We met in his office. I was excited and hopeful. Since deciding to focus on attorneys as my ideal clients I was thrilled to get an audience with one. He seemed like everything I was looking for: solo practitioner with an established practice and a courteous staff. His website looked like it needed serious help. When I called (after a personal referral) he instructed his receptionist to schedule an in person meeting right away.

The promise of a shiny new prosperous working relationship abounded . . . until we started talking. Or, more accurately, until he started talking.

I left his office with what can only be described as a primer of objections and many many lessons on how to help future clients overcome them.

Central to his litany of objections was his absolute refusal to consider the concept of the Ideal Client. To do that would be limiting. It would turn away money.

Putting valuable information on his website to educate and empower prospective clients to hire him was a bad idea because it would make them not €need€ his services.

Needless to say I was shocked, more than a little nave, and embarrassed that I wasn't able to guide him to see the value in my services.

He did not become a client €" more importantly, he was not my Ideal Client.

Since that meeting I've landed other clients, some of whom are lawyers, including one who rolled her eyes when I brought up the subject of the Ideal Client. That story had a different ending however, because she was open to guidance on the subject, and as a result ended up with a website written to just that Ideal Client.

Why You Need to Identify Your Ideal Client

As a service professional, clients are the lifeblood of your business. Get this right, and more clients will want to hire you.

* You'll enjoy working with your clients. As I mentioned in a previous post, your Ideal Client is a client with personality or organizational traits you identify with. Often you share similar beliefs. This does not mean that this person or business is perfect, problem free, or will never disagree with you. Quite the opposite. If your clients were perfect, problem free and 100% agreeable they wouldn't need your service! Don't be fooled though. The Ideal Client may present some challenging work but is easy to work with. So things get done. Projects move forward. You get paid. Your client is happy. Your client refers you more Ideal Clients. You're doing work you love. See what I mean? This is not a pipe dream.

* You'll be more focused and receive more referrals. Identifying your Ideal Client is liberating. Why? Because all actions you take to put your business €out there€ will be focused -- because you're speaking and writing to a specific Ideal Client. Your networking, website writing, blogging, advertising, will become more streamlined and will speak to the people you really want to reach €" and those who know them.

Here's a real life example: I'm part of a networking group where we each get up at every meeting and say something about our business. Week after week the bookkeeper in the group would get up and say (always with some uncertainty) €Hi, I'm Ms. Bookkeeper and I do bookkeeping for all types of businesses.€ Instantly, week after week I'd tune out after that first sentence. Imagine if she'd said (with confidence and a sense of purpose): €Hi, I'm Ms. Bookkeeper and I do bookkeeping work for small independent coffee and food businesses. You know the vendors you see at the farmers markets and the food trucks that are so popular around town that some of them are opening restaurants and coffee shops? Those are my ideal clients.€ Wow! I'm automatically drawn to someone with that kind of confidence and clarity. And the wheels start turning as to who I can send her way.

* You'll make more money. Business owners who care about their business enough to identify their Ideal Client and focus on that person or organization (and, by extension, the thousands out there who have similar traits, values and beliefs) are more confident, more modern, and let's face it more dynamic than the average run of the mill service professional.

As a potential client, who would you want to hire: someone who will work for €all types of businesses€ or someone who speaks your language, connects with you, and conveys the exact expertise that you need? It should be a no brainer. Put yourself out there, confidently speak to and about your ideal client and you may be surprised at how many referrals come your way, both on and offline.

Defining Your Ideal Client Is a Two Step Process

1. Be Clear About Why You're In Business and Write It Down. I always ask clients to write down three beliefs about why they're in business. [Hint: This doesn't mean to make money. Making money, though extremely important, is a result.] It means what gets you out of bed in the morning, excited to go to work? When you've had a bad day, week, month, or year, what keeps you going?

* Some Belief Examples: To empower women, to encourage people to embrace a healthy lifestyle, to provide quality legal services that people can afford.

2.Be Clear About Who You Love To Work With, and Write It Down

There was an in depth discussion about this not long ago in an online networking group that I'm a part of. The title of the discussion was €Defining the ideal client?€ and someone said:

€It's amazing what you realize when you write it all down.€

Here are some things to write down to get you started:
* Who is your favorite current client? Write down 3-5 things you like about them and why.
* What is his (or her) personality or organizational structure like?
* If an individual, is she confident? Busy? High or low attention span?
* What is his level of knowledge about what you do?
* What problems is this person or organization facing that need an immediate solution?
* Where is this person or organization located? Locally to you? In the US? Outside the US?

Here's another dynamite idea from a member of that online networking group I'm in:

€It's easy to let the ideal customer float around in your head but that does not give you a clear picture of who they are. A great way to get it out is to create profiles of your ideal client. Writing a brief story about two or three potential clients is easier than a list and you will be surprised about how much easier it is to nail the details down.€

I opened this blog post with a story about who my ideal client is NOT. Someone who is closed minded, has tons of reasons why something won't work, and is limited by fear.

Through a lot of experience since then I've identified my ideal client as:

€A motivated service professional (lawyers are a subset of this €" I have a soft spot for lawyers because I am one) who runs a business with 1-2 decision makers (I hate having to go through a €committee€ to move projects forward and prefer to work directly with the person at the helm of the business), who believes he or she is here to make a difference through their business (all of the belief examples above are from real clients!).

This service professional is 30-55 years old, self-motivated, with a high sense of personal responsibility. These small business owners know what they want when they hire me and most often they want to hand over business and marketing writing to someone they trust, who can write in their voice, and who is trained to write in a way that will get them more leads and more sales.

A big thing my ideal clients also want is to have their time and energy freed up to do other things in their business. For example, one client wanted to be free from sales writing. Another knew what he wanted (website writing) but didn't know how to do it effectively and didn't want to spend a lot of his precious time figuring it out.€
You get the gist . . . . (and can pr