Why Most Businesses Fail at Targeting the Right Market

Dustin: [00:00:00] imagine being in a group of 12 people that are all doing different things, it creates a lot of really cool insights and diversity of thought. It creates a ton of collaboration because you all have, you know, networks that can intermix with each other, and it creates very little competition because it's not a bunch of people doing the same thing.
So for that reason, I purposefully mostly get clients through identity or through intent, marketing and not so much identity now.
Welcome back. I am so excited to do a deep dive today with you on getting clear [00:01:00] on your ideal client. so often people come into our world and they enter into our podcast profits accelerator program because they want to ramp up their marketing and they want to get more clients by telling their story on other people's podcasts.
And that's amazing. And that's exactly what we help them do. But, um, But often surprisingly, what happens first is they get way more clear on who they want to serve. Right? And so we see people make these pivots or these shifts, for the first time in a community, they're hearing other people's ideas, they're seeing other people's businesses.
They're getting insights from me and their other mastermind members. And these light bulbs start going off and they get tons of clarity. So one of the exercises I love to walk people through in this, time of getting more clear on who they want to serve and how they want to serve them. Is this idea of target markets, We all hear the cliche, the riches are in the niches. and actually believe that. However, I feel like we get so pigeonholed into how we talk about our target market or finding our ideal client [00:02:00] that it becomes kind of generic and it becomes really difficult. To stand out from the noise in the market where everyone else is basically saying they serve the same client.
So the framework I like to talk through here with you to help you get more clear on finding your ideal clients is this idea of identity versus intent. is basically like. The way most people talk about target market. Right. So it's like, Hey, who's your target market? And you're like, well, I serve 45 year old women in Illinois, with these professional accreditations, And that's an identity thing. so that is being able to point at someone and be like, That is my ideal client based on their status, their title, their, demographic, their psychographic, like these
sort of things, again, that's very valuable. So in my world, I could say, Hey, you know, want to just serve story brand guides, I happen to be one.
So really easy for me to basically find every single story brand guide in the, in the world and have communication with them because that's their identity. And it's super easy [00:03:00] to find it, I'm in a Slack channel with them in that case, but if I wasn't, I could find them on LinkedIn. I could look up their social media profiles and they're going to basically use story brand guide as a tag because it's a piece of their identity and it's a certification that they've invested in.
So identity again, that could be. All these things you would typically think about industry, age, status, title, income range. However, that's not the only way to select a target market. The other often unnoticed and under emphasized way to select your target market is through intent. So intent means they want a very specific result.
in my world, the way I've chosen to create my flagship product, the podcast profits accelerator is mostly almost entirely on intent, Like everyone that comes through this program wants to use podcast guesting to add six figures of repeatable business. through telling their story on podcast.
And so it's a very clear promise. we're able to give a very, Clear and [00:04:00] robust guarantee because we've got a very dialed in system and tons of social proof, but that's the intent, and so in a given group There's all kinds of different people in that group. Now, I do have a tinge of identity because it's important to me and my values.
So everyone that's in the accelerator is a mission driven entrepreneur. And most of the time they're solopreneurs, there a founder led company with maybe a small team? So they tend to be experts, coaches, consultants, agency owners, again, they're in all different industries, all different types of people that they work with, but the thing they have in common is their mission driven.
So it means they really care about having an impact in the world. They probably have some compelling story to tell, which is why podcast guesting is a great forum for them for marketing. And they're obviously an entrepreneur, they own their own business. And in many cases, again, their solopreneur or their founder led small, they have a small team, but they're still the heart and soul of the business.
So some identity there, right? But that's very broad. That's millions of people who would consider themselves mission driven entrepreneurs, but how many of them [00:05:00] in this moment are wanting to focus on their marketing, get more clear on their ideal clients, build a sales funnel and use podcast guesting to create a flywheel to Generate leads on demand.
Like that's a very specific intent. So the reason I focus on intent much more than identity is because I want to, and I also, I feel like it creates a rich experience in our community. So I love the diversity of having. A marriage coach in the same
cohort or the same, community as a business consultant or as a health expert, you can imagine there's so much diversity. I've got some really niche people. just creates these amazing conversations because people, from Europe, who do really in depth accounting, have a different sales process. They think of offers differently. They have different connections in the world than say, email marketing expert from Florida.
when you get a mix of these people, so imagine being in a group of 12 people that are all doing different things, it creates a lot of really cool insights and diversity of thought. [00:06:00] It creates a ton of collaboration because you all have, you know, networks that can intermix with each other, and it creates very little competition because it's not a bunch of people doing the same thing.
So for that reason, I purposefully mostly get clients through identity or through intent, marketing and not so much identity now. if you could have a very strong identity play, like maybe you just only work with these very specific people. That's beautiful. And the most easy thing to market is a clear intersection of the two.
