Your Ideal Customer — A Portrait

By TRISOFT team

Imagine placing an ad in a newspaper for your perfect customer. How would you describe him/her? Do you have a clear idea about what types of customers are most likely to purchase your products or services? What do you imagine or know are the qualities of your ideal customer?

Blond hair, green eyes, great smile, riding a motorcycle, super friendly, knows the industry, knows what he wants from you, understands the development process so he’s not nagging, pays in advance, pays in time, talks you out in front of his peers, thus bringing you new clients to your business. There you have it; it’s that simple — the ideal customer. Or at least that’s what she said :)

Luckily, you do get to choose

Jokes aside, your ability to clearly identify the very best customer for your services is bound to determine your future success in business. How? Well, having a profile for the ideal customer in mind dictates or at least should dictate essential features and functionalities for your products or services, and at the same time the words and emotions you put into your marketing strategies.

Statistics show that most entrepreneurs aren’t quite clear about their ideal customer though. This is why most new business men waste a lot of time, money and energy trying to launch their products to people who are not good potential customers.

Another aspect is that many don’t have it clear that you actually get to choose your customers. If you are clever enough, you get to choose who you want to do business with. Otherwise, the alternative is clients choosing you, no matter their profile and this might just translate into getting, let’s say, less than ideal clients for yourself. So if you look at it from this perspective, creating an ideal customer profile isn’t limiting, but empowering.

How to do it?

So, to ensure that you’re attracting the right customers, you might want to consider investing some time to tackle questions like: Who’s your ideal customer?, Would they know they’re your ideal customer if they looked at your work?, Of your current customer base, what percentage does your ideal customer represent?

And since those who know best are those who actually interact with most of the clients, we’ve had a chat with a few of our popular developers to get their opinion on what their profile of the ideal customer is and how they can answer the above mentioned questions.

The developers have settled it

The ideal customer has at least general technical knowledge about the industry, he pays his invoices in time and is open to debate when it comes to deciding what’s best for the project. He has to be able to make a fair difference between the specific technical terms that you argue your point of view with. But at the same time, as a developer, it is your responsibility to help him understand things the best way and not throw all your slang talk at him. (TRISOFT popular guy #1)

The ideal client would have to talk good English. I mean it can be a nightmare having to figure out what clients want and need when they talk Kazakhstan English. However, I did have clients who were so nice and cool even though their English was pretty bad, that I forgot this detail and I was able to work with them nicely. So the language barrier isn’t a barrier anymore when people are open and informed…(TRISOFT popular guy #2)

Well, my ideal customers would need little management on their projects and would ideally pay in advance :) They should also be quite technical or at least have people in their team who know what we are working with. This is why we generally try to avoid clients without technical background — they might be hard to work with from the start. (TRISOFT popular guy #3)

I’ve had my share of bad and good clients and every once in a blue moon I had an ideal one. You know, the kind you want to tell the entire world about, especially the bad ones. Like why can’t you be like that too, dude? I would have told the client who got on my nerves every time we talked. The kind you want to at least hug at the end of the project (well that might sound awkward, but it’s how I feel). As I said, I had a few of these nice clients and one common trait about them was that they were all open to discussion and very informed. They had some solid technical background and at the same time the patience and confidence to allow me to do my stuff, which in the end brought the best in me for their project. It was the perfect match, everyone was happy. (TRISOFT popular guy #4)

So at the end of listening to all the stories my colleagues and teammates had for me, there was one major conclusion sticking out, that they all agreed upon — the ideal customer is not necessarily a mixture of our wildest dreams regarding how he/she should be, but in fact he is the outcome of the collaboration and interaction between you and him. Of course, there are good premises to start with (like that specific background one appreciates in a client), but even that can be optional if the man is open to learn and figure out things as he goes. It is a great deal your job also, as a provider of high-quality professional services, to make them your ideal customers and this also entails that you are ideal in your way as well. You need to be flexible at all times, open-minded and empathetic; you need to lose the arrogance and get the tools to explain your customer things in such a way that they will understand and appreciate your professionalism.

After all, it’s a collaboration and in order to make it ideal both sides have to pitch in. Not to forget that your personalities should match to a certain extend. And for the rest of it, you need to be adaptable and work your way towards making as much ideal customers as possible.

Ready, willing and able

From the TRISOFT perspective, it’s a wise choice to narrow your message and audience to a group who values what you are providing. Thanks to this system, our marketing choices have become more obvious and easier to implement — not to mention that it has saved us tons of energy and financial waste, as we only invest in tasks, tools and resources an ideal customer appreciates. Our filtering system has turned out quite efficient as well since we have had few negative experiences, which we used as precious feedback for our future improvement.

And to start with, we might say that our recipe is find a customer who is ready — they have a problem they need solved, willing — they’re ready to solve that problem by taking action, and able — they have the means to solve the problem (they have the brains, the energy and the money for it!).