with the very best and up-to-date information to support health coaches create and grow profitable coaching businesses. We think you’re going to find the formula we teach you today extremely valuable in choosing your target market which is why we want you to know that we’ll be opening the doors to the brand-new version of Wellness Business Accelerator in just a few weeks. We’re so very excited to share more of the juicy details with you over the next few weeks. Mark your calendar for April 3rd which is when we’ll be sending you a very special invitation to join us.
Let’s discuss what it takes to define your target market.
First, it takes a willingness on your part to narrow down who you want to work with from being vague and all-encompassing to one clearly defined group of people. We know that for many coaches that can feel scary because it feels like you’re leaving money on the table. Sadly, way too many coaches fall into that trap which is why they struggle to get clients. Here’s why…
Just for a moment put yourself in the shoes of your ideal client. Do you think they are looking for someone that is vague in who they help or someone that claims to be a jack of all trades? Or, do you think it’s more likely that they are looking for a specialist, someone that is an expert in one thing and one thing only?
Of course, they are looking for a specialist. We all are! When we are trying to solve a problem, we want to find a professional with the training and experience that makes them the best candidate to help us get to our end goal in the quickest way possible.
If that’s resonating with you, hang on because there’s more. We don’t want you to stop there when choosing your ideal client. There is another layer we want to share with you. It’s our own signature formula designed to help you decide what makes an ideal client identity valuable in the sense that they can easily be converted from a follower into a paying client.
It’s what we call a ‘marketable ideal client’.
A marketable ideal client is someone that knows they have a problem, want to solve that problem, is looking for a solution, and has money to invest to get access to the solution.
If they are missing any one of those characteristics you’ll struggle to convert them into paying customers.
For example, let’s say that the person has money to spend but doesn’t even realize they have a problem. There is no amount of marketing or persuasion that will get them to invest in your paid program.
Here’s another example. Imagine that they know they have a problem, would like to solve the problem, but aren’t really seeking a solution because they have limiting beliefs that it’ll be too hard or won’t work for them. This group of people will be equally difficult to convert into paying clients.
However, when they have all four characteristics: knows they have a problem, want to solve that problem, is looking for a solution, and has money to invest to get access to the solution, the likelihood you’ll enroll them in your paid program goes up significantly. At that point the sale is as close to being made as possible. You just have to ask for it.
Now let’s dive a little deeper with a couple more examples to make this concept as clear as possible.
When you’re choosing your target market, we encourage the coaches we work with to layer their client attributes as a way of zeroing in on the most profitable identity there is.
Layering can include:
- Demographic information – age, gender, cultural background, or family status
- Coaching specialty – diabetes, menopause, Alzheimer’s, intermittent fasting, ketogenic diet
- Client career/profession – teachers, stay-at-home moms, shift workers
Each layer allows you to niche down further and further until you have a dialed in, laser-focused ideal client.
Let us give you some examples.
- One coach we’ve worked with layers Ketogenic diet with Intermittent Fasting for Women. One without the other wouldn’t accurately describe the person she is looking to work with so the layering of the two attracts her dream clients and repels everyone else.
- Another coach we’ve worked with layers support for Alzheimer’s with the Bredeson Protocol. She is certified to coach the Bredesen protocol so it sets her apart from any other coach that supports people with Alzheimer’s. Also, as she markets her business and people find her website those that are looking for someone certified in this protocol will be very interested in what she has to offer. She is layering her support of Alzheimer’s patients with her certification of the Bredesen protocol.
- Finally, another example of layering comes from another coach that we’ve worked with and her niche statement is: I help women over 50 shape up and lose weight with at-home workouts and a whole foods approach! Her target market has many layers.
a) Women
b) Over 50
c) Want to lose weight
d) Likes the idea of at-home workouts
e) Support with a whole food approach
As you can see, she adds layers that narrow down her niche so it’s easy for someone to say yes that’s me, or no that’s not me. She is putting a stake in the ground saying she is the ‘specialist’ in this area. We love that!
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Is your head spinning with possibilities? We hope so because defining your target market in this way will most definitely have more of those dream clients paying attention to you.
This formula is something we’ve successfully used to support hundreds of coaches to define their target market through the Wellness Business Accelerator program. Today we’ve just scratched the surface of how our lesson called – How to Finally Nail Your Niche Within 30 Days to Fill Your Program can help you define your profitable target market. When you join us in the WBA this lesson will also teach you our 3-Step Ideal Client Validation Process as well as the 4 categories your ideal client could fall into within your customer journey. We’ve helped hundreds of other coaches define their target market and we can help you too.
We hope you’re as excited as we are about the brand-new Wellness Business Accelerator program and how it will impact the success of your wellness business this year. As a quick reminder, mark your calendar for April 3rd as well as keep listening to the podcast because we’ll be sharing more of the exciting details over the next few weeks.
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