The Hidden Powerhouse: The Most Overlooked Yet Crucial Aspect Of Your Business

Between juggling client meetings, managing your website, keeping up to date with everyday tasks, who has time to stress about website security? Well, with Kinsta, they take care of the technical stuff so you can focus on what you do best, which is probably not website security. So what is Kinsta? Well, Kinsta provides managed hosting for WordPress, so offering lightning fast loading times, top tier security, unmatched human only customer support.
Whether you're a business owner, web developer or you're running a digital agency, Kinsta makes managing your website easy and efficient so you can spend more time on what matters most. Kinsta gives you complete peace of mind by ensuring that your WordPress site are always online, secure and performing at their best.
Kinsta provides enterprise-grade security and is one of the few hosting providers for WordPress with SOC 2 and other certifications that guarantee the highest level of security for your website. Kinsta customers can experience up to 200% faster sites simply by moving their WordPress site to the platform.
They have a user-friendly customer dashboard called MyKingster that makes managing your site or multiple sites a breeze. MyKingster is packed with a range of features that simplify site management including tools for cache control, debugging, redirecting, geolocation and even CDN setup.
Thanks to their unlimited free expert-led migrations kinsta makes it a smooth transition from other hosting providers so you don't experience any downtime plus they've got 24 7 365 days a year human only support available in multiple languages it's ready to assist you with any inquiry regardless of site complexity what's incredible to about Kingstead is their fast and reliable customer service and premium features that are included at no extra cost. Ready to experience Kingstead's hosting for yourself? Get your first month free when you sign up at kingstead.com today.
It's the perfect opportunity to see why Kingstead is trusted by thousands of businesses worldwide to power their websites. Visit k-i-n-s-t-a.com

to get this limited time offer for new customers on select plans. Don't miss out, get started for

free today. Hello and welcome to the You Can podcast.
I'm your host Sarah Jolly Jarvis and this week we're going to be talking around the hidden powerhouse, the most overlooked yet crucial aspect of your business. But what is this powerhouse? What is this crucial aspect that gets overlooked so much? Well here are some clues.
Let me know when you figured out what it was. Okay.
I am the thing that underpins your business activities. I'm the exercise most people have already done and found pretty useless.
I'm often described as too vague and a bit of a guessing game. People regularly talk about me, but rarely properly understand me.
People often sigh or roll their eyes when I'm mentioned, who am I?

I am of course describing here your ideal customer. Now before you decide to skip this episode,

do yourself a favour and stick with me for just two minutes. Okay, Yvette, one of my new clients

came to me recently on her onboarding session. We were talking through and getting to understand her business that little bit more.
She couldn't get any interest in her service. And I knew it was a targeting problem.
I knew the answer to which lay in a hundred percent was in her understanding of her ideal customer. It could be the offer itself, the messaging around the offer, where she was talking about what she does, all of which could be resolved by understanding her ideal customer better.
But in the past, Duvet had been subjected to ideal customer exercises before, but the problem is that I say subjected because they can so easily be used as a bit of a paper exercise there's no context there's no value to it you feel like you're guessing you feel like you're just plucking ideas out of thin air no further research is done and it's all kind of just brushed over and you move on to the next thing but Yvette had spent an awful lot of money on a number of different courses the problem was was that she wasn't getting anywhere with any of them, and that really did lie in her ideal customer,

her understanding of ideal customer,

and I knew straight away that I could help her.

