Conor Kenny & Associates

Congratulations! You’ve invested time into creating an Ideal Client Profile. You are already ahead of the pack because you “get” the importance of target marketing and you want to work with “perfect” clients.

You’re on your way to working with more quality clients who . . .

· appreciate what you offer

· are willing to pay you the big bucks

· come back for more of your services

· automatically refer you to other ideal clients

. . . All because they “get” how you help them.

You’ve created your Ideal Client Profile using demographics, technographics, psychographics and geographics. You’ve checked out your assumptions. You even have at least five high-priority questions to ask potential clients in a discovery interview; these questions are designed to gain clarity about their pains, wants, and needs. You’ve even targeted some companies you believe “fit the bill”.

Now you’re in proactive mode. You want learn more about the company or individual you plan to target. OR you want to find lots of your ideal clients in your community or online.

Use the information-gathering resources listed below to take your Ideal Client Profile to the next level.

1. Their website

2. Their marketing materials

3. Dunn and Bradstreet dnb.com

4. Check LinkedIn search for people who have worked for them

5. Websites such as Jigsaw.com, CEOExpress.com, BizStats.com, InfoUSA.com

6. Association trade publications and Tradepub.com

7. Thomson Reuters

8. Hoovers

9. Gales List of Associations (Usually available free and online through your library.)

10. Searches and alerts on: Google, Twitter or SocialMention.com

11. Ask family, friends, and colleagues

12. Ask your librarian for resources available at the library or its online database (usually Resource USA but they could have other datbases online to help you find your demographic, too).

13. Local economic, rural or small business development corporations. Sometimes called EDCs, or RDCs.

14. Association Executives Directory http://www.associationexecs.com/

15. Their local Better Business Bureau

16. A search on your favorite search engine, plus one with the word “complaint” in it

Good luck! Remember that all the time and effort to develop your Ideal Client Profile will pay off. in drove$. You’ll attract new clients easier, retain them longer, and you’ll be more profitable with less effort!

Special thanks to my LinkedIn Colleagues, around the world, who helped me add to my original list.

Like this article? You’ll also enjoy Stop Working With Jerks: Attract Your Ideal Clients

We live in times of austerity and cutbacks, and yet the need to promote investment and jobs was never more important. How does a small country balance the need for prudent budgets while stimulating the economy at the same time?

The answer, of course, is a cutback that everyone can manage without too much pain and that doesn’t impede the ability of the economy to grow.

I haven’t been idling while the economy burns. I have come up with my own one-point plan that foresees a 50% cut in one important aspect of Irish life that should deliver all kinds of benefits.

Where do we have excess? Where are we spending more than we really need? It should be obvious to all – especially viewers of Sky Sports.

I refer, of course, to the use of a word twice when one usage would be ample to express the full meaning. How many times have we heard the breathless Sky Sports announcer tell us that the upcoming game between, say, Doncaster and Bristol City, is a ‘massive, massive game’.

I know it will be a restriction – an imposition that football people will say targets them directly and limits the full enjoyment to be derived from ‘massive, massive’ games. Yet, once the fans realise that one word is the maximum allowed under the new proposals, they will quickly get used to the idea that a ‘massive’ game is the biggest one can get. And the time saved will result in huge increases in productivity elsewhere.

My proposals are intended for the Irish economy, but we are dependent on our European partners, so perhaps our new frugal ways will be adopted by some of them. Take Silvio Berlusconi. Please.

His ‘Bunga Bunga’ parties would be no less enjoyable by being described as simply ‘Bunga’ parties. Again, a 50% cut with no real pain having to be endured.

Oh, I know there will be some who find my proposal unrealistic, my figures disputable and will foresee difficulties with aligning all government department computers in time to have the capacity to enforce these cuts. To the knockers, I say this.

Was there any need for two knocks in the standard Irish ‘Knock, Knock’ jokes? The answer is a resounding ‘No’. It is this type of excess that has gotten us into trouble with our European partners. We can’t go on double-knocking and expecting others in the EU to get by with one. This government should stand up to the knockers and ban the extra ‘Knock’. We already have enough struggling airports.

