How defining what a nightmare client would be, can actually improve your business.

This blog is one topic where I have been on a learning curve to get to writing this. It’s definitely a case of hoping I can help you learn from my mistakes and shortcut the process a little to make your business run easier. As we all know being in business is a journey of learning.

This might sound mad, but do you know what your absolute nightmare client would be?

I know this is a funny question to ask. A common mistake that on so many of us self employed business owners make and I include myself in this is; starting our business with the mindset that we can work with anyone because we don’t want to risk missing out on clients by being specific and alienating anyone.

There are a few dangers with trying to sustain this mindset.

The messaging you put out will be vague if you don’t have a specific audience in mind. It won’t speak clearly to anyone, meaning you won’t stand out in all the online noise to potential clients.

I recently heard for the first time that it can mean that you are subconsciously attracting your nightmare enquirys rather than your dream ones. Its easy to feel pressure to say yes to those enquirys if they are the only ones coming in regularly. After all, whether we like to admit it or not we all need to make money. (That’s a whole other blog post.)

Those clients you work with will not bring you tasks you enjoy. This is not only demoralising, but it steals time you can’t use to work with dream clients.

Maintaining the broad catchment approach is an inefficient way to work. Not having clarity means you will be forced to work a lot harder for less rewards than someone who is clear with their likes and dislikes for their business. We all need to work smarter not harder to achieve more work life balance.

Now I am not saying you need to Niche immediately; I have already blogged about whether to niche or not. You can still make positive actions without a niche if you know what you enjoy in your work.

To show yourself to the best of your ability and allow your skills to shine with pride you need to enjoy what you’re doing and who you are doing it with.

I was guilty of being “open to almost anything” when I first started my business. I was however lucky that my dislike of maths meant I did find it slightly easier to narrow down the tasks I couldn’t take on.

Putting these boundaries in place and acknowledging want you want to avoid to yourself, will influence how you think and speak about your business. In turn will that subconscious thinking will change and will drastically help your content stand out to those who need to hear it and bring you more effective results. As you build some of that positive momentum your niche comes to you naturally in an evolving process as your messaging attracts the work you thrive on.

So, once you have got comfortable with when to say NO, you have achieved the harder task. As humans we all like to please people and saying no or disappointing someone is not usually a natural process. If you have mastered this, then you should no longer feel daunted by the identifying your dream client.

Pets and Parenting are examples of things I could have in common with my ideal client.

Your dream clients will usually have common attributes and collecting this information and creating a metaphorical person to aim your marketing at will help you deliver clearer messages. You will find in most cases you will also have plenty in common with your dream clients not just in business but home life too. Identifying these details will help you build relationships more deeply.

I know especially in the early stages of business a lot of people worry that targeting content to specific demographics will limit who comes to them. However, I have realised after hearing the message often and finally letting it sink past my own fears, along with the research I did when creating my hashtag blog. That clearer targeted messages creates confidence. Different clients will resonate with different parts of your messaging so there are still plenty of opportunities to attract a variety of people.

If you still find the idea of creating your friendly Ideal client avatar, then why not join my brainstorming session and tackle the task in a team environment. After all many hands or minds in this case make light work.