If that, on the other hand, wasn't so sure,

and when I got her to do the ideal client exercise,

she just sent me a copy of her previous work

that she'd done on it,

and she really wasn't engaged or switched on at all

to the ideal customer idea,

but once I started to ask her questions on our onboarding sessions she began to understand she really didn't know her ideal customer at all so I'd be asking her you know what's brought them to that and what's made them do this and what's the background and she's like I've no idea not really thought about that before and time and time again that same response was coming up and so I took center off to do some research okay lots of people say it's just a guess okay and in the beginning like it is a guess and so people are like well what's the point if I'm just guessing then and then what's the point in in doing this but the thing is is that from those initial guesses you can actually mark on I get a lot of clients to mark on their answers with whether it's um i color code them because i just love a bit of color coding but you can color code your or mark on a key or whatever the the various activities that the questions that came up which you were not 100 sure about you were guessing you're doing sort of a best guess scenario so that you can revisit them you can fill them in later you know that they're possibly weaker foundations on which to make decisions and so that can therefore support you it can help you to to understand and to start improving upon that original basis and how you approve upon it is to go away and to do some research what do people want who's saying what saying what? Based on who you think your ideal customer is, what are they saying? What are these people talking about? Are they your ideal customer? Are they aware that they need what you've got? Where are they at? What are they talking around? What are they spending their money on? What are they spending their time on? About two years ago now, I worked with a lady called Natalie. She wasn't clear at all on her ideal customer.
She'd actually been in business for nine years. She'd got multiple businesses.
It wasn't just one, she actually had three. All centred around the same sort of offer that she was delivering but to different audiences for different motivations.
When we got clear she realised that one of her businesses was very predictable and easy to serve one of her ideal clients were really a dream they were they were great they were highly motivated there was a regular influx of them supported by initiatives done by third parties which weren't going to change anytime soon there was nothing fixed in she wasn't relying on anyone or anything like that. But it was a system that was well used.
The other two, on the other hand, for other two businesses were not ideal and they were hard work for the income that she was generating in return for the effort she was putting in. She was so much better off focusing in on that first business and the ideal customer that existed within that.
In the end, she actually sold her other two businesses. There was value in them, they could definitely be scaled by the right people but having sort of struck on her ideal client that worked for her, she was able to keep her business a lot simpler.
Okay, she now works part-time, she's relocated, she's semi-retired and she's thoroughly enjoying working with that easy to work with ideal client we touched base the other week and she said to me you know what it was that work that we did on the ideal client even though i'd been in business for so long which helped me to truly understand them and truly appreciate how i could serve them best and how i could serve them in a very time and effort efficient way and look at the other two and realize the impact and the value that they were providing me with in return for the amount of work involved. I am not exaggerating when I say this is the biggest area of improvement for your business.
There are so many different indicators, so many different things that you can find out from your ideal client. For example, understanding who they are, what motivates them, what third party interests they might have, what age they are, age range or stage in life they're at, their gender, etc.
It can help you understand what platforms they're likely to hang out on. Understanding that means that you can focus in your marketing on the places they are most likely to be found.
Your messaging can come from the words that they are using to describe the challenges that they are currently experiencing. Your pricing can be determined by understanding the value that they put on the offer that you're providing and the solution that you're providing.
That can come from the conversations that they're having on what priorities fit where for them the way in which you deliver your service or your offer can again be determined and derived from the conversations that they're having and the ways that they say that they prefer to work based on their lifestyle their age their gender their priorities there is just so much information to be gleaned from your ideal client. It is such an amazing source of information and such a great resource.
So what sort of questions should you be asking yourself? What sort of things should you be thinking about when it comes to your ideal client? Well, my full comprehensive list that I get clients who are on board to go through contains 23 questions now that can be a little bit overwhelming without context and without the support that I tend to provide them with but to give you an idea of some of the things you should be thinking about obviously one of the key factors to start with is their age or what I refer to as a life stage what I mean by life stage is where are they at in their life at the moment? Now I have spoken to people who've been like, well you know what, my product is suitable really for anybody from the age of sort of 16 to 60. When you start thinking about what that looks like in reality, a 16 year old is just starting out in life, they're just starting to get independent, they're probably probably purchasing things for example out of a saturday job or a casual job whereas somebody at the age of 60 is coming towards heading towards retirement they have disposable income potentially because they've been there they've done that they've had children the children have flown the nest etc etc and they may be even thinking around grandchildren and so they've got their different priorities they've got different things that they're willing to spend their time and money on and that's thing is is it's not just about where does their money go it's also about how are they prepared to invest their time that is also a a precious resource and one that people you know take into consideration when making a decision then you go on to gender and you know there's lots of opinions now with genders and gender neutral and everything else but you know stereotypically what are their behaviors that you would normally classify based on gender so you know are they somebody who buys from like women where we need lots of information we need lots of facts we need a breakdown of the information and what's going to be happening and when or do we make decisions that those individuals make decisions more like guys where they want to know the outcome and the investment time and money wise and that's about it that the kind of detail isn't as significant to them it's important to know that so that you can provide that