So imagine if I said my business serves story, brand guides to help them improve their marketing through podcast guesting. So now I do the same intent, but it's only for this really specific group. Super powerful. Cause now I can actually go to every story, brand guide and ask them if they have this need to ask them if they have this intent.
And I can find them so much easier, So make sure marketing super easy. If you have a clear identity with a clear intent. However, for strategic reasons, you may want to lean on one or the other, or even one or the other exclusively. Most of the time, you're going to have some [00:07:00] intersection. , but again, the super easy marketing, if you just want that, getting a really clear identity and match it with a really clear intent.
And you can, Both do outbound and inbound. It's kind of the dynamic that develops is with identity. It becomes way easier to do outbound marketing. if you have a specific group, you can find them on LinkedIn. You can get into communities where they're active. You can target podcasts that have those people being interviewed or the host one of them or they're, the listeners are them, just basically identifying them based on their demographic and their identity, their industry intent.
Much more difficult to do cold outreach because it's like, how am I going to predict who wants to use podcast guesting to grow their business? However, very powerful for inbound, because if people hear me talk and they hear me teach, or they see me from a stage and they're like, Oh my gosh, that's exactly
what I want for my business.
I'm a magnet to those people because I so clearly can communicate the intent that they want. that's how you find your ideal client. You'll think through really deeply the identity and the intent. If you have trouble getting clarity on that for yourself, really highly recommend [00:08:00] getting in a mastermind group.
we definitely recommend you contact us to get into one of our podcast profits accelerator. groups, because that's one of the things that we see over and over and all of our testimonials is like, it's so clear on who I serve and I want to serve them. then Dustin this experience connected me with those ideal clients, referral partners, et cetera, So clarity and connection is really the one, two points that we do in the accelerator. So if you need that additional help, please. Speak us out. We'd love to help you with that. But the kind of more advanced thing I want to share here is you can choose one or the other, but then in micro settings. combine them.
So a really clear example for me is I do podcast accelerator, you know, podcast profits accelerator and again, mission driven entrepreneurs, but not industry specific at all. However, I went and spoke in Nashville last October at the story brand summit. So the room is full of certified story brand guides and coaches.
So you better believe that the presentation I delivered, which is the same content I [00:09:00] deliver. In different settings. I talked a lot specifically about how this applies to growing your story brand business. again, I'm not saying my business is only serving story brand, but I'm saying, Hey, Everyone in here has a certain identity.
I'm going to speak to that identity as I explain the intent. And so that's really powerful. And so you can host a webinar and it's specifically for a certain type
of group and you can teach the more identity or intent based, content, But you're targeting it towards a certain group. So for me, when I was in that room, it was extremely powerful.
I got like 15 clients from a room of 45 people or something, right? Because. It was the one, two punch of both they saw the promise I had of using podcast guesting, their story brand guides. So obviously they believe in the power of story. So that was a great precursor. And I talked about specifically, Hey, I'm a story brand guide.
Like here's how you could sell more of your services using this. And so it became very personal to their identity. And then I did the same thing at traffic and conversion summit, where I knew that it was a room full of mostly digital marketing agencies and other consultants. Our other [00:10:00] entrepreneurs, I used to say, that's a little less.
tight of a group, And then when I spoke at podfest, same message, but I knew everyone in there basically had a podcast or wanted to be a guest. see exact same slides. I just use different off the cuff examples. I might emphasize different parts of it. and during the Q and a, when people ask me specific questions, I can say, tell me a little bit more about your business.
And then when I give them a very specific answer to their identity, it becomes like, Super magnified in their interest. And so I've been able to sell very well from the stage as well as from podcasts, you know, which I consider just a virtual stage by having the same teaching and the same intent based content, but customizing it just a bit to the audience.
If I know something about their identity, so identity and intent, a powerful one, two punch, very powerful intersection to live in for your marketing. And you get to choose which one you would emphasize based on your own strategy and the people you love to work with. You may get bored to tears working with the same people all the time.
In which case you wouldn't want to lean on identity, [00:11:00] or there may be a certain identifier or community that you just love. And like, you can do anything for them. You just want to be around them. And maybe your marketing is much more based on identity, which is different than my strategy. So I hope this has been really helpful for you.
Again, this is really our specialty is we help people get really clear, develop a very compelling story from that clarity. Build a podcast guesting system, then
build the sales funnel, that allows it to become a marketing flywheel. And within 90 days you have ready to buy clients that are coming to you and you're no longer dependent on referrals.
So if you want to get more clear and you want to get a system in place to help you sell more of the podcast. The thing that you're on a mission to sell. That's what we do. So please see us at seven bigger leap. com. If you want to just go straight to a call with someone on our team to just strategize around this, no
obligation, call free complimentary coaching, call seven figure leap.
com slash call. Very simple. So hope to see you there. and in the meantime, I hope to see you on the next episode of the seven [00:12:00] figure leap podcast. Thanks for your support.