How Do I Find More Customers Like My Best Ones (Without Spending More)?

Lots of businesses say they want more customers, but they really just want fewer of the wrong kind of customer. You know what I mean: the ones that drain your energy, or question every recommendation you make, or push back on price no matter what you do. Customers like these are hard to deal with and, while this difficulty doesn’t always show up in reports, it does show up everywhere else. 

Your best customers feel different: they start to trust you faster and they make decisions they don’t hesitate on or back off from. And, importantly, they seem to value what you value. Not bad, right?

Some business owners assume those customers are rare, but I’m happy to tell you they aren’t. To get them, you just have to provide something to your public that businesses sometimes seem almost afraid to offer. Clarity about who you are. 

You don’t find your best customers; you attract them, and you do it by being unmistakable about who you are.

The mistake a lot of businesses make is chasing volume, because it feels productive. You get more leads and calls and more activity and you think, “I’m doing well; I’m bringing in more money than before.” But giving clarity about who you are means choosing to say or not say certain things, which means not appealing to everyone.

That’s uncomfortable for owners who grew their business by saying yes to whatever came through the door. Over time, though, saying yes to everyone slowly trains your business to disappoint the people you actually want to serve.

You need to determine who your best customers are, and then recognize them and greet them with language that sounds like how they already think and feel.

Businesses often fudge what their message is so they don’t turn anyone away. It’s understandable, but when they do this they may repel the very people they want most.

The clearer you are about who your business is for, the less chasing you have to do.

Businesses that are consistently clear about who they are and what they stand for are 7x more differentiated from competitors and 4.2x stronger on trust than businesses that try to appeal to everyone.

The best customers self-select; they hear your story and think, “this is for me.”

That only happens when you’re willing to be specific about who you serve best, how you work, and about how you won’t compromise.

Being clear about who you are can be a huge relief, for both you and the customer. When they have a clearer idea about you, they can trust you faster, which in turn means they don’t need to listen to you so long before deciding to buy something. And when that happens, your business will probably be a little calmer.

The connection between building genuine trust and reporting strong profit growth has nearly doubled in strength since 2010, according to IPA research tracking hundreds of real businesses.

It’s for this reason that businesses can actually grow faster after they narrow down their message. They don’t have misalignment anymore, and they stop over-explaining themselves. They don’t have to defend themselves to people who weren’t a good fit to work with them in the first place.

So they attract customers who already agree with them. These kinds of customers don’t need to be reassured as much, and they accept recommendations more easily. They’re also more likely to stay with you longer and complain less, because they chose you for the right reasons.

Businesses that prioritize building genuine trust with the right customers outperform average businesses on profit, sales volume, customer acquisition, and loyalty — across all metrics at once, according to IPA data from 812 companies.

If you want more customers to be like your best ones, instead of asking yourself how you can reach more people, ask yourself how you can make it obvious who your business is for.

You scale up by being unmistakable in this regard.

Want to reach your growth goals faster?

I treasure entrepreneurs who are truly committed to the undertaking.  Since you invested the time to finish this to the end, I want to meet that with some attention of my own.

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