Thought it would be fun to dive deeper into The business Fundamentals I wrote about last week, so here’s part 2:
Who are you for?
Before starting out marketing your work (and also: several times a year, if your marketing is already running) you need to ask yourself:
Who am I for?
Who, very specifically, do I want to serve?
Who am I most excited about working with?
Which kind of clients just light me up like nobody’s business?
Who does something that I completely fully back?
Which clients have my values in common with me?
Who stands for something that I’d get on a barricade for?
Who has the kinds of problems I can solve, and is willing and able to pay for it?
Who can I help in such a profound way, that they become clients and referrers for life?
All these questions matter.
Because unless you have a profile of a person where each is addressed, you effectively have no targeting or positioning, and your marketing will be highly ineffective.
You’ll be pushing a boulder up a hill, and that’s how it will stay.
Until you get clear on the core, fundamental business question:
Who are you for?
Get that right, and you’ll be rolling a boulder on a plain, not up a hill.
Who are your people?
Who should you work to attract?
Who should you actively avoid courting?
That last one btw is extremely important as well.
Because we nearly always cast too wide a net.
You might be a terrific planning consultant, able to help anyone from healthcare to tech & innovation – but if you don’t choose a niche, your messaging won’t specifically appeal to anyone.
They’ll see you, and say: “Sounds like a real pro, but not exactly for us”.
They’ll keep looking, and when they find a ‘planning consultant for the tech industry’, they’ll go “Ah! That’s exactly who we need”.
So there’s two sides to profiling:
Define who you are for, and then:
Decide who you are not for.
And then make all your publishing and communication and marketing creative about, and specifically for, the niche that you are for.
That’s positioning done right, and that’s how you get high ROI on your marketing efforts.
Happy to help you figure that Who part out – just drop me a line.
