This is Part II of How To Have Clients Knocking Down Your Door Wanting To Work With You. If you missed Part I, it’s here. If you haven’t yet started the guides from the beginning, I advise you do that. I take you from the start and lead you by the hand in creating a successful video production business.
Let’s continue where we left off in Part I and continue our journey to getting more clients than you can handle.
Create A List Of Credibility Factors
We’ve spoken about solutions and how they’re the impetus for all your marketing efforts. Positioning is a marketing term which describes how you research the problem your market is experiencing and then deliver the solution.
Think of Positioning as moving into something. We’re going to position ourselves in the place within the market that has the best ROI (Return On Investment). Essentially, this is the place within the market that has the greatest chance of putting lots of money in our bank accounts. Sound good?
Sometimes, getting clear on what will give you an added advantage positioning yourself in the marketplace has to do with practical things.
We call these Credibility Factors.
These are not things you lead with in your marketing materials, but rather things that support your Unique Selling Proposition and the specific benefits that you provide clients.
Make a list of all the things that would make someone want to work with you. These are the things that give you credibility in your field.
Sorry, simply being a nice person is not really one of them. Although that’s certainly something to bare in mind when working on the shoot itself!
ACTION STEPS:
1. Think back to work that you’ve done in the past where people have praised you. It doesn’t necessarily need to be video work – any kind of work where you’ve been praised.
2. Make a list of these compliments.
3. Drill down into specific statements to make Praise Points.
For example, if someone once said to you, “You are really good with time and you never seem to miss a meeting.” Turn that into a statement like, “Impeccable time keeping.”
Get Clear On Your Niche And Expertise
Inside of your target market, you should have a specific subset of people that you target.
For instance, if you want to aim your video services at local small businesses, then a niche of small businesses would be ‘pet store owners.’
It’s all about drilling down and finding your own patch of turf to market your video services to.
The more specific the better.
The clearer you are about this niche or expertise, the more clients will seek you out, the more referrals you will receive and the more business you will close.
Craft Your Ideal Client Profile
Now that we know what niche you want to target, we can drill down into it and find out who your ideal clients are.
Instead of trying to imagine the (potentially) thousands of people that you might work with in your video business, we’ll instead focus on just one Ideal Client.
It’s so much easier to focus out thoughts on one person, and in this way we can imagine them when we’re writing any of our marketing material.
There are several things that universally constitute an Ideal Client:
- Those who you really enjoy working with.
- Those who need your help, badly.
- Those who recognize that working with you is essential.
- Those who can easily be identified and contacted.
- Those that will happily pay what you’re worth, without negotiating.
- Those who will get great results from working with you (and write testimonials to prove it.)
- Those who will tell others about you and refer other clients over and over again.
As well as the universal ideal client metrics above, there will be those subjective to you, your business and your market. Drill into those and you’ll soon start to discover an angle to approach your marketing from.
It’s about researching your market and really knowing your potential clients. It’s not just a case of guessing and playing into classic stereotypes.
What are the needs and desires of your target market? What keeps them up at night?
For example, if we use the ‘pet shop owner‘ example from above, we might consider:
- a male
- has owned a business for 15+ years.
- works long hours
- has heard just about every “new” marketing technique.
- is tired of getting emails about some new business fad.
- wants to find more time to spend with his family.
So, from there, based on our research, we might write out an Ideal Client Profile like this:
Phil is a middle aged man who owns a pet shop downtown. He’s been in business for 18 years and has seen just about everything.
Phil has experienced a couple of recessions and some real ups and downs in his business. In fact, he’s seen innumerable pet shops open and then shutdown all over the local area.
He’s seen just about every business fad of one kind or another, and has heard every kind of pitch for each of them.
Phil works long hours and his main goal is to earn more money from selling his products in order to spend more time with his family.
If he can get more customers in the doors and buy more of the higher-return products, he can afford to staff his pet shop better, thus cutting down on the amount of hours he needs to physically work in the shop.
Phil is on the lookout for something that will enable him the massively boost his sales of the high-return products and so has recently commissioned the creation of a website.
He hopes the website will be a great platform for local people to hear about his shops and the awesome products he has there. He’s gone as far as getting an expert to set up his store on Google+ My Business so that customers can find them easily when searching on Google.
He’s also put time into setting up social media accounts for his shop, so that he can interact with local people who might be interested in what he is selling at his shop.
As you can see, we have gained a lot of insight from writing this Ideal Client Profile.
What have we learnt?
- Phil cares about his family and his time.
- Phil is savvy to the standard approaches from freelancers and business-to-business people (those who sell business services to other businesses).
- Phil has a track record of spending money to improve his business: he has already hired at least two freelancers.
There are more points to be gained from reading my fictitious Ideal Client Profile. See if you can spot more. If you do, drop them in the comments below.
