Surrey Chambers of Commerce asked me to answer one of the most frequently asked questions by their members for their ‘Ask the Expert’ feature in The Chamber magazine.

If you don’t receive this excellent publication and missed the chance to read my response here it is.

How do I find my customers?

This is a frequently asked question, which is best answered by another question.

Who are you targeting?

If the answer to that question is ‘well everyone can do with my services’, that’s probably why there is confusion over how to find your customers.

It’s very tempting, particularly when starting a business, to want to sell to everyone. It’s a numbers game and you need to reach a lot of people to win business.

However, this strategy of reaching out to everyone is creating a lot of hard work, with a much lower chance of success and is costly. There is a much more effective strategy and that is to target a specific group of people with similar characteristics, issues and needs. When this is matched to your products and services you have begun to identify your Ideal Customer.

Your ideal customer stands out from the crowd

Having identified your ideal customer it is much easier to find them. They attend exhibitions that are relevant to them. They join social media groups that interest them.

When you can describe your ideal customer accurately you can start to build a database of companies or people that fit that criteria and begin to market to them; making them aware of you and how you can help them.

And when you can describe your ideal customer when networking, it’s much more likely that you will receive introductions.

You stand out of the crowd too!

When you concentrate on a specific target audience, you begin to really understand their issues and how to solve them. With this knowledge you can adapt your products or services and even brand them so they are unique to you and your business. This allows you to differentiate yourself from the competition.

You become the ‘must go to person’. You stand out from the crowd.

You may also find my FREE eBook ‘How to attract your ideal customer’ really helpful. You can download it from the FREE STUFF tab on the menu bar.