How I Found my Ideal Client – My Organic Journey of Discovery
When I first set up my business the concept of my ideal client or avatar seemed so fake to me. I did have a rough idea of who I envisioned my ideal client to be, yet I really and truly had no idea how to attract them or how to understand exactly who my ideal client was.
My journey of discovery to ultimately finding my ideal client has not by any means been a straightforward one. But it has taken me years of discovery. So, from a rough idea, to now firmly knowing exactly who my ideal client is, I would very much like to share my journey with you.
I’m Rubana, the owner and designer at Crimson Letters, I love designing wildly, lavish and dramatically designed, custom wedding stationery.
Listen to the podcast episode here at The Stars Inside
Perhaps this blogpost, of how I found my ideal client, can help you too, to discover your ideal client and feel less alone along the way.
Photography by Auras Studios
How about the whole concept of finding my ideal client?
Do I believe in it?
I absolutely believe it in, because obviously not everyone who sees my work can afford to hire and my services are more of a luxury investment. Now most of my packages start from £8 – 10K that’s just for my design fee, printing is extra. So it’s quite fair to say that I have a very niche client that I’m trying to attract.
From the very early stages of my business, although I was very far from being able to attract that type of client, or indeed have the calibre of work to attract that level of client, I knew that that is where I wanted to head towards.
I did not want to stay at the lower level of the market. Cheap, budget brides where not my ideal client, yet I had to start out there.
Photography by Auras Studios
How I found my ideal client?
I did do some research at the initial stages of my business.
Was I naive?
Ok, so yes, I really was a bit naive about the whole ideal client thing and didn’t want to delve into that too much.
Here were my rough assumptions of who my ideal client was:
- College educated with a degree or masters
- A disposable income, with parents that also have disposable incomes
- Earns over £60-100K take home income
- Has an eye for good design and is willing to pay for it
- My bride loves visiting palaces
- Adores richly decorated interiors
- Enjoys history, art, culture, the ballet, the opera
Not only are my collections complicated, but I’m a complicated person too, and the way that I arrive at my answers always seem to be more of a winding road than most others in this industry.
Even though I knew the above information was roughly who I was aiming to attract, I had no idea how to take that forward to attract that calibre of client.
Instead, I spent more time focusing on building my collection and that in turn has actually NOW after four years brought my ideal clients to me.
So in a way I reverse engineered attracting my ideal client. Or so I think!
Photography by Auras Studios
How I found my ideal client and what it means to me?
It is so powerful for me to know who my ideal clients are. It frees up copious amount of my time and allows me to focus on the clients that I want to serve rather than trying to market to anyone who will pay anything.
Yes, that’s right, there was a time when I thought that anyone who would pay was my client.
Let me explain….
Two years ago, I was OVER THE MOON to have anyone pay 2K or 3K.
It was a dream come true that anyone would want to hire little old me at all, let alone for that amount.
Having said that, I quickly realised, that my work is very time consuming and on average it takes me approximately 2-4 months to work through all the stages of communication, vision boards, artwork creation, ordering materials and supplies, design revisions, bespoke calligraphy creation, organising files for printing, liaising with professional printers, production, hand painting design, hand making envelopes etc…
I ended up working for less than the minimum wage at 3K, so I quickly realised that was by no means sustainable.
This is part of the way that I fell upon knowing who my ideal client should be.
How did I find my niche?
There are two ways that I found my niche really. Just like my business & I it is rather complicated!
As you will find, or I did, nothing in business, or at least my business journey has been straightforward or a very clear path.
I follow evidence & use visualisation & goal setting to propel myself forward
Sometimes we need to look at the signs carefully and be really observant because the breadcrumbs are there leading the way.
For me it was too early for me to follow those breadcrumbs or whispers.
In my first year of business I had two very small weddings in Paris, one at The Ritz and another in a small chateau outside Paris in the Loire Valley. This was a huge indication of things to come. This year I have had two more bookings come my way for guess, yes, weddings in Paris, again at The Ritz and another hotel Le Meurice.
So looking ahead to the future, it is quite apparent and pretty clear that my ideal client is having a small to medium destination wedding and is getting married in Paris. I have also noticed lately, that planner are reaching out to me to hire me for the brides that they represent, or alternatively a bride will notice my work and the planner will reach out to me.
If a client reaches out to me directly and she doesn’t have the budget needed for a planner, it is safe to say that that bride cannot afford my services.
Now that I know that my clients tend to have weddings in Paris, I have to step up my efforts in marketing to attract more of these clients!
Secondly I know that my ideal client has to be a bride who has a wedding planner. If she doesn’t have a planner, she doesn’t have the investment amount to hire me.
Photography by Auras Studios
How visualisation and goals have helped me
Thirdly – visualisation & goal setting is so so sooooooo huge for my business.
I cannot say how incredibly it has changed my mindset and the trajectory of my business. In my first year I had ZERO goals.
None.
I didn’t quite understand the need to goal setting or visualisation and was just happy and passionate to be doing something that I loved. The end.
Yet I was not making enough money at all because I was not working with my ideal client.
Visualisation – what’s it all about?
Visualisation – my journey with this aspect has an enormous story and this by itself I could talk about for 10 minutes easily – but I did the work to back it up!!!
Regarding visualisation – I came across a that famous video with Doctor Jo Vitale on London Real, then I also heard Darcy Benincosa speaking about the same thing, as well as another wedding sales coach, who again spoke about self belief, mindset, visualisation and goal setting. I was intrigued. LONG STORY!!!!
However, after learning about visualisation and goal setting I did not become complacent.
Continue working hard and showing up
I didn’t just sit back wishing and dreaming up a goal without ploughing in all the hard work to back it up. The amount of work that I do and keep on doing is continuous. If you continue to do the work, you will get results.
Eventually.
Put out what you want to attract in.
Produce the type of work that you want to be employed for. Even if it doesn’t exist.
How goals / visualisation helped propel my business forward
After suffering with my pricing and by not valuing my services enough, I knew something had to change otherwise my business could not go on.
I literally started to make a list of the types of clients that I wanted to work with.
I printed images of palaces where I wanted to work on a wedding. I worked on my mindset as well and wrote over and over again, 8K client, 8K client 8K client.
£8K was a huge mindset jump for me after dealing with 2-3K clients, but there were so many indications that I was worth more and in fact I was told by several people after they viewed my work that I should be charging from 6-10K for it.
I remember standing in front of the mirror and saying with confidence, 8,000 pounds, I am worth 8 thousand pounds.
It took some time, but I was astounded when it actually came about and I booked my first 8K client. It has been uphill ever since and now unless it is an exception I don’t work with lower priced budgets anymore.
Photography by Auras Studios
I hope that my journey and my complication, round about way of arriving at understanding and attracting my ideal client can also help you to identity and know how you can target and hone in on your ideal client as well.
Are you a new wedding stationery designer? Perhaps you would like these articles:
Diving into the Wedding Stationery Business.
Buy my prints and immerse yourself in my artwork.