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A lovely accountant in my membership recently was feeling as flat as a pancake.

She said “Claire, I know what I should do, I just can’t bring myself to do it. When it comes to posting on Facebook or writing a blog my mind just goes blank and I lose all my enthusiasm.

Do you know what? I hear this all the time. It’s not that she doesn’t love her business – she does, she just can’t get into marketing.

Do you know what I did that really helped her?

I spent 5 minutes telling her what it’s like when you have to deal with accountants.

What it’s REALLY like from a non-accountant.

I told her we don’t understand accountant speak.

We are all terrified we’re going to get hit with huge bills from the tax man, with no notice.

We are scared we’re going to run up a huge accountancy bill with no clue what it’s for.

We are scared of looking and sounding stupid.

We don’t know how accounting and tax works.

It’s a scary subject and we hate it.

She was surprised.

She didn’t understand that’s how we feel because she is an accountant.

She is kind and lovely and helpful, but she didn’t realise what it’s like NOT to love accounting or think like an accountant.

Once she realised that she started asking us questions and getting loads of ideas. We spent another 5 minutes of the call brainstorming with her. She finally understood a little bit what it’s like to be us, her Super Customers.

After 10 minutes she was fired up and motivated with a list of brilliant things to post on Facebook and LinkedIn, a bunch of blog titles, a load of ideas for new packages (with great names) and a list of quick, easy changes she needed to make to her website.

It’s amazing what you can do once you start to understand your Super Customer.

Your Mini-Marketing To-Do List

Imagine you are your Super Customer and you’re looking for the sort of thing your business sells. Ask yourself these questions:

What am I looking for?

Why do I want or need it?

When do I want it?

What will make me buy?

What will put me off buying?

Where will I look?

What will I do before I buy?

How will I feel once I’ve bought it?

So if you are a dog-walker your Super Customer might be a dog owner who feels really guilty about leaving their dog while they go to work. Here are their imaginary answers…

A really lovely, kind dog walker who will treat my beloved dog like their own

I need to know my dog is getting some love, attention and walks when I can’t be there

I need it as soon as possible, this is doing my head in!

If I see lots of photos of happy dogs out on walks in exciting places, some lovely reviews and it fits my budget I’ll buy. I need it to be really easy to see what it costs but to be honest, money isn’t the issue here – it’s all about the person

If it’s really hard to book, if there are bad reviews, if the person doesn’t respond to me – things like that put me off

I will look in local FB groups, I’ll search FB for dog walkers in my town, I’ll Google dog walkers in my town, I’ll ask friends

I’ll stalk them online. No, really! I need to see that this person is right for me so I’ll look all the way through their business page, I’ll check out their website, I’ll look at their reviews, I’ll Google their name and business name to check there are no nasty surprises. My dog is my baby and I have to trust this person.

I will feel RELIEVED and so happy I have found the right person. A substitute me. Someone I can trust with my precious dog AND my house keys! It will be a weight off my mind and I’ll stop feeling so guilty at work. I’ll keep looking on the dog walker’s FB page to see photos of my dog because I know she will post one every time she takes him for a walk and that makes me happy.

Get the idea?

Whether you sell cushions or baby clothes, stairlifts or jewellery, photography, consultancy or business training do this little exercise and see what comes up.