If you want to sell your work, it’s good – no, it’s crucial – to know who is most likely to buy from you.
Otherwise, you’ll be spending a lot of resources talking to the ‘wrong’ people, which is inefficient, frustrating, and costly.
And so, people talk about demographics, customer avatars, psychographics, ideal clients… and usually, it brings us nowhere.
How many kids or cars someone has, where they worked or where they live, their spending power or their hobbies and social circles… all that says something about them… but it says nothing about *the two of you*.
As in: are you a match? A good fit? Is there resonance, are you on the same page?
Put differently: will you and your new buyer have instant rapport, given that rapport is a requirement for building trust, and without trust there’s no sale?
Demographics can’t predict that, and even psychographics only go so far.
But there’s one human identifier that you can use to reliably predict whether or not two people will hit if off: shared values.
So, instead of demographics or psychographics, think in terms of valueraphics.
Shared values instantly put you on the same page with another person.
And, someone’s values are super-easy to glean, from just reading a few blog posts or checking out someone’s social profiles. Our values are always on display.
So if you start by looking for people who share values with you, you’ve effectively crossed the rapport-hurdle – the most important and tricky thing in the context of sales – long before you even reach out to a potential client.
And once you identify people with values similar to yours, it’s really easy to add in psychographic or demographic markers, to further niche down your outreach and marketing efforts.
Efficient? You bet.
Fun too, because once values become your north star, you keep meeting people who are just awesome to deal with – and it becomes a lot easier to enroll them in your work, as well.
So if you’re struggling to find buyers, start by looking for people with whom you have values in common, and talk to those people first and foremost.
Cheers,
Martin
Plus, here’s 4 ways I can help you:
1: Curious how much revenue you could generate by re-activating past buyers? Have a look by using this calculator
2: Discover how to sell ethically – the way nice people do
3: Choose – and execute on – those projects and tasks that get your business the biggest growth, results, and impact.
4: Upgrade yourself and your business: tune the human machine
