Are you marketing to the right clients? Many financial professionals believe they are maximizing their marketing efforts by advertising to a very broad audience, but if you market to everybody your message is not likely to reach individuals with a specific problem you can solve.

In this episode of Money Script Monday, Dan walks you through a technique to build a client profile that will help streamline your market efforts.

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Video transcription

Hello there, and welcome back to another episode of Money Script Monday.

My name is Dan Tatulli and today we're going to be talking about how to identify and target your ideal client.

The reason why I'm doing this episode is because I've sat on a lot of MarketPro consultations and one of the first questions I ask them is, “who is your ideal target market?

And the typical answer I get is, '"Well, everybody." And really that shouldn't be the answer because when you market to everybody, you're really reaching nobody.

You end up wasting a lot of money with a watered-down message that's not really speaking to any individual or specific need.

What we've done here is we've built what's called the client profile.

This is a worksheet that I'd like you to spend the time with and really paint that picture because if you were to think about your ideal client.

Who's that one client that if you were able to multiply them, business and your overall life would be good, stress-free, they work with you just so easy, they know your family theirs, you guys just get along.

Who is that perfect ideal client? And what I want you to do is take this time now and we're going to figure out who that client is, what their challenges and pain points are and then where we can advertise and market to that ideal client.

There is a worksheet that we've created. There's a button below. Click that, download the worksheet and spend the time right now and fill this out with us.

The first thing I want you to do with this worksheet is give it a name. Give this ideal client a name.

In this instance, this is just an example on the board, but business owner Brad, that's the name that I gave him because what you want to do is really visualize the client across the table from you.

Who is that? Business owner Brad I say. There a couple of key demographics. I won't be going too much into it, but age, gender, location, annual income, level of education.

This will all help you. I know it seems silly, but really take the time and write all of this stuff down because it'll help you clearly define who that person is so you can craft a message that speaks directly to them.

Goals & Values

First thing I want you to focus on are the goals and values of, in this instance, business owner Brad.

So, what are the goals?

Brad wants to increase his business. He wants to provide key employee benefits and he wants to prepare for retirement. He's looking to kind of exit his business and really just enjoy retirement.

The values for Brad, Brad is committed to providing value to his employees, supporting his family, and making smart financial decisions.

Now that we've kind of listed out the goals and values of Brad, I now understand him at a higher level.

So, making smart financial decisions. I know throughout the appointment process we need to make him feel empowered.

We need to educate him enough so that he can confidently make those decisions on his own. And some of these other things.

If you want to think about like a hook or maybe like a marketing headline, focusing on let's say the provide key employee benefits, it would be something like how to protect the life of your business through key person insurance.

Something like that right there, when he's scrolling through Facebook, when he receives that invitation, he's interested.

Because now you're targeting the specific goal that Brad originally had in mind. So, take some time, fill out the goals and values of your ideal client.

Sources of Information

Next one is the sources of information. Now, where is Brad hanging out?

Now, we need to figure out where should we be advertising? Is it Facebook, Google, LinkedIn the newspaper, direct mail, all those types of things.

We need to figure out where he's hanging out. Some things are books, so get in their head, the ideal client's head. Brad loves "Good to Great" and also "Built to Last".

So, a lot of entrepreneurial books right there.

Magazines, Forbes, entrepreneur, blogs and websites that Brad hangs out. He hangs out over at Fox Business. He spends a lot of time on that website as well as Bloomberg.

So, things like that you should be then answering, well, gosh, should I be on a Google display ads network right there where he sees my cube ad that directs him to maybe like some type of lead magnet or appointment form there that you can now clearly identify where you should be advertising.

Some of the conferences Brad goes to, Dream Force. Dream Force is just an annual event put on by Salesforce, the CRM. So again, you may think why am I writing this stuff down?

However, maybe you should attend Dream Force because when you're over there engaging with the audience and networking with them, you'll find out that there's probably a lot of business owner Brads in that audience there.

Some of the gurus Brad enjoys, Gary Vaynerchuk and Dan Kennedy. Now, you might not even know these people, however, Brad does, and Brad loves them.

Why didn't I say any maybe more established names like a Mark Cuban or really any Shark Tank people? Because that kind of appeals to a broad audience. Everybody knows Mark Cuban.

So, on Facebook, you could actually say I want you to target people who like Mark Cuban. And when you do that it's a broad audience.

You want to say I want to target people who like Dan Kennedy, now you're speaking Brad's language, you're targeting Brad's kind of group there.

Then anything else that you can think of for your client.

So, I said he's a member of the rotary club. So, things like that. It's like should I be conducting presentations? Should I be more involved locally with the rotary club?

Maybe I should join the rotary club because you'll find out that there's a lot of business owners in that club there.

Challenges & Pain Points

Now that we've done those two, let's focus on the challenges and pain points. So, what's business owner Brad's challenge?

He's having some challenges like balancing family with business, finding and keeping top talent because maybe they're going to his competitor because he's just not offering enough benefits, not having enough time to make decisions.

He's busy and he's so bogged down with everything else. He just doesn't have the time.

What are some of the pain points? Now, pain points are kind of like the result of the challenge.

Pain points, he's fearful of really just losing employees and having no employees he'll have to close down his business.

Fear of not having enough money for retirement. One day he wants to step away from this business. So, if he's not retaining those employees, he might run out of money in retirement.

A hook, some type of headline, maybe are you worried about having to close down your business because you keep losing key employees to competitors?

Right there, if he saw that ad, if he saw that invitation there, that's the hook that's speaking to his pain point and he's trying to look for the solution which you can provide.

Objections & Role in Process

All right. And lastly, objections and the role in the process. Objections to the sale. You want to make sure that you're putting this in all of your marketing messages.

Brad says, "The financial products I'm selling it's just too expensive or can't provide any additional money for the stuff that you're selling."

So, maybe a hook would be a key person insurance for no additional cost. You see what I did there?

Now I just overcame that objection. So, I piqued his interest, no additional cost, what are you talking about? And now we can talk about repositioning his assets.

And lastly, the role in the decision-making process.

For Brad, he's the decision-maker. So, I just get to meet with him and I don't need to worry about anybody else.

But typically, when you're dealing with spouses, does one handle all the finances? Do they both need to be there for the appointments?

Things that you want to address before you start going through those appointments with them.

So again, this was just an example.

I want you to take the time now and kind of craft your own ideal client profile. You can create one, two, maybe even three of specific profiles that you can now go out there and streamline their sales and marketing with.

So, I hope you enjoyed this. Download this worksheet right now, and thank you very much and we'll see you next time. Thanks.