Episode 87: Are You Trying to Sell Hamburgers to Vegetarians?

Announcer: Welcome to the Path to Profit Podcast with your hosts, Dr. Minette Riordan and Brad Dobson.

Minette Riordan: Hey, welcome back to the Path to Profit Podcast. I’m Dr. Minette Riordan, along with my fabulous husband, Dr. Brad Dobson. Oops. Dr., he is not a doctor. He’s Iron Man Brad …

Brad Dobson: That’s right.

Minette Riordan: … Dobson, or Iron Man Dad, as his kids affectionately call him, and we’re the co-founders of the Path to Profit Academy, where we teach creative entrepreneurs how to build profitable businesses, because it’s really frustrating to work really hard and not have any money left over to show for it.

Brad Dobson: That is the truth. We are in March now, and March is Marketing Month at the Path to Profit podcast.

Minette Riordan: It is. We got a lot of M’s coming up – magic, money, mindset, marketing.

Brad Dobson: So today we’re gonna talk about food. No, just kidding.

Minette Riordan: We are talking about food.

Brad Dobson: But the title …

Minette Riordan: … of the issue, of the episode – this is Episode 87; man, they are just flying by – is “Are You Trying to Feed Hamburgers to a Crowd of Vegetarians?”

Brad Dobson: I think Minette is gonna let her inner Seth Godin come out with this one.

Minette Riordan: I’m gonna channel Seth Godin today. I am gonna channel Seth Godin. But I also want to help you understand that this episode is about understanding exactly who you’re talking to. When you know who you’re talking to, you know where to find them, you know what to say to them, and all of a sudden, your marketing gets really easy.
Last episode, we were talking about creatives’ challenges around productivity. A lot of times, marketing is the number one thing that creates overwhelm in the mind of the creative entrepreneur, and it’s because you’re trying to do too much. You’re trying to market to everybody. You’re trying to market on every platform.
Understanding this piece will be life-changing, we promise, and yet we also know this is the piece that most entrepreneurs really struggle with, especially in their first couple years in business.
So our quote for the day … Do I get to say it? Do you wanna say it?

Brad Dobson: Oh, it’s Seth Godin. You have to say it.

Minette Riordan: If you don’t know who Seth Godin is, he’s one of my heroes. He is an amazing marketer. I’ve been following him now for probably 15 years. He’s written, I think, 18 books to date. He’s hilarious and brilliant and will challenge you in pretty crazy ways.
But one of his quotes is, “Be with the ones you love and the ones that love you. Ignore everyone else.”

Brad Dobson: Yep. That’s basically a key to your marketing.

Minette Riordan: That’s right.

Brad Dobson: When you consider your clients to be ones that you love and … I think that’s key, is that most of us are in business to help people. Whether we’re creating paintings or clothes or we’re coaching people or in the healing industry, we’re helping people in a way. That means we love them.

Minette Riordan: It does, but if you’re a vegetarian, talk to vegetarians. Us carnivores are not your tribe. Right?

Brad Dobson: Right. That’s, thus, the title.

Minette Riordan: That’s the title – “Are You Trying to Feed Hamburgers to Vegetarians?” So it’s know your community.
So we might’ve mentioned on the podcast before that Brad has recently started a brand-new blog that he’s getting up and off the ground, called Low Carb Endurance. It’s all about the ketogenic diet for endurance athletes. This is a high-protein, high-fat diet, if you don’t know what the keto …

Brad Dobson: Medium-protein.

Minette Riordan: Medium-protein.

Brad Dobson: Low-carb.

Minette Riordan: Low-carb. It’s super low-carb. But for Brad, it’s a lot of bacon.

Brad Dobson: Well, yeah. That’s part of it.

Minette Riordan: ‘Cause who doesn’t love bacon? Then Maggie and I get the benefit of lots of bacon …

Brad Dobson: [inaudible 00:03:56]

Minette Riordan: … as well. But you know what? We’re not following other bloggers that are talking about vegetarianism or veganism, because that’s not our lifestyle. It’s not at all about judgment or don’t agree or don’t believe or anything. It’s all about what Seth Godin says – “People like us do things like this.”

Brad Dobson: Right, and then …

Minette Riordan: “People like us do things like this.”

Brad Dobson: That’s how you’re gonna attract people like you. They’re gonna be attracted to you because …

Minette Riordan: They do things like you.

Brad Dobson: That’s right. They say things like, “Oh, I’m like that. I do things like this.”

Minette Riordan: They also … I think it’s really hard to get people to move out of communities that they’re already in and overcome the inertia and the challenge of change. It’s why people get really stuck in patterns and have a hard time doing anything else.
So they’re looking for, “What are the other people in my community doing? Who are they following? What are they talking about? What’s cool and trendy?” So what our 16-year-old thinks is dope is not what we think is dope.