You might think I am myopic in looking merely at Ireland, but I have not forgotten our international obligations. In terms of overseas development, think what a 50% cut in beri-beri disease would mean? And this could be achieved by the simple stroke of a pen!

You might say that I am taking many of the easy options. Tackling what’s called the ‘low-hanging fruit’. But I am prepared to take courageous decisions – even those that affect children – they are our future after all, and we’re doing this for them.

It has come to my attention that many mothers refer to their young children with short names by doubling up. Hence, the perfectly functional ‘John’ often becomes ‘John-John’ and there are many more examples of waste in this area which I won’t describe here for fear that the abject excess will put you off your breakfast. “Jim-Jims’ abound as do ‘Joe-Joes’ and others. And these names are repeated again and again and again.

And, of course this crime continues into adult life where gallons of ink are wasted on ‘JJ’s’. These will be shortened to a simple ‘J’ in the new dispensation. Unfortunately, it will not be possible achieve the reduction for ‘PJ’s’, ‘JP’s’ ‘DJ’s’ and others, but they will hopefully be tackled at a later date during the lifetime of this government.

I know many of you out there are tut-tuting my approach. To you I say, you have one ‘tut’ too many. Think of all the extra time you will save by cutting out the extra word.

Yes, it is time for us Irish to introduce these deep, deep cuts to show that we are turning the economy around. It’s just the right thing to do. We have to show that we are capable of kicking the can down the road. Doing the can-can at this stage would just send a very bad message to our European partners.

You get an enquiry

But don’t respond.

You think you are a leader

But confuse it with management.

You do the easy thing

But know what the right thing is.

You get a hopeful CV

But “it’s not my problem”

You get a CV

But don’t bother to say no.

You believe in training

But don’t invest in your people.

You get an invitation

But don’t bother to RSVP.

You are asked for a proposal

But roll out a standard form.

You get a message someone called

But don’t think it’s worth your while to reply.

You are offered something with compliments

But don’t make the effort to go.

You are given some free wisdom

But you are too lazy to read it.

You listen to new trends and expertise

But think it doesn’t apply to you.

Your staff are causing trouble.

But you think firing them is the answer.

You know your staff don’t like you

But you continue to spy on them.

You learn something precious

But keep it to yourself.

You pretend to be humble

But your team know better.

You write in reply to something

But your letter reveals more than you thought.

You are cross with a supplier

But the email you write damages you instead.

You talk a lot

But can’t listen.

You talk about yourself

But have no interest in the audience.

You pretend you are driven by excellence

But really just love money.

You promise everything

But deliver very little.

You build your business for yourself

But forget who fuels it.

You think you are great

But fail to understand true humility.

You care about now

But forget about legacy.

In some ways, the first step of marketing is to make me look at you.

If you fail to achieve that, nothing else happens.

Too many people concentrate on the offer. They miss the first step and wonder why they fail.

You simply have to make me look at you first. After that, I might come in.

The cliché is standing out from the crowd but do we really ‘get’ that?

If you do, great, if you don’t, read on.

The football stadium is full with 60,000 people.

You look around, they merge and blur into a kind of similar colour.

No matter how interesting, beautiful or different, it’s going to be very hard to get noticed.

Especially if you are at the far side. Agreed?

Some people know how to stand out from the crowd.

They are called streakers.

What do they do?

You can answer that one.

But I’ll tell you this much.

They gain our attention and make us look at them

(even if it’s through our raised eyebrows!)

Guest Blog – Tony Lamb

Power and How to Use It

Taking a break from Management Information Systems and a closing in midterm, here’s what I learned last night. In my Operational Behavior class we talked about Power, its benefits and how to use it properly.

Mainly, we talked about small changes that can be made in things that you say to influence more people and get them to say yes. To keep it short, the coolest thing we learned was how people feel an obligation to help others that have helped them, but it has to be utilized properly. How often after helping someone do you say “It’s no problem/It is no big deal”, you just lost the game. Now this person you helped believes that it wasn’t much effort to help them, so their obligation to help you in the future is gone. We were told instead to say, “You’re welcome, I am sure you would do the same thing for me if you were in the same situation”, and that makes all the difference.

