I hear a lot of people at networking events giving their elevator pitch and saying they can work with anyone. The problem with that is I don’t know what introductions to make for you, and neither does anyone else in that room.
Are we supposed to introduce you to everyone we know? Because I can tell you right now that’s not going to happen.
But if you narrow your focus, you can identify and target the people who are willing to pay for what you’re offering. If you’re not sure how to do that, I have some tips to help you identify your ideal client so you can get paid.
What Are You Offering?
The first step is to figure out what you’re offering. What can you deliver to your clients? What are you willing to deliver to your clients? Whatever you’re offering needs to be at the cross-section of what you’re good at, what you’re passionate about, and what other people want so bad they’re willing to give you their money if you provide it for them.
Once you understand what you can and are willing to provide, then it’s just a matter of finding out who’s willing to pay for it.
Who Needs It vs. Who’s Willing to Pay for It
There’s a reason I specify figuring out who’s willing to pay for what you’re providing … not the people who need what you’re providing. There’s a difference.
There might be (probably is) at least one group of people who needs what you’re offering, but they aren’t willing to pay for it. Hopefully, there’s a group of people who do need what you’re offering and are willing to pay for it. There might even be a group that does not need what you’re offering, but they’re willing to pay for it anyway, in which case, why not sell it to them?
The key here is to understand the logic of your prospect and recognize that their logic is not necessarily your logic. For example, I had a client who wanted to reach out to recent college graduates and teach them about corporate office politics. His reasoning was that it was a life skill they could use to be successful in their careers, but that they had not been taught in school.
That might be true, but I pointed out to him that his prospects wouldn’t see it that way. They had just endured years of people telling them they were stupid and didn’t know anything and now they’re looking down the barrel of their student loans. From their perspective, it would be hard to justify paying more money to have someone else tell them they’re stupid and don’t know anything.
Instead, we thought about who would be willing to pay for what he was offering. He ended up selling his program to Purdue University so they could add it to their curriculum.
So the next time you give your elevator speech, I don’t want you to think about who needs your offer. I want you to think about who’s willing to pay for it.
If you need some more help identifying your ideal client and how to speak their language so you can get paid, that’s one of my specialties. Reach out so we can have a conversation.