Do you have a consultant target market in mind when you think about your clients? Can you picture somebody? Do you know what kind of position they have in their company? Can you describe what problems they have, and what solutions they tend to look for?
Do you know the way to their heart?
As you start to research your competition, start to track the kinds of clientele they are reaching out to. And as you start meeting with clients, traveling to conferences, sitting in on webinars and the like, keep track of who these people are. You want to get to know them.
Try to build a profile of your ideal customer. Maybe two or three. That’s your consultant target market.
An Example
In my consulting business, I tend to have two target market personae. One is a civil servant, because I do a lot of government contracts. Her name is Janice and she has been in the business for a while. She knows what hoops to jump through; she knows how to get projects done—but she doesn’t have any staff of her own. Janice is tired of farting around with internal processes and obstacles. Whenever she gets some extra money for a project, she hires a consultant who can deliver high-quality work with no muss and no fuss.
Now, my other consultant target market persona is Rich. He’s an executive director in a nonprofit. He has no extra money; he has a demanding and inexperienced board of directors; he has very little time. But he is dedicated to his mission, he knows what he wants, and he knows that the right consultant can transform his nonprofit, raise his revenue, increase his reach and relevance, and put his heritage site on the map. That’s why he calls me.
Another example: this website’s Target Market
When I started putting together this website, I had a target market in mind. Maybe it’s someone like you. I imagined an ambitious professional, mid-career, probably Gen X or older Millennial, who has hit the wage ceiling where they work; who loves working from home and never wants to go back; who has ideas and ambitions and aspirations that they would like to see advanced sooner rather than later. It’s somebody who has a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit, even if they haven’t done much entrepreneurial work in the past. Does that sound like you?
So start to flesh out your target markets. You may not be able to fully imagine them yet—and that’s ok. Just remember that they should be based on real-world research and real-world experience, which takes a little time to amass.
In everything you do, keep those personae in mind. As you put together a blog post or a web page or even a project proposal, keep asking yourself, “OK how will this feel to my market personas? How will this fly with Ravi or Nina?”
Good luck.