Here’s a video with a solid breakdown of an Ideal Client Profile from Neil Christie. This is the kind of thing we’re trying to accomplish here:
Remember, the profile has to be written based on your detailed research of the market you want to enter.
In the example above, I simply randomly chose pet shop owners in order to illustrate how the process works. I also took liberties with the description of the pet shop owner to illustrate the point for this guide, but all of your research should be grounded in reality.
ACTION STEPS:
1. Research your target market.
2. Work out what the needs and desires of your target market are. What keeps them up at night?
3. Come up with a name or an “avatar” for your ideal client. In the example above, mine was “Joe.”
4. Write an Ideal Client Profile based on your target client avatar and make sure you hit upon all his/her needs and desires.
5. Here’s a free Ideal Client Profile template that you’re find really helpful.
Video Business – Resist Wanting To Serve Anyone And Everyone
One of the secrets of Client Attraction is knowing who your ideal clients are – the ones who’ll recognize that working with you is crucial to solving their problems, pay you what you’re worth and tell others about you.
Figuring out what their particular issues are, why they’re having them and how you solve them is the key to uncovering the marketing code.
The who, what, why and how of the marketing code.
But, remember, don’t try to serve everyone. Here’s a story that demonstrates what happens when you try to do this:
An old man and his grandson were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: “You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?”
So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: “See that lazy youngster, he lets his granddad walk while he rides.”
So the Man ordered his grandson to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn’t gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other: “Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little grandson trudge along.”
Well, the old Man didn’t know what to do, but at last he took his grandson up before him on the Donkey. By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them.
The Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor donkey of yours?”
The old Man and his grandson got off and tried to think what to do. They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the donkey’s feet to it, and raised the pole and the donkey to their shoulders.
They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the grandson to drop his end of the pole.
In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned.
“That will teach you,” said an old man who had followed them:
“Please all, and you will please none.”
Or, as I like to say: Try to please everyone and you can kiss your ass goodbye!
ACTION STEPS:
1. Get very specific on who your best client is.
2. To do this, you might like to think about people who you’ve worked with in the past.
3. If you do already have video business clients, think about your favorite.
4. Otherwise, just think about people at college, at work, at hobbies or clubs that you’ve really enjoyed working with. The kind of people who are always a pleasure to converse with and work alongside.
5. These are the models for your Ideal Client and will help you grow your video business beyond your wildest dreams.
6. Now, write down your Ideal Client’s particular situation that you can solve, their struggles, and any other aspects that would be a requisite for being a “best client” for your services.
Matt Crawford
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It took me a few years to realize the type of client that I enjoy working with. I understand that they cannot ALL be this way, but it is nice to keep that in mind when looking for new clients.
I try not to be too picky, but at least have some guidelines.
Hi mate,
That’s true for sure. Lots of people think coming in that they have an exact idea of the kind of people they want to work with, but that often changes as their career and business changes. Still others come into things not having a clue what kind of clients they want to work with!
And, yeah, it’s not about being picky – just having a solid idea of who you want to work with ideally, and then potentially being open to working with other types of clients (and in other types of video production) if you want to.
Thanks for getting in touch!
how about this — say I had a market that was video for corporations in my home city, how would I form a unique selling proposition around that? I mean so many of the businesses I work with in creating my videos for them are quite similar.
How would you go about creating a unique selling proposition for them that actually sang and stood out? most video companies that create business videos are quite similar. I don’t see how we’re meant to stand out really?
Hey man, good name!
This is a classic thought that can confuse a lot of people. It’s about finding something specific and unique about yourselves.
A couple of thoughts:
What do you offer that no-one else in your local market does?
What kind of flourish can you provide that is different from everyone else?
I agree that most video production companies come across as being the same as each other. This is a problem with the industry and something that articles like this one can help address.
One idea to make yourself stand out is to create a cool intro video for the homepage of your video company’s website. I’m always surprised at how few people do this! It really stands out!
We’re video companies, so we should have a portfolio of video samples of our work on the sites, but ALSO how about a cool intro video that presents yourselves as the solution in you market, as well as showcasing your fun personalities!?
Hi Matt,
Such fantastic information, thank you! I worked in video production for many years until I decided to go out on my own. After reading your info this morning, I now realise I was trying to please everyone, which resulted in a lacklustre business performance.
Im going to launch again and be guided by what I have been reading. It makes so much sense. Thanks for sharing such valuable information.
Kylie
Hi Kylie,
Thanks for the kind words.
Yes, trying to please everyone is definitely not a good way to run a business. Just like the story, you’ll be ‘kissing your ass goodbye!’
There will always be those that, for whatever reason, you can’t please. Focus on the people who bring the most value and care the most.
Hope that helps. All the best with the relaunch!
Matt