Are You Attracting the Kind of Customers You Want?
Posted on December 15, 2008 | Tags: Personal Branding
Did you ever study how plants propagate? They actually have to attract certain types of insects (wasps, bees, etc) to pollinate it. Not just any old insect can pollinate any old plant. There are probably thousands of varieties of possible pollinators, from wasps to bees to moths, but each plant can only be pollinated by certain types.
A business needs to be “pollinated” by the right kind of customer for that business. Even mundane products like bathroom tissue, still have certain customers “pollinating” their brand.
It’s called “niching” or “personal branding” or just “branding,” of course. But even within a niche, you have to attract the customers you want and who can pay for your services. You might be the Queen of Breeding Purple Orchids, but if the customer you attract loves purple orchids but can’t pay for them, you’re out of business.
In 1990, when my partner and I first started our PR firm, we discovered that authors and publishers of non-fiction were a great match for our services. At that time, we were one of the only firms booking guests on top talk radio shows, local tv and national tv. When we expanded our client base to include corporations, it no longer was quite the perfect match. So we developed new services more appropriate for that market.
Because we billed only on a results basis, we attracted all kinds of attention. A lot of it wasn’t right for our business model. Getting paid on results is the fastest path I know to finding out very quickly which type of customer you want to attract. There’s no benefit to telling a client you can help him if you really can’t.
That type of billing was unheard of in our industry at the time. It set us apart from other firms and, combined with the fact that we got results, helped earn us a listing in PR Week’s Top 100 PR Firms.
A service business can spin its wheels taking in the wrong type of customer because it needs the business. I believe that’s what makes business exhausting and arduous. By personal branding that allows your prospect to be very clear about what you do and your results, you’ll reduce the problematic clients.
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