Bring Your Ideal Client to Life

Let’s start connecting with your ideal client.

Three weeks ago, as a prelude to pilot programs, I talked about bringing purpose into reality with action. To follow up, I shared the benefits of launching a pilot program to practice doing what you really love in a real-life environment. Next, I gave you concrete tips to plan for a pilot program launch. In other words, we’ve spent some significant time defining your methodology.

In prior blog posts, we also provided resources to help as you search for your message, which is closely aligned to your purpose and your deepest need in life.

But while we’ve spent this valuable time on method and message, and you’ve begun connecting with your community to share your ideas, we haven’t yet approached the intricacies of defining your market – specifically, your ideal client. Today, we’re going to start that process.

Recall the thought leadership cluster idea related to connecting with your community:

As the puzzle pieces of your pilot program come together, you’ll start to get excited about sharing your gifts with the world. Your vision is coming to life! As your energy increases and you begin to feel like you’re on fire, you’ll want to reconnect with others, as you did in the early stages of sharing your ideas with your community.

Before long, it will be time to invite test clients to join your pilot. However, a pilot is a test program, and it’s intended to be small and manageable. How do you know who to invite when you’ve had so many moving conversations about doing what you love? If you invite everyone, the pilot may become weighed down, chaotic or awkward. You can prevent this by directing your unique message and methodology toward the ideal clients (market) who struggle with the problem that you can uniquely solve.

Today, we’re drilling into the concept of the client avatar as a constructive way to bring your target market to life. We’re going to start making some educated guesses about the profile of the ideal client who can benefit from your problem-solving abilities. In doing so, you sharpen your message to target the types of people that you think will respond to the results you can help them achieve.

What is a Client Avatar?

A client avatar is the persona of your ideal client. It’s just like the avatar you’d select to represent you when playing a video game. In the life game of Mario Kart, so to speak, some people connect with Luigi and some are more drawn to Bowser!

A client avatar is a fictional character representing the people you’d love to work with, who will enable you to flourish in your purpose. This is an imaginary person who believes in your message and is eager to invest in getting the results that you offer.

Interacting with imaginary people might sound like something best reserved for small children, not for adult professionals. However, there couldn’t be a more valuable practice than “playing pretend.” Recall our conversation from the beginning of the new year, when we talked about how your deepest need will fire up your purpose. Our deepest needs come from our experiences as kids. We are here to help others with our childlike wonder and energy! You have permission to be open and playful in this process.

What kids know instinctively, but we forget as we age, is that what we visualize is what we attract. That’s because our brains don’t necessarily differentiate between reality and imagination. We can proactively visualize meeting a person with certain traits, or enjoying a certain type of connection. Later, when we come into real-life contact with someone who matches that visualization, an immediate sense of familiarity and trust manifests itself before our eyes. It’s as though we recognize that person from our past – and in a way, we do! Our brains connect this new person to the one we visualized before. Imagination changes the way we perceive the world around us, and we can shape our life experiences by committing to this practice.

While this is all deep and important work, there’s no pressure to get it just right. Your client avatar will evolve over time, just as you do! You may define your client avatar one way before you launch your pilot program, another way as you get deeper into the process, and a different way entirely after the pilot concludes. This evolution will continue as you experience weeks, months and years doing what you really love. At this point in bringing your purpose to life, all you need to do is start.

Envision Your Client Avatar

In the process of sharing your ideas with the world, you may have encountered some people who immediately “got it.” They enthusiastically agreed that you identified a problem that’s worthy of a paid solution. They believe in your unique methods of solving that problem. They offered supportive encouragement and validated that there’s a market ready for what you have to offer the world.

These people are have traits that can become part of your client avatar.

Now, imagine that you’re out to coffee with a new friend who gives you an immediate feeling of respect and strong connection. You want to know all about them. Dig deep and imagine you’re interacting with a real person. Ask these questions with sincerity, and “listen” carefully to the answers:

• What is their educational background?
• How old are they?
• What is their cultural or ethnic background?
• What gender do they identify as?
• What is their financial status and/or salary?
• What type of career do they have?
• What are their hobbies or interests?
• What are their religious or spiritual beliefs?
• How many children do they have?
• What depth of connection do they enjoy?
• What are their coping methods?
• What do they like and dislike?
• What do they wish was different about the world?
• What do their looks on the outside say about what’s happening inside?
• What is their relationship status?
• What are the pain points in their lives?

During this process, bring your client avatar to life in a concrete, real-world way that works well for you. For example, you could bullet-point a list of your learnings, write a fictional biography, or create a drawing or vision board all about them. You could also describe your client avatar by dictating to a recording device or having a conversation on recorded video with a mentor or coach. Whatever you do, capture your vision in the real world to bring it to life. Your client avatar is an important person; respect them, and don’t let them drift away in your head!

Your Client Avatar Will Not be Perfect

Just as no person is perfect, neither is any client avatar.

Every component of doing what you really love is part of a greater iterative process that evolves over time. Remember, your client avatar may change – perhaps even dramatically – throughout the pilot process and beyond. You will learn things about yourself and others that enlighten the way you bring your purpose to the world. Your client avatar is a part of you. They’re along for the ride and will unfold as you do!

The point of this exercise is not to create the perfect client avatar right now, or ever. It’s simply to take a baby step and create an initial vision of your ideal client. When we do this, we are more more apt to attract the person we visualize in our minds. We also learn more about who that person really is. Your message and methodology may even continue to evolve as your target market grows and changes.

As you ease your way into this new part of the hero’s journey, engage trusted support. Identify and enroll someone who will encourage you to be open and free as you create your client avatar. This kind of support is our specialty at Engaging Breakthroughs. We would be honored to join you on your journey!

Complimentary Breakthrough Consultation

I’d love to visit with you to discuss how breakthrough coaching can help you define your target market and client avatar. I offer a complimentary online Engaging Breakthrough consultation via Zoom.

In this 30-60 minute online breakthrough coaching session, I will help you get crystal clear on where you are right now and where you want to be. I’ll give you my best professional recommendations to help you take your first steps toward your success breakthrough.

Click here to book your session now.

Written by Craig Tennant Founder, Engaging Breakthroughs Transformation Architect and Breakthrough CoachAt Engaging Breakthroughs, Craig Tennant delivers breakthrough success workshops and online life breakthrough coaching for people who seek to break through to success and discover life beyond the 9 to 5.