4 easy ways to learn how your Ideal Clients speak & think - and what to do with that information . . .

When you start out as an Entrepreneur. All you hear is "you need to know your Ideal Client".

But how do you get to know them, when you don't know where to start? And since this is my very first Newsletter here on LinkedIn - I thought that could be a topic worth sharing with you.

4 easy ways to learn how your Ideal Clients speak & think - and what to do with that information . . .

"Who am I to think that I have anything worth sharing. They probably know everything already. All the things they need to know, to be able to take all the steps they want and need to take."

I often meet people who are afraid of posting on social media. They're afraid of posting anything, because what if it's not considered valuable.

Not too long ago, I used to think like that too. And chances are, that the above sentences ring true to you too. That you also hold back from sharing what you know.

If that's the case, this Newsletter is for you.

And even if you have no problems in being a public person, and often share about your thoughts, ideas and know how on social media, you might anyways get some new ideas on how to figure out what to write about next.

We all learn continuously.

The vocabulary that you use today is most likely not the same you used a year ago. But the people who would LOVE to learn from you are probably using the words you used back then.

Before you learned all those new words, acronyms, and abbreviations.

Every industry, every craft, every genre, and every generation have their own set of internal language, and acronyms.

Take CRM for example. Depending on what you think and know it might mean Credit Risk Management, but it might also mean Client / Customer Relationship Management.

If you want to attract, target or connect with someone who's not used to that industry slang (yet), you need to adjust your language. You need to speak the way they speak. Otherwise you’ll be talking over their heads.

They won’t get it.

“Okay,” you probably say - “I get the picture Josefine, can you please get to the point? How do I get to know my Ideal Clients, and make sure I speak their language?”

Write as simple as possible. Don’t over-complicate it. Don’t use overly fancy words. Don’t replace all the words with a fitting synonym to make it sound smarter than it needs to be (it will have the opposite effect).

UNLESS! Your target audience uses a more complicated language, because, IF you would use a too simplistic language when talking to them - they will think that you don’t know your stuff.

There are always exceptions to every rule.

So, how do you figure out how your audience talk, and what they want? Here are 4 easy ways where you can learn how they speak, their common questions, and what they want:

1. Create and share a survey for your audience to fill in. Use as open questions as possible, no predefined answers (like drop down menus or yes / no). You want them to provide the answers in their own language. One of the first steps in the Empowered Entrepreneur Program is to do proper market research, and that includes conducting a survey. We provide the students with templates (I hate to re-invent the wheel) and they adjust them for their own need. A recent Empowered Entrepreneur joiner shared her survey last week. She got 650 precious replies!;
2. Conduct (and preferably record) interviews;
3. Post questions on your social media; and
4. Study posts and comments on social media. You can even use the search function in Facebook Groups. Just tap in your key words.

Document your results in one document. This is your Ideal Client Document, it will, and should be, one of your most valuable documents in your whole business.

Copy paste the results in to your Ideal Client Document. Don’t rewrite them - you want to keep the original language.

The best thing with this analysis is that now you’ll be able to leverage the information that you’ve collected in various ways. For example:

1. Creating new / adjusting old offers (courses, a program or a membership - now you know what it is that they want - and need)
2. Creating new free resources (e.g. guides, workshops, and master classes)
3. Through messaging on social media and newsletters, and
4. Content creation in general.

It does take some time and focus to actually put together your Ideal Client Document, which contains your inventory of market research results, replies, comments and questions. I get it. It’s not done by itself. BUT, once you’ve done it, you will have a fantastic resource to tap in to for a loooong time.

I wish you a lovely rest of the week!

Greetings from a cloudy Denmark! // josefine

P.s. If you enjoyed this newsletter, and think that someone else could benefit from it too - the best compliment you could pay me would be to forward it to that person. Thank you.