Brad Dobson: I don’t know if I think anything is dope.

Minette Riordan: Me, either. But we had a whole conversation with one of our clients about synonyms for “cool” …

Brad Dobson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Minette Riordan: … because her community is targeting tweens and teens. I don’t speak that language.

Brad Dobson: Yeah, you gotta get the messaging right.

Minette Riordan: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, if I’m feeding “cool” and … What were some of the thing … “Awesome” and some of the other words that we’ve been saying since the ’80s …

Brad Dobson: That’s right. It’s “neat-o.”

Minette Riordan: Neat-o. Neat-o. That’s an old one. If I’m using language like that, it is not gonna resonate with teens and tweens.
So there’s so many ways and there are so many people teaching how to identify your ideal client. You might hear the terms “target market” or “audience” or “niche” or “niche”, depending on who you’re talking to. We personally prefer “niche,” ’cause it’s proper.

Brad Dobson: That’s right.

Minette Riordan: So we’re a little bit of grammar Nazis in our family. So it’s … Once you know … So let me back that up. Sorry, I got off kilter there. We’ve been a little crazy in our podcast recordings today.
But the thing that we like to teach very differently than the way other people teach this concept is to focus in on that one perfect person. Like Seth Godin says, “Be with the ones you love and the ones that love you.” Who’s the one that you love and that loves you back?
So it may be the one perfect client, the one best friend that you’ve helped in the past. It may be a community of people.

Brad Dobson: Yeah. If you have clients, this is your favorite client.

Minette Riordan: Yes.

Brad Dobson: In a lot of cases, this is you 10 years ago.

Minette Riordan: Yeah, it’s you looking in the mirror even two years ago.

Brad Dobson: Or two years ago.

Minette Riordan: Yeah.

Brad Dobson: They’re showing up. They identify with you because of your journey. They’re on that journey, and they see that you’ve gotten to the other side. That’s why they … That’s why it’s clear to them that, if they hitch onto your wagon, you’re gonna be able to take them on that same journey.
It’s critical, and it’s also why it’s okay to have identified quite a small niche. There’s a lot of people out there in the world, and it’s okay if … One of Minette’s clients was talking about … She was talking with him about vegetarians over 40 and then talking about …

Minette Riordan: Gay male vegans.

Brad Dobson: … gay male vegans over 40. It kind of sound … You might think, “Oh, that just sounds ridiculous.” But there’s probably, I don’t know, hundreds of thousands of those in the United States and however many around the world. You don’t have to worry too much about audience size. Those are the ones that you love.

Minette Riordan: Yep.

Brad Dobson: I’m not saying you out there. Maybe you love Lego Minecraft three-year-olds or whatever it is.

Minette Riordan: It’s so true. We heard … Who was the guy from SixthDivision that we heard talk at Entrepalooza?

Brad Dobson: Martineau.

Minette Riordan: Martineau, Brad Martineau. Would you pass me a tissue, please, sweetie? It’s allergy season. I swear, it’s February and it’s like it’s … It’s okay. I’ll live. It’s like … You might see me over here.
He is a dad of three little boys who love to build Lego, and he spends a lot of time on the floor building Lego with his little boys. So he had all these brilliant Lego analogies built into his marketing presentation about ideas and clients. It was just hilarious …

Brad Dobson: Right.

Minette Riordan: … the before and after scenes of people … of one boy building something and one of the other boys totally destroying it. It looked like dynamite had gone off.
So anybody in the room that ever had boys that love Lego, that had ever been a boy or a girl who loved Lego … So there was this moment of identification, when everyone in the room went, “Oh my gosh, I totally identify with that.” So sometimes, it’s not even about the work you do, but who you are as a person and the things that you believe.
I was talking to another client the other day who one of the most important things for her is being able to share her authentic voice, and she does that through landscape design and through inspirational photos and writing and journaling.
So there’s so many ways to share out content and information that resonates with your ideal client, but I want to really help people understand why this is so essential, because we do get a lot of resistance. “I can help everybody. I wanna change the world. I wanna have an impact.”

Brad Dobson: Or “I don’t think I can make money if” …

Minette Riordan: Or “I don’t thinK I can make money” …

Brad Dobson: “… if I identify such a small niche.”

Minette Riordan: “‘Cause I’m turning clients away. I’m gonna turn clients away if I identify my niche.”
But what we know with absolute conviction to be true is the smaller the niche, the more profitable you’ll be if you’re marketing online. It’s a little bit different if you have a brick and mortar store, or if you’re doing a lot of speaking and face-to-face marketing, it’s slightly different. But marketing online, the tinier the niche, the more successful you’ll be. Ryan Levesque was another great example, about the orchid website.

