In this video, I want to help you research your ideal client, so that you know exactly
who they are, drill down at least two levels deeper into your niche and figure out exactly
what your ideal clients want.
Make sure you stay tuned until the end because today, I'm going to give you the exact questions
you should be asking in your ideal client research, how to conduct your research, and
even how to interpret the data and the results.
Now, before we get started, make sure you hit the bell icon so that you get notified
when new episodes become available every Wednesday.
All about helping you go from passion to profits in your coaching business.
Hi there coach, it's Carolin Soldo here and today I want to help you conduct market research.
One of the biggest problems of new coaches is not being able to commit to a very specific
niche.
Maybe you know what I'm talking about, you might be a health coach and you might feel
like you can help so many different people in so many different ways and that is amazing,
but it does not serve you from a business perspective.
You might be thinking, "Well, what am I really the expert in?
Who can I really help?
Who wants to work with me?"
Or you might even feel like an imposter because you're a new coach.
That's all normal, and we all feel like this at some point.
What's really important to understand at the beginning of your business journey is that
going really broad and vague creates a lackluster sort of marketing message.
It creates a bland marketing message where you can't really focus in on the very specific
pain points of your target market, because you're trying to be everything to everybody.
Makes sense right?
So instead of being very vague and broad, I want you to become very niche, very narrow
and very specific.
In order for you to do that with confidence, you need to conduct market research and profile
your ideal clients so you know exactly who they are.
This is going to give you the confidence to finally commit to your niche and go out there
with your big message.
So let me show you how to conduct market research for your business that you can implement without
even spending a lot of money.
You can implement this research with a small budget, or even without spending anything,
even if you're new and get the information you need to go out there with your big message.
So let's dive in and let me show you exactly how you can set up an incredibly effective
market research campaign including qualitative and quantitative research that will help you
make the decisions you need to make right now for your niche.
Let's talk about your qualitative research first.
Qualitative research is spent with the person either on the phone, on a Zoom call, or in
person.
What you want to do is set up a 30 to 60 minute interview with them where you have a very
intimate and deep conversation to find out their biggest pains, their biggest obstacles,
their biggest struggles, but also their biggest goals and where they want to go, and what
their needs are right now.
What you want to do is really drill down to the very specifics of their situation.
During this conversation, this prospect is going to give you the languaging, the words,
the thoughts and the ideas that are key to them and that you can use in your marketing,
in your program development, in your branding and in your messaging, to make you extremely
attractive to your target market.
In addition to having effective messaging, it will also help you feel extremely confident
and clear about who your ideal client really is.
There's nothing like talking to them and really understanding how they're feeling, how they're
thinking and the words they're using to express their ideas and their feelings and their thoughts.
I know doing qualitative research is a very time consuming endeavor, but it's the most
effective way for you to really get to know your ideal client and it will serve you time
and time again as you go forth and grow and scale your coaching business.
Some key questions to ask during your qualitative interview are all around your prospect's biggest
pains, biggest challenges, as well as their goals and why this is urgent for them right
now.
So why is getting help and support from a coach really urgent for them right now?
You also want to take down notes in relation to their gender, so are they male or female?
What's their age?
Talk about their income level, their relationship status, their job title or career.
Ask them to describe their values and what's really important to them in their life.
Talk to them about the things that are going well but also ask them about the things that
are not going so well.
Ask them about their biggest challenges in relation to their relationship, their health,
their body, their children, their pets, whatever it is that you focus on in your coaching business.
Then, ask them what's holding them back right now.
Ask them, "What's holding you back from having these things?
From taking these steps?
From moving yourself forward?"
These are just a couple of examples of questions that you may want to ask during your ideal
client research interview.
Now, I know I went through all these questions fast, but don't worry.
Look below in the description, there is a link to a freebie for you and that's a sample
ideal client questionnaire that you can download right now and you can use that as a starting
point as you develop your ideal client questionnaire for your qualitative market research.
Now let's talk about your quantitative research.
Again, qualitative means ad hoc data, lots of color, lots of deep conversation.
Quantitative research is something that happens through a survey, where you send a very specific
set of questions to your prospect and you let them answer the survey anonymously.
Now, I recommend a tool called Wuffoo, or SurveyMonkey for your research.
I also recommend you keep your questionnaire to 10 to 15 questions max so that you get
a majority of your prospects actually filling out your survey and it does not become overwhelming
for them.
A bonus tip I have for you is to make the name and email of your survey participant
optional and then say, "If you qualify, would you be open to a one to one follow up conversation
to talk about your answers?"
This gives you the permission to reach out to them and actually have a follow up conversation
with them where you're able to drill even deeper in some very specific areas where you
may want to know more.
In return for doing the one to one session with you, you may be able to give them a gift
card or some flowers, or maybe a discount on your program, and make it really enticing
for your participant.
When you design your market research questionnaire for your quantitative research, make sure
that you have a lot of questions that are open ended.
