You Can’t Market to “Kinda Sorta Everybody”
I had a coaching session with a team that was doing most things right.
They have great energy, plenty of hustle, and a steady stream of new client leads. But when I looked at how each team member defined their ideal client, we had a problem.
They were aiming in completely different directions.
Age range? One said 25–60. Another said 35–65. Another said 35–55.
Income? One said $100K to $1M. Another said $250K to $250K. One left it blank.
Even marital status had different justifications and so did whether or not they had kids. If I had to build a marketing campaign off those answers, I’d need three versions of every ad, every blog post, and every sales script and that’s not strategy it’s a spaghetti mess.
And the result? Inconsistent messaging, fuzzy targeting, and too many mismatched clients slipping through your funnel.
This isn’t a branding problem. It’s an execution problem.
When your internal definitions aren’t aligned, you start attracting clients who don’t actually fit your systems. That creates stress for your team, missed expectations for your clients, and frustration on both sides. Your marketing says one thing. Your onboarding process says another. Operations delivers a third. We fixed it by getting everyone’s answers into a single spreadsheet and forcing one question:
If you had to build your entire business around just one client profile, who would it be?
Not the outliers. Not the exceptions.
The center of the bullseye.
It’s not that you’ll only work with people who are 43 years old, married, and making $240K a year. But if that’s your sweet spot, then every piece of messaging should feel custom-built for that person and your operations should be designed to alleviate their pain points.
That’s how you attract the right leads.
That’s how you close with less effort.
And that’s how you create clients who stick.