Brad Dobson: Right. You’ll have better clients, and by “better,” I mean ones that come back and are raving fans …

Minette Riordan: Right. Loyal clients.

Brad Dobson: … that give you great testimonials. Those are the people that identified with you very closely, and they come back and they buy the bigger package. Then they buy the bigger package, that type of thing.

Minette Riordan: So it’s super, super specific. I wanna just give you five reasons why you need to identify your client – ideal client – and what will happen when you do this successfully.
So, first of all, when you’re crystal clear about your ideal client and you’re speaking directly to them through your marketing, they can self-identify. As soon as they see a social media post or they meet you in person or they read one of your blog posts or land on your website, they go, “That’s me. Wow. She gets me.” Right?
That’s the first thing, is they can self-identify. So that’s huge, because the quicker they self-identify, the quicker they buy.

Brad Dobson: Right.

Minette Riordan: The reason that we’re in business is to get people to buy from us. Right? We’re here to make money. So don’t be shy about speaking out to your ideal clients.
The second one is that it makes you more referable.

Brad Dobson: Oh, I see. So when you go to a networking event or things like that, then … and you’ve told people who your ideal client was – you got up in front of them and said not what you do but who you … or you gave them a scene, you set a scene for them of “I help Leslie, and Leslie is a 30-year-old who does X, Y, and Z” …

Minette Riordan: Yeah. I can give an example.

Brad Dobson: Yeah, definitely.

Minette Riordan: So when I go to a lot of networking meetings, I say, “Well, I really tend to help those creative women entrepreneurs with too many ideas who can’t seem to focus in on one idea long enough to make any money,” and I either get, “Oh my God, that’s me. I need you” or I get, “Oh my God, my friend needs you.”
It’s instantly someone knows that creative personality who is always coming up with new ideas but never seems to be really getting any of those ideas going. I know who that person is.
The opposite of that is being at a networking meeting where a hairdresser stands up and says, “Anybody with hair is a client for me.”

Brad Dobson: Right.

Minette Riordan: Anybody that’s ever gotten a bad haircut or a bad color job or that has beautiful curly hair knows that not every hairdresser is created equally. So when you go to networking, the more you can create a visual in my mind of exactly who you’re looking for and how you help them, I can either say quickly, “Yes, that’s me” or “I know exactly the person to send you to.”

Brad Dobson: Yeah, and then you’re more referable.

Minette Riordan: Yep. You wanna do the next one?

Brad Dobson: Definitely. You’ll find more satisfaction and fulfillment and you’ll love your clients, because they’re people that want to be there.

Minette Riordan: They’re like you.

Brad Dobson: They’re not people that … They’re just … It’s all about how much it costs, or they hem and they haw. They’re people that are all in. They’re people that are really excited to be there, and that makes for an enjoyable work.

Minette Riordan: There’s nothing worse than working with the wrong people. We hear this in the creative industries, especially among freelancers, designers who get stuck working on projects they don’t enjoy. The projects, the work isn’t creative, or the client’s a total pain in the butt, and it’s just not a match.
So that client cost you time, energy, and, usually, money, because there’s way more back and forth when the connection is missing. So the clearer you are about the client, not only the happier you are, but the happier the client is. Like Brad was saying earlier, happy clients become raving fans and great referral partners.
Then the next one is, once you know who that client is, you know where to find them. The number one place where we see people really frustrated is “I don’t know where to find my clients.” But if you know exactly who your clients are, guess what? You can go ask them.

Brad Dobson: Yeah. You know who their thought leaders are. You know what magazines they read. You know how old they are. You know how much money they make. You know all of that demographic information. You’re inside their head, because you’ve taken the time to really nail down who this person is.

Minette Riordan: You know what associations they belong to. You know what meetups they’re going to. You know what kind of nonprofits they’re supporting and volunteering at. So not only do you know where to find them online, but you also know where to find them in your local community as well.

Brad Dobson: Yeah, and if you’re really struggling with that, just ask your clients.

Minette Riordan: Yep.

Brad Dobson: They’ll tell you.

Minette Riordan: Ask your best clients.

Brad Dobson: Ask your best clients.

Minette Riordan: “What magazines do you read?”

Brad Dobson: All of that stuff.

Minette Riordan: Our clients like Oprah magazine.

Brad Dobson: Yep.

Minette Riordan: I mean, we know that, and all the pretty Stampington ones.

Brad Dobson: Yeah, or look around your own room. Look at the apps you use, the media you consume, all those types of things.

Minette Riordan: It’s so true. Once you identify your ideal client, you will actually save time and money. When you try to market to everyone and go really broad, then your marketing is completely diffused and ineffective, and it can become a money pit of your just pouring … and a time issue as well, where you’re just pouring out energy and money, trying to get any clients.
But when you’re very targeted, you could, for example, do a Facebook campaign for $5 a day, if it’s super targeted and you know exactly who your audience is.

