@dearly I found it helpful to realize that I would be happy to accept clients outside the ideal, but I focus on marketing to the ideal. So my ideal client is within 2 counties, but my actual client base spans 3 continents. My ideal client is a company of 2 to 20 employees, but I have sole proprieters and Fortune 500 companies. I do not have an age or gender preference but I notice older business owners respond to me. I really want businesses to be in a niche and to know what that niche is… I can represent them but they need to be able to tell me who / what they are… As a web developer, I avoid mist start ups… I can build it but they usually cannot tell me what to build so we go through multiple iterations with no final product. But – yes – I have a few start ups….

@deairby Deciding on your ideal client can be driven by a number of factors, but available market AND your personal juju should both play a factor. (you have a better chance of long term success if you are happy). Who do you most enjoy working with?

Having a broad market appeal is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it is good in the event some segments change. However, it adds challenges to marketing, as you need to potentially have multiple messages and campaigns. How big do you want to be? Are you into really growing and adding employees? Or do you want to stay small, or like me, solo?

Looking at sales history is to me a key part of measuring. Which profile is the most profitable? Is that segment big enough to meet your goals?

Over time, your ideal customer might shift–other market forces might change it. So I believe benchmarking at set intervals is important, to ensure your marketing effort and expenses are well directed.

What your business does is important. For example, I am in a services business, so for me, I need to ensure I don’t spend valuable time chasing clients who will eat up my time for no profit.  I have to make sure that what I do as a startup (eg working for today’s money) does not distract me from marketing to my ideals. That means while I have cycles, I will accept less than ideal, but I can’t keep chasing them.

thanks, Frederic @fredericgonzalo

@deairby Oooh, that is whole different thing, ain’t it? How do you get to defining the ideal customer…

In the past, we’ve used sophisticated models, such as RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) to determine what or who is the best client for the business. These models usually must be framed within a customer lifetime value analysis, so that RFM is not skewing based on your business model. For example, do you prefer a customer that comes to your hotel once a year, spends 4 nights and 1,000$ vs another customer that comes 4 times per year, spending one night, and 250$ each time. Both customers brings 1,000$, and spend 4 nights. The former requires more attention during his lengthy stay, but the latter is more high maintenance with check-in & check-out and other room maintenance costs.

I could go on and on with this example and expand furthermore, but you get the gist of it. Each company ought to determine what are KPIs to evaluate, determine what is the total lifetime value of a customer, then one can eventually reach a definition for the “ideal customer”.

Hope this makes sense…