Greeting And The Client Problem

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Well, hello friends, it's Kimberly, it's episode 353. If you are running a business now, maybe even about to, where clients seem to already be balking at your prices. They're penny pinching. They are high maintenance. They are expecting you to respond at all hours. Maybe they're grumpy. They are total Karen's on everything that you're doing. Then today's episode is for you. We are going to talk about how massively important it is that you choose your customers because there is a big result when you do. I'm going to reveal that today and talk you through how to do this and get control of your business so that you can have those dream clients and those dream customers who don't give you flack all the time, don't balk at everything, and are actually super excited about everything that you offer

Subscribe And Ways We Can Help

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and what you do. If you are new here, welcome. I'm so glad that you have found this podcast. I have no doubt it's going to help you along your business journey, whether in the idea stage, starting or growing, this is for you and whatever kind of business you have, this is for you. If you feel passionate about what you are offering, like you actually love what you do at the core of it, what you offer, and you're excited to make a difference for people, then this podcast is for you. So make sure you hit subscribe or follow whatever your app says. Like if you're in Apple Podcasts, up at the top, there's a little check mark. You can make sure that you subscribe to this podcast because I don't want you to miss out on any future episodes that I know are going to help you. And I'm so excited. And if you've been listening a while, thank you so much to all my loyal listeners for the reviews, for the DMs, and everything that you share about this podcast that has made a difference for you. Please know, everyone listening, that I offer coaching and I have help for you. If you are starting your business, trying to get it off the ground, maybe you're working on your podcast and you need help. I offer one-on-one coaching to help you do that. And I've got some exciting things coming here in the next few months. I cannot wait to reveal them, y'all. I've been kind of teasing this, but I'm going to be releasing some things that you can actually hold in your hand that are going to help you with your business. They're going to motivate you, inspire you. And I'm super stoked. So make sure you are subscribed, included in because fun things are coming. Also, if you're on Instagram, I post periodically, but um I would love for you to be around when I have big announcements coming up, things about the podcast, anything that can help you with your business. So you can follow there at Start with Kimberly Brock. Okay. So that is it. And all the links are down below. Free, I have free stuff to help you too. I know there's a lot. I don't want to throw all this at you, but you can always go to Kimberlybrock.com for the latest information and free printables and things that can help you along your journey. So that's it. Okay, on to the episode.

Choose Your Customers Choose Your Future

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Well, hello, friends. I'm so glad you're here for this episode. This one is like a wake-up call, even for me, being in business for 26 years. It it really makes you think. And I hope that you take this episode seriously. I don't know what you're doing right now. Maybe you're cleaning the house, maybe you're on a walk, maybe you're driving, maybe you're carpooling kids. I have listeners tell me they are doing that. So hello to all the kids out there that may be listening with your mom who or your dad who are working hard to build their business dream. Today we're talking about how massively important it is that you choose your customers. And you're probably thinking, how do I choose my customers? I have an online store or I have a service and they're coming to me. I'm posting an ad or I'm making a post or I'm doing Instagram or I'm out networking in my community. How do I actually choose my customers? Let's start out with this because I was listening to Seth Godin the other day, and he's amazing. I've read a lot of his books. This is Marketing, The Dip, Purple Cow. I don't know if y'all have listened to his books, but he is like the guru in terms of marketing and so perfect for freelancers and small business owners. It all applies to all of us. And it's super important information. And he said something that like really struck me. And today I want to talk about what he said. And I want to talk about how we are going to apply it to our businesses and how you are. So you can have a business that runs smoothly, that feels true to you, that you're actually excited to do every day, that you have customers and clients who are not balking at every price you post, or if you have a price increase and they aren't nitpicking you, they aren't penny pinching you, they aren't trying to like call you at three in the morning and expect you to answer or email you 20 times a day. They have boundaries, they respect you, they love what you do, they value it, and they pay it. We want those kinds of customers, right? That's what we want. We don't want all the riffraff and all the Karens and all the horrible clients who are grumpy and non-appreciative and don't want to pay, right? And so what he said, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you what he said, and we're gonna talk about it and how to apply it to your business.

Why Serving Everyone Backfires

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So Seth said, choose your customers, choose your future. You choose. If you say you serve everybody, then I want you to think about it. If you had everybody in your community or surrounding areas or anybody on the internet who needed just the basic thing of what you offer, right? Just the commodity thing, okay? Imagine every type of customer. Just sit here for a minute and imagine every type of customer. Imagine you're at Walmart every type of customer that's at Walmart or Target or anywhere or at Nordstrom or at uh a restaurant. Do you really actually want every type of customer? You do not. I think we can all agree we have seen nightmare customers. I have seen nightmares at Walmart. In fact, fun fact my very first job in high school, are you all ready? Was a Walmart greeter. I was a greeter at Walmart. Then I got promoted and I was a checker. So I saw everyone in my town and it was awesome and I loved it. It was a brand new Walmart. We did not have a Walmart in our town. Can you imagine? So this was back in the 80s. Anyways, I've seen them. I've seen Karen's before they were Karen's. I've seen it all. We've always been in a store where somebody complained at a restaurant, anywhere, right? And granted, sometimes it's actually warranted, right? But for the most part, for your business, I know the kind of person that you are. You wouldn't be here. You want to take your passion, you're turning it into a business, you want to do good for people, you want to make a difference. You're not here to hurt people or be mean to people. You want to provide good customer service. You want to make money. You have to make money, or this is a hobby. So you need customers who will pay and gladly pay for what you offer because they appreciate it and they need it. They want it. They're happy to pay you. Okay. They're just totally happy to pay you for this. Okay. Think if you have somebody that redesigns your website, if you're not a techie person, you're like, I will gladly pay you. Will you please do this? I've been working on new branding, new logo, and all that. In fact, right now, and it got all done. And I gladly paid the designers. Okay. So shout out to Bliss and Tell branding. They're amazing. Okay. They're a creative company. They help with branding and all this stuff. But my point is, I'm will gladly pay them. And you want people like that too, who value you. And you have to price your stuff so that you make money and you attract the people that you actually want to serve. So again, let's imagine every customer in the world and you do not want every customer. How would you go about shouting out to them like you're for me and I'm for you?