information up front and you're not going to get objections over not knowing things and also the level of communication that they may want etc etc etc what are their top three motivations for using your product is another thing so what are their motivations understanding their motivations how do they make that buying decision okay so are they going to be searching the internet asking friends or colleagues because that's going to affect how you market yourself and where you put that information which meets their questions addressing their objections another area my questions focus on is complementary brands because you need to be aware of what what is this individual at in their awareness of first of all their need but also the solutions to their need for example somebody who has used a competitor is going to be more switched on to the outcome that you can provide but they're going to want to know how you compare to that competitor and obviously you know from your point of view you need to understand where that customer has been let down um or whether you know their needs haven't been met so that you can make sure that you can meet those and they may be more suspicious for example over the claims that you can make over the support you can provide but then you know the flip side of that is somebody who is new to the industry you're going to have to sell them the outcome and well then why you are the best person to deliver that outcome and that is where it is really important to be able to understand where that starting point is and what information that person is going to need and therefore what sort of marketing and messaging you're going to be using there's no point selling against a competitor and talking around how different you are to other people available on the market if they weren't aware of the market or the solution before stumbling across your social media for example their likes and dislikes and interests are all key things where you know you can bond over you could be anti something that actually you know is is really important to you and you will be able to find sort of solidarity with other individuals who have the same outlook as far as their interests are concerned that can help you understand whereabouts you might be able to look for joint ventures etc and so there is so much opportunity for you to to then understand how you may be able to market and market more creatively i remember working with a tree surgeon company a good few years ago now and they actually used to sponsor a local run and the reason they did that was because they knew that people who took part in that run tended to be people who owned gardens in a particular area a particular location and so they sponsored the bags for these events and they would actually sell out was the beginning of the summer summer period and they would then be booked up for basically the rest of the year on different jobs that had come from that sponsorship so it's understanding you know how do you relate why would you relate a tree surgeon to a run but actually that is exactly how that works in that situation by understanding their ideal

client your understanding of your ideal client is always an evolving thing if you find that you are becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of motivation for example or demand has changed for your offer and you don't understand why then go back and revisit the ideal client i tend to get clients to revisit their ideal client to update them on a quarterly basis it is amazing how things can change for example you can go from you know what I want to work with teachers I had a client recently who like yeah I work with teachers and then actually when we started looking into it it was actually a certain segment of teachers who'd had a particular experience who had had enough who were motivated and who were highly motivated and therefore you go back to your ideal client and they tweak the ideal clients and they're now looking for those highly motivated individuals who'd had that experience and it's only normally through time and through working with these individuals that you can get clear on who you want to work with recently i had a client who they were very very clear i want to work with these individuals i want to work with mums who need to change up their lives who've had enough and then actually she got some beta testers she started working with these individuals she understood how busy they were and how actually low down their priorities they themselves were and then she realized that actually i don't want to be working with these individuals i want to catch them before this happens get them when they're single and they have that focus on themselves and they have the time and they have the finances available to do the work that is needed to get them in a good place so when actually they do get to the point of having relationships and settling down and having children they are in a position where they already have those skills and they're already able to make those changes for themselves so sometimes sometimes it is a, you know, it's a tweaking, it's an adjustment, but you don't know that until you get out there and start talking to your ideal client. For those of you with more established businesses, looking and reviewing, even when you're looking at different product offerings, working with your ideal client to make sure that the offers you're putting together are relevant to those individuals, or if you are seeking a different market market understanding how that's going to affect your business as a brand and looking at how you can navigate that to make sure that your socials and your messaging still work for for different options so that's it for me this week guys i hope you have enjoyed talking and me talking around ideal customer i hope it has got you thinking about things differently and if you have been one of those people who in the past has been subjected to paper exercises where it hasn't really meant anything I really do hope that it's kind of brought it to life and provided more context on what you can do and how you can be using your ideal client in your business to help it grow the amount of businesses that I found which have stagnated they're not at the sort of five figure months that they're looking for and it has been down to just being a little bit too hit and miss with their ideal client honing in on that getting very very clear and talking to those individuals can make so much difference so that's it for me guys this week have a great rest of week.
Please do subscribe and also do leave us a review. It all helps and it'll be greatly received.
If you do want to get involved more and you do have more questions on Ideal Client or you'd like my support with your business, then please do get in touch at sarah.ucan.online or alternatively join the Facebook group which is a great place to start that's

women in business so that's it for me guys have a great rest of your week bye for now