How To Find Out What Your Ideal Clients Want (& Will Pay For)

During this month’s free monthly community call I shared ideas for ‘How To Find Out What Your Ideal Clients Want’ and because it was so popular, I thought I’d share some of these here too.

In one of my recent surveys 52% of participants stated that not generating enough income is one of their biggest challenges in business. And yet there is one thing you can do that will make this easier – that most people don’t and so are missing a really valuable trick!

You see everything we buy either solves a problem we want to fix or takes us nearer our aspirational dreams.

So when deciding what to offer you can either guess (as most people do) or you can ask your ideal clients to tell you what would work for them.

Take a moment to consider, ‘is your product or service offering based primarily on something you’re passionate about’? If yes and you’ve lots of clients signing up that’s great!

But if not, and you’ve asked a few of your ideal clients how you can help them or where they hangout (so you know how best to market to them), then you’re making the whole process of making sales harder than it needs to be. And sadly too many heart-centered business owners waste time and money developing products/services that those they are targeting will never be willing or able to pay for.

A much healthier, easier and far more effective way to build a sustainable business is to first find out what your ideal clients want (and are willing to pay for). Then to decide which of these you’d like to offer – in other words matching your skills and passions to market demand.

It’s a bit like asking your kids what they’d like from Santa. If you want happy children on Christmas day you’ll probably do this and then give them at least one of their ideal presents. However if you don’t ask, the process of working out what to give them can be more challenging and you may not get the response you’d like!

So how do you do find out what your ideal clients want?

Client surveys are a great way to do this. They can also help you connect and build relationships with your ideal customers, prioritise your business activities and generate new ideas. So here is what you do:

Define your desired outcomes for your survey – what specifically you want to know about your ideal clients? (e.g. their challenges, needs, wants, buying habits or social media platforms they use).
Come up with a list of questions to ask – write 5-10 questions to ask personally or online (using software such as www.surveymonkey.com or www.wufoo.com).
Complete the survey – phone or meet 5-10 of your ideal clients or invite your email list/on-line contacts to complete your survey. Offering an incentive or making this fun will increase participation.
Consolidate your findings to identify key facts or trends.
Offer solutions that reflect the feedback you’ve received.

Obviously the value of any research you undertake is only as good as the questions you ask and those you invite to complete the survey. The more strategic you are in selecting both, the more helpful your findings will be in determining what products/services to focus on and how to market these effectively.

If you have any questions about how to do this please share these below or contact me.

And of course you’re welcome to join us on my next free monthly community call – simply join my email list by signing up for my free ebook (by completing your details in the boxes to the right) and I’ll keep you posted about future calls.

I’d love to hear your ideas and thoughts – please do share your comments below.

Alisoun Mackenzie is The Compassionate Business Mentor, Author, and Speaker who inspires business owners and social entrepreneurs to turn their passions into profits and make a difference in the world.

She is also the author of two Amazon Best Selling books Heartatude, The 9 Principles of Heart-Centered Success and Give to Profit: How to Grow Your Business by Supporting Charities Social Causes.

Alisoun is also the founder of The Heartabiz Hub a business network and training academy and has written the following free ebooks:

The 9 Secrets to Signing Up Clients Without Selling (click here)
101 Ways To Attract Great Clients, With Heart, Integrity & Social Impact (click here)
52 Ways to Raise Funds for Charities and Social Causes Through Your Business (click here)