I’m sharing one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made in my business and how you can avoid it. We’re going to talk about why your prospects and potential clients might be ghosting you and I’ll let you in on a secret… I don’t think it has anything to do with your pricing! Read the post or listen to the podcast to see what changes I made in my business to stop getting ghosted by clients and to have more qualified leads!

 

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Are your business leads and prospects ghosting you?

So you’ve probably been there. Someone fills out a contact form on your website. You receive an email letting you know that you got a lead. You respond back excitedly with your pricing and your offers, and you hear nothing back! It’s crickets in your inbox. I don’t think the problem is your pricing. And I also don’t think it’s your sales process.

The first thing we want to do as business owners is lower our pricing. But pricing isn’t your problem. It might be the messaging. You get ghosted when you’re talking to the wrong person. If someone doesn’t need what you have or they can’t afford what you have, then they are not your ideal client!

 

The biggest mistake I made in my business and how to fix it

For over a year I made a mistake that led me to being ghosted pretty frequently. All of my messaging was to the wrong client. I was talking to the girl boss and the boss babe. I thought that that was my ideal client when it came to my branding services, but it wasn’t. Even though I love serving that demographic, targeting them for my branding services was not the right move for my business.

So how do you know who to target with your marketing and your messaging? You need to create your client avatar. Your customer avatar is a detailed description of your ideal client. You hone in on just one person. When you focus on just one person and give them a name and build an entire persona around them, you become crystal clear on how to market to them.

 

How to create your client avatar for business

I want to give you a list of questions that you should ask to create your client avatar. Something to keep in mind is that your client avatar can change every year. Your client avatar is allowed to change and evolve. Just like your business will. You’ll want to give your client avatar a name and age, and even personality traits, so you can really understand them!

 

Here are a few questions to ask when creating your avatar:

1. First, everything starts with a problem. You have to know what is your client’s biggest need right now! If you don’t have a problem that you’re solving with your product or service, then your client doesn’t actually need you.
2. Age… You can obviously serve people of different ages, but for this client avatar, go ahead and get super specific and give them an age, not an age range.
3. What stage of life is your client in? Did they recently graduate? Are they married? Single? Is she a new mom? Does she have grown kids? What is her education level?
4. Where does she live and what is her home like?
5. How much does she make? This is an important one, because you want to make sure that your ideal client can afford your product or services. In order for them to afford your work, how much revenue does their business need to generate? If you’re a B to C business, then think about what their annual salary needs to be to be able to afford you.
6. Where does your ideal client shop? What type of stores do they visit? Local boutiques or nationwide chains?
7. What type of clothes do they wear?
8. Another question to ask is where does your ideal client go on vacation? When you know where they go on vacation, you have a good idea as well about what their spending habits are and what they prioritize when it comes to time off.
9. What does your ideal client read, watch or listen to? If you don’t know, use this question to figure out if they are more of a reader or netflix binger. Do they prefer movies or a concert?
10. What is her favorite social media platform?

 

At the end of this exercise, after you’ve answered these questions and created a description of your ideal client, you should know what your ideal client values, what their goals are, what challenges and pain points they’re facing right now and what their role is in their life.

 

Other ways to avoid being ghosted by your clients and prospects

The first thing you can do is put a price range on your website, or just put your pricing upfront. If someone sees a price range on the website, but they realize that they can’t afford it, they’re not going to fill out your contact form.

The second thing that you can do is make sure that you have a really solid followup system with your leads. When someone inquires with you, what are their next steps? Do you send pricing and then just waiting for them to take the lead? Are you asking them to set up a call with you or to answer questions so that you can get a better idea of what they need from you? Is it clear how they can work with you?

The last thing I want to note is that on average, only about 30% of your sales are going to close with you. This means if you have people inquiring with you, not everyone is actually going to be ready to work with you. The good thing is that if you’ve done your client avatar, you can update your messaging to speak to the right clients. With the right messaging, those leads should come in more qualified.