Rating scales are great, but they don't provide a lot of color and detail and when you have
a rating scale, you may end up with a lot of questions and uncertainty about specific
things you really want to know more about.
So I recommend to have a good balance between rating scales, multiple choice questions as
well as open ended question boxes where your participants can fill in their idea, so they
can dump in their responses one at a time.
When it comes to how many results you want to collect, I recommend to collect at least
30 responses ideally.
Now if 30 doesn't make it statistically valid, if you're a statistician, you will not like
this answer, but I feel that 30 is a good number of people to dig through, to make some
decisions, to potentially see some trends one way or another and that will help you,
again, gain that confidence you need to go towards a certain niche and really specialize
in that area.
Now you might be wondering, "Carolin, this is amazing information, but where do I find
my ideal client to answer my surveys and do my research?"
Let me give you seven different areas where you can go to find your ideal client, distribute
your surveys and invite prospects to do market research interviews with you.
The first place I would like for you to look is Facebook groups and LinkedIn groups.
There are groups on almost every topic imaginable and all you need to do is search for a key
word in the search bar up on top in LinkedIn or Facebook and you will find a plethora of
Facebook groups and LinkedIn communities where you can go and do your market research.
Next up, I would like for you to make a list of at least 100 people you know, because you
know more people than you think you do.
List your family, list your friends, list your neighbors, coworkers, literally think
about your entire network of connections and who might potentially be an ideal client for
you.
Also don't be shy to ask your connections if they can refer you.
So maybe craft an email that says, "Dear friend, I'm looking for someone who meets these qualifications."
Age and gender and interests and hobbies and whatever you think is really important for
your ideal client and say, "I'm conducting market research for my business and I would
so appreciate any referrals you have for me in this regard."
You would be surprised how many people actually say, "You know what?
Of course I'm going to help you.
You're launching a business, you're doing research, this is a great cause, I'm going
to help you find these ideal clients and help you fill your market research interviews and
get your surveys out to the right people."
The next place for you to go is meet-ups.
Every city and town has meet-up events.
There's meetup.com where you can go and you can search for specific groups that are meeting
once a week, once a month, what have you, and you can join these meet-ups mostly for
free and meet people that might meet your ideal client criteria.
Also don't forget to look at not for profit events, local events in your city and professional
organizations.
This is where people hang out that have the criteria you're looking for.
So think about what organizations do your ideal clients belong to?
How do they spend their weekends?
What events do they go to?
What not for profits will they support?
That's where you want to go to find your ideal clients.
Lastly, you may want to look at schools.
There's a lot of different organizations within schools and all different ways for you to
become active in schools, and that might just be one more way for you to get in front of
your ideal client and invite them in to do research with them.
Now I have another bonus tip for you and this is something that has helped me tremendously
in all of my early marketing activities and even to this day, we use this strategy a lot
in my coaching business and that is a ideal client language library.
Now what is a language library?
Well, it's literally a long list of words and phrases your ideal client uses to describe
what's happening to them, what their needs are, what their struggles are and where they
want to go.
So this could be a document on your computer, this would be a Google doc, this could be
in your journal, it really doesn't matter but what you want to do is write down a long
list of ideal client goals.
You also want to write down a long list of their biggest pains, biggest struggles, biggest
challenges, what keeps them up at night?
What problems they have, why they have those problems and how they want to solve them.
Then think about what they want to avoid at all cost.
So what will prevent them from saying yes to your coaching program?
Well, maybe they think it's going to be hard or difficult, or painful, or they will have
to change something they really don't want to change.
Also, what do they want to maintain?
What are the things they want to be able to keep doing, even if they're working with you?
Also think about their biggest insecurities and fears because those are the thoughts that
will keep them from working with you.
Fears about them not being able to succeed, fears about not being good enough, fears about
what other people might think of them.
The more you know about what's happening in your ideal client's mind, the more attractive
you will become to them and the better you can serve them.
Now I would like to hear from you.
Let me know below in the comments below as always.
Every week, I want you to have a conversation with me.
What were your biggest ah-has from today's episode?
Did you do the research or are you going to do it soon and what were your biggest takeaways?
Let me know below and let's talk.
Don't forget to attend our brand new training that will show you how to get all the coaching
clients you could ever want.
I know it's a big promise, but in this training, I'm going to give you three simple secrets
and steps you can take right now that will help you get a funnel from your clients, draw
more clients to you and land more clients for your coaching business almost immediately.
The training is completely free and all you have to do is go to coachingbusinesstraining.com
to sign up, I can't wait to see you in the class.
Now, as always, stay focused on your goals because I believe that you are meant to bring
your passion to the world.
Thank you so much for watching, I hope this served you and I can't wait to hear what you
are going to do with your ideal client research.
If you liked the video, hit the like button below, don't forget to subscribe and share
the video with your friends.
Until next time, I'll see you next week, take care.
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For more info, go to frompassiontoprofitslive.com.
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