Now using this in practice, not that I want to use people and get them to do things for me, but with a social networking society connections are everything. Additionally, I have always been that person that will drop everything and help people if they needed it, but to seem humble I’d always say it was no problem. I instantly lost all of my power in the situation and I can’t lie, everyone likes being the person in power. You don’t want to be that football team that needs another team to lose to make the playoffs, you want to control your own destiny.

Dublin is overflowing with Taxis and it drives me mad.

Can you imagine how many redundancy packages were sunk into the hands of used car salesmen?

Can you imagine the cheerful optimistic future?

The dream of working hard, independence and a steady income?

All fine until they realised that thousands of others had the same idea.

It’s more of following the crowd and blending in rather than stepping away from the masses.

If you want to succeed you need to create something new.

If you want to go bust then throw your hard earned cash at more of the same.

People who challenge the norm succeed.

People who follow it fade into the crowd.

Don’t believe me? Think of these young companies and brands;

Ryanair

iPhone and everything Apple

Virgin

Malmaison

Need I go on?

I once did some work for a very grumpy man but I left before he got me down.

He was never happy. In fact, he was always angry.

People feared him and eventually the good people left.

A young guy had an idea, a pretty good idea.

He tried it and it failed.

He tried again, that failed too.

Bi boss was very angry.

Big boss chastised, scolded and roared.

Young man stayed calm and his response was ahead of his years;

“Would you have preferred if I did nothing?” He asked

He has since gone on to great things.

Is that really surprising?

As we approach our tenth anniversary I’m thinking about what it takes to build a business.

Just thoughts, some random, not scientific but based on experience.

I’m sure you can add to it?

If you do, share these lessons for those brave souls beginning their journey for we know many will perish.

Be patient, a business takes time.

A business evolves, no matter how good the design or the plan.

Reinvest every cent and don’t rob yourself.

Listen very carefully to your mentors, friends and customers. But then decide and be decisive.

Try everything and fail fast.

Never confuse urgent with important.

If you can’t remove the source of the stress, walk away from it.

Be honest, be humble, admit mistakes and say sorry.

Don’t always agree with your customer they are not always right.

Get out and meet people.

Never stop chasing ‘better’ or ‘perfection’

Know your destination and share it.

Where you are weak get help.

Where you are strong be humble.

Make sure it’s scalable.

Treat everyone with a gentle kind heart. It’s only work.

Have fun.

Be happy.

If you can’t do all of the above (and more) walk away

It’s tempting when you are trying to close a sale to agree with the customer.

It can also kill the sale.

It’s tempting to ‘look’ friendly but be exploitative.

It’s tempting to nod sincerely even though we know you don’t mean it.

Tempting but fatal.

Not so long ago I was about to buy a car.

I was almost there.

The salesman, an affable sort of chap, was doing his best.

He was almost there too.

I was considering one of those delicious but completely unnecessary extras.

It didn’t make sense and was disproportionately dear.

I asked my friend a simple question;

“How can you justify so much for that?”

Confident now, he was my ‘friend’

He wasn’t.

He said:

“I can’t. I agree with you, it’s a ridiculous price and a bit of a rip-off”

I said;

“Thank you but no thanks”

If you agree with me that your brand is flawed 2 things happen;

I won’t trust you.

And I won’t buy from you.

Instead, disagree, have an opinion, be real, be you.

Be human.

Trust nobody.

Assume they are out to get you.

Believe they are dishonest.

Test them.

Then, if that’s not enough, spy on them.

I was told this horror story recently.

The Boss didn’t trust his staff – any of them.

CCTV would be his only true ally.

He watched and watched and when he wasn’t watching, he schemed and dreamed up ambushes instead.

Although he didn’t trust anyone, he especially did not trust one man.

He watched and waited and eventually his man made a fatal move.

He complimented himself on his sharp eye and sharper instincts.

It was time to execute the offender.

A cursory court would be convened and a manager summoned to witness the demise.

The manager arrived to review the offending footage.

The Boss was donning his executioners cloak.

The manager looked deeper.

Turning to the Boss he said;

“But that’s not him”

The Boss is still watching too much TV

And denies the footsteps coming for him.