Brad Dobson: Right.

Minette Riordan: It can save you time and money, because you’re not joining every networking group in town. You’re only joining the one group where you know either you’re gonna meet your ideal clients or you’re gonna meet strategic partners that could connect you with your ideal clients.

Brad Dobson: You bet. Good stuff. So where are we going from here?

Minette Riordan: Where are we going from there? So how do you identify this ideal client?

Brad Dobson: Well, we talked about asking your …

Minette Riordan: Asking them.

Brad Dobson: … asking them. I think it’s helpful to do one of the exercises that Minette has our clients do, which is to envision a … or get yourself a big piece of paper and draw a great big arc. There’s a little stick figure at the beginning and a stick figure at the end, and those represent …

Minette Riordan: The one at the beginning is usually frowny-faced, and the one at the end is happy.

Brad Dobson: Right. Those represent a timeline of all of your interactions with an ideal client. What problem do they come to you with, initially? It might be a very simple problem statement, like “My toe hurts” or “My child’s French test scores are too low” or “I have a large wall that I need to fill with art.” That would be a good one to hear.

Minette Riordan: “I need more large walls.”

Brad Dobson: Yeah, right. Then along that timeline is where you’re meeting them and solving individual problems that they have, until they’ve reached the Promised Land, which is on the right-hand side …

Minette Riordan: Yep.

Brad Dobson: … and they’re all smiley.

Minette Riordan: Yeah. It’s so true. The first time I started working through this, I always have this vision of the creative woman entrepreneur on a sailboat with her family. It’s always the vision I see of this, like they really created the lifestyle, the fulfillment lifestyle, that they want, and they’re either working from the boat or sailing around the world. I’m not really sure. But the result …
The point of the arc is to get you crystal clear about the journey that you’re taking your client on, from Point A to Point Z. You’re gonna maybe connect with them sometimes at Point D, sometimes at G, sometimes at L. But it’s being crystal clear about where they’re beginning, what it is they really want, and what stops them along the way from making progress.

Brad Dobson: Yeah, and one thing that a lot of people get hung up with is they want to do this type of exercise in the context of the solution that they’re providing …

Minette Riordan: Well, all the fun tools and processes.

Brad Dobson: … as opposed to the problems that you’re solving for them …

Minette Riordan: Right.

Brad Dobson: … the problems they come to you with. So it’s looking at it in their shoes, not just, “Hey, I’ve got a bat. Now I need to find everybody that has a ball” or that type of thing. They’re coming … This is … You’re looking at it in the context of someone coming to you with a ball. Does that makes sense?

Minette Riordan: Totally makes sense.

Brad Dobson: I veered off into sports analogies.

Minette Riordan: That’s all right.

Brad Dobson: I know everybody’s …

Minette Riordan: So two things that can help: So, first, we actually recorded a podcast a while back – I think last fall, sometime; we’ll put a link to the show notes – on your client and the Hero’s Journey and understanding how the traditional storyline of the Hero’s Journey story, originally created by Joseph Campbell, actually aligns with your customer’s journey can help you visualize this a little bit better.

Brad Dobson: Super fun stuff.

Minette Riordan: Super fun stuff. So you can go back and listen to that podcast, plus we have a Client Attraction Blueprint. I notice that we name things always … We have a lot of similar letters.

Brad Dobson: C’s and A’s and B’s.

Minette Riordan: We have our Creative Business Accelerator. We have the Client Attraction Blueprint. But the Client Attraction Blueprint is simply a step-by-step process for capturing all the information and creating a beautiful … either a vision board or a sketch or even a Pinterest board for your ideal client, but to combine, as always we love to do, both the practical demographics as well as the psychographics and a creative visual of putting this profile together of who that person is.
The clearer you are about that person, the easier it will be to find them. So if you go to pathtoprofitacademy.com/podcasts, then click on this episode, which is Episode #87, in the show notes, you will find the link to the Client Attraction Blueprint.

Brad Dobson: Good stuff, and we are headed to Episode 88 next week in our March Marketing Madness Month. We’ll be talking with Tad Hargrave about “Philosophy, Connection, and Marketing for Hippies.” It’s a good one.

Minette Riordan: It is a really good one. It was a great conversation. I can’t wait to share Tad with you guys. We had such a beautiful philosophy around business and marketing. It was …

Brad Dobson: And puttering coaching.

Minette Riordan: And putting coaching, yes. He’s puttering. I’m popping up. Definitely different energies, but both super fun. We’ll see you guys all in the next show. This is Minette and Brad in the Path to Profit Podcast.

Brad Dobson: Thanks for listening.