Ever wonder why some people are so successful at generating leads and enquiries?

And not just any leads and enquiries! I’m talking about the high-quality client leads and sales enquiries you’d love from your ideal clients…

So, you can break through to that next level of growth and build a dream business you love.

Well, the secret to their success isn’t as complicated as you may think.

It simply comes down to the fact that they’ve unlocked precisely what they need to know about their ideal clients to cut through and stand out in a competitive market.

Successful service-based business owners are obsessive about getting to know their ideal clients.

They invest a lot of time conducting target market research, constantly speak with their clients about their services, and ask their clients for feedback.

Now, if you’re struggling with how to generate leads, enquiries, and ultimately, sales for your service business, guess what…

80% of your problem likely is that you don’t know what you need to know about your ideal clients yet.

So, where do you start?

And what exactly do you need to know about your ideal clients?

In the blog post below, you’ll find the five areas you need to research and understand when it comes to your ideal clients, so you can generate the leads and enquires your business needs to grow.

Once you know your ideal clients, you’ll find it much easier to stand out, resonate, and connect with those you’d love to work with.

1. Who are your ideal clients, and how would you describe them?

To generate leads, the first thing you need to know about your ideal clients is who they are.

You may work with many different types of clients, but for this profiling, narrow it down to the clients you find are an absolute dream to work with.

This ideal client profile should include demographic information such as age, gender, occupation, income, stage of life or business, and location.

However, also work out how you would describe them if someone asked you who your ideal client was.

And what synonyms and adjectives you’d use to describe your ideal clients, both before and after working with you.

For example, are they overwhelmed, confident, professional, relaxed, happy, and organised?

Knowing how to describe your ideal clients is helpful when developing your marketing messaging and choosing SEO keywords for your website.

It may sound like a simple question – who is your ideal client?

However, I meet many small business owners who struggle to find the right words, so it’s essential to spend some time figuring this out.

RELATED: 10 Simple Ways to Research your Target Market

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2. What are your ideal clients struggling with right now?

Next, you must understand what most of your ideal clients are struggling with right NOW.

For this target market research, I recommend brainstorming all the pain points and problems your ideal clients are currently experiencing.

And then narrow it down to the main struggles your ideal clients have and the challenges they are most likely to want support with.

With service businesses, it’s common for clients to feel:

• Stuck and unsure how to move forwards; or
• Overwhelmed with lots of choices and unable to make a decision; or
• Uncertain when it comes to choosing the right solution to their problem.

I also recommend listening carefully when conducting your target market research so that you can refer to these pain points in your client’s own words in your marketing.

3. Where do your ideal clients want to be after working with you?

Once you’ve understood where your clients are now (and what they’re struggling with), it’s also critical that you know where they want to go and what solution they WANT or desire.

I often describe this to my clients as helping your clients to go from point A (pain points and struggles) to point B (wants and desires).

One way to figure out where ‘point B’ is, is to listen closely to what your ideal clients are saying to you.

What is it that they’re asking you for help with? What do they WANT from you?

Sometimes your ideal clients may not know exactly what they’re looking for (which is why they are coming to you in the first place as the expert).

So, if you listen carefully, you’ll hear a common thread around what they think they want or desire.

When you know what your ideal clients want (as opposed to what they may actually need), you can tweak your messaging to better resonate and connect with them.

RELATED: How to choose the right keywords for your target market

4. What’s been holding your ideal clients back up until now?

It’s common for people to ‘sit’ with their problems or pain points for a while before doing anything about them.

Maybe they’ve been too busy, or it’s not been the right time.

Maybe they haven’t found the right business or person yet.

Or perhaps, they haven’t had the money to invest up until now.

Whatever the reason, if you can unlock why your ideal clients are waiting until the right time to invest with you, you can adjust your marketing to overcome any objections.

For example, if they haven’t invested yet because they haven’t done XYZ, then give them an easy solution or a bonus to help them get XYZ done, so there are no longer any excuses.

Alternatively, you could generate leads and enquiries by pointing out what it’s costing them to not invest with you now.

5. What does your ideal client need to believe before they will be ready to buy?

Another reason why people hold back is that they have misconceptions or negative beliefs about working with your type of business.

Perhaps your type of business has a reputation for being expensive.

Or maybe your ideal clients feel you won’t be able to deliver what they need (just like all the times they’ve tried with other businesses before!)

They may even have a lot of self-doubts and wonder whether they can trust themselves to get the desired results.

The best way to uncover these beliefs and thoughts is to speak directly with your ideal clients and ask what has held them back until now.

To obtain this valuable information, you can also ask this question in your discovery call application form or post-launch feedback surveys.

Once you know what they’re thinking, you can develop strategic content that helps to bust any of these myths and shift any negative beliefs holding them back.

So, there you have it! 

Knowing your ideal client exceptionally well is the “secret” to generating client leads and enquiries for your service business.

To summarise what you need to know about your ideal clients, focus your target market research on understanding:

• WHO: Who your ideal clients are, and how you’d describe them
• PAIN POINTS: What your ideal clients are struggling with right now
• WANTS: What your ideal clients want and desire in the future
• FEARS: What’s been holding your ideal clients back up until now
• BELIEFS: What misconceptions or negative beliefs do you need to shift

Once you’ve unlocked these insights, you’ll find it much easier to speak, resonate and connect with your dream clients.

This will enable you to generate more high-quality leads and enquiries for your service business from the type of clients you would love to work with.

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