Jasper The Dog Adventure Reveals A Vital Lesson For All Business Owners

You may have seen or heard on the news this week the story of Jasper a border collie who disappeared whilst out walking with owner Adam Nolan near Scafell Pike in the Lake District. As a result a huge social media campaign was launched including a Facebook Group page which attracted 6,500 members and a ‘Find Jasper’ hashtag was widely shared on Twitter.

When Adam set about finding his lost dog, he was armed with one vital piece of information that made the search so much easier, a photo. He was able to show everybody just what they were looking for, people had vital information to help them search and here lies a vital lesson for all business owners.


Do you know what your ideal customer/client/team member look like? Without that information, searching for them is really difficult and, for any people helping you with the search, it is nigh on impossible.

If you think about it if there are customers that you don’t have or people that you would like to have in your team that are just missing people, and, as a result of that, you are missing the opportunity to help them, missing building relationships with them, they are missing from your P&L.

Great sales people and great businesses choose their customers/team members.  If you want to have a great business and make the right choices, you need to build up a comprehensive picture of what your ideal people look like, some of the things you might take into consideration:

• What traits and characteristics will they have?
• What age are they?
• What needs challenges and frustrations might they have?
• What are their desired outcomes?
• How does you product/business help them?
• Where do they hang out in the biggest volume?

Clarity is power here. Adam was able to leverage his search through social media and through various rescue organisations because he was able to provide the one vital piece of information that these people needed to act and that was a clear description of what they were looking for.

A common mistake amongst business owners is to throw some marketing out there in the hope that some of it sticks to somebody.  Two main problems with this approach are hope is definitely not a strategy, and there is a strong possibility that you will end with customers and people that you do not want.

Have you got any customers/team members that you wish you never had? Did you choose them or did they choose you? Is it possible that your competitors are really clear about who they want to do business with and you are attracting their cast offs? Technically this means you are feeding off someone else’s waste! Definitely not the way to grow a successful business.

By taking yourself through the exercise of building up the description of your perfect customer/team member you will have the added bonus of tapping into one of the most powerful tools at your disposal your reticular activating system (RAS). Your RAS filters the incoming information and effects what you pay attention to and what not to pay attention to. So, once you have your description in your conscious mind, the RAS will then pass this on to your subconscious – which will then bring to your attention all instances and opportunities to meet your ideal people which under normal circumstances would be just ‘background noise.’

To leverage this principle, you can set the RAS of your team members, strategic alliances, friends and family by posting your ideal description in places where it will be seen on a daily basis. To make this FUN you might consider putting their description on Wanted posters. A client of mine has a life size cardboard cut-out of their perfect customer…the strange thing is that, since employing this strategy, the average pound spend per customer has risen by over 30%. 

The customers, clients and team members you want are definitely out there and by getting really clear on what they look like you will have a far better chance of attracting them.

Defining your target market is just one of the subjects we will be covering in our upcoming Sales Workshop. This event is not for everyone. Only people who are committed and serious about really ramping up their Sales in 2015. Places are limited so grab yours here…It is going to be great to meet 

you.

Thoughts:

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself”…Peter Drucker

“Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all your energies on a limited set of targets”…Nido Quebin

“If you use standard research methods you will have the same insights as everyone else”…David Nichols

 “Everyone is not your customer”…Seth Godin

“There is only on winning strategy. It is to carefully define the target market and direct a superior offering to that target market”…Philip Kotler

Dedicated to your success

Susan Gallagher
Business Performance Coach

Our next Workshop 'Double Your Sales in 2015' is on Friday 21st November 2014
To Book Simply go to http://www.eventbrite.com/e/double-your-sales-in-2015-tickets-13756053727

"Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?" said Alice
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to" said the Cheshire cat.
"I don't much care where..." said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go’