Positioning Through Clear Customer Signals

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If what? What is it about your business that is special or that is your positioning, right? You're trying to attract a certain group. So I want you to think about that right now, right? Like imagine you are a landscape designer. Okay, I'm thinking of a client now, who's a landscape designer, and she takes any yard, any budget to anyone? What would that look like? Could she get penny pinchers? People that like only want to spend a hundred dollars. Or if she was specific about the types of yards and homes that she worked with, do you think there would be a different clientele? Imagine it for a moment. If she said, I am helping people that have yards and they live on more than a half of an acre, and I help people in this certain area. Maybe you say that. And that narrows down the demographics of who you're meant to serve, right? But if you say you help everyone, it could be a really small house that the person literally has $200. And maybe you want that kind of client, and that's who you feel called to do. But what's going to happen is you've got all this experience. You're going to be spending a lot of time, and you're not going to be making the money that you need to make to keep this business afloat. So you have to be very smart about who you are saying and the signals you're giving off, your pricing, and all the things. Now I could go on and on, and this would be an entire lesson for an entire day about how you position your brand and your products. But what I want you to realize is that today, you cannot say, I'm for anyone. I'm for everyone. You're not. You are for a specific group of people. And if you decide, let's say you're a landscape designer and you're doing higher-end homes in your area, but then you decide, you know what, I can do commercial and I can do this, I can start getting crews, I can expand my business, right? That's when you start understanding that when you choose your customer, you choose your future, right? So if you choose commercial clients, you are now dealing with commercial clients. You will have big deals, you will have deadlines that they are on, you may need crews, you may need updated equipment, your designs may be way more intricate and take you a long time. That's your future. And if you want that, that's amazing. That's awesome. That's a choice. If you choose higher-end residential homes as a landscape designer, that is a choice. That is your customer, that is your future of what you what you will be doing, who you will be marketing to, where you will be marketing to, the language you use to hire-end homeowners versus commercial is totally different. And the money can be great with both. It's a choice, though. You're choosing the future of your business. If you decide, I'm going to go in this area over here, and the people don't really have that much money for landscape design. And I'm marketing and marketing, and no one wants it. Maybe they can't afford it all together and you're beating a dead horse. Do you see what I'm saying? Choose your future of frustration of trying to sell something to people that to people that can't afford it. Maybe you're selling it to people that have beautiful homes and want a nice yard and want it to be easier so they don't have to go and try to figure it out themselves or just use their landscape, or they want someone qualified like you who's a designer, right? Do you see what I'm saying? This is just an example. This is just an example.

Pricing That Attracts Respect And Profit

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Like if you're selling furniture and you said, you know, I love furniture, I want to sell furniture online. You decide, are you going to be doing like everything that's under a certain price range? Is it for people that are in apartments? Is it for media rooms? What is this for? You are not for everyone. You are not furniture for everyone. Okay. Your furniture for a niche, even IKEA, as big as they are, their furniture has a distinct look and style. A lot of it is made for space-saving purposes, right? And it is not for everyone, right? I've used IKEA in my home for certain things. Like I'm looking at cabinets right now. We have really tall wardrobe that's beautiful. But, and I'm in a pretty big bedroom. But it had a style that I liked and it works, right? So even they, even though they appeal to a certain group, other people will still buy. I'm not in an apartment. I'm not in a really, really tight space, but I'm still buying. But that's not the point. Their marketing and their style and everything is choosing their future. It's choosing to sell in bulk their, you know, I'm not in bulk, but do you know what I'm saying? Like a lot of choices in a big store and have many stores. So they are selling in volume, is what I meant to say. Lots of volume, right? And they had their catalog, they've been online, they have their stores. They made a choice to choose that customer that would like their stuff. You have to be choosing customers that can pay and will be happy to pay and buy your stuff. So right now you have to ask yourself, what have I been saying? How have I been pricing my stuff? Because your pricing attracts certain people. If you are higher priced, you're going to get higher-end clients. Do you like working with higher-end clients? Or if you are trying to, you know, keep the lowest price, you are going to attract penny pinchers. You're going to attract those people. And that is fine. That is an amazing market. Dollar store is popular. What are they now? Dollar General. Like Walmart is great. You can be in that line of work, but you have to understand what comes with that is that people will balk at your pricing. And are you a business that may need to keep raising prices in it or is offering a premium service? So what you are saying and what you are sharing and the feel that you give is attracting customers that are going to determine your future. How happy you are with your business, how valued you are, the worth that you feel, the quality of your work, because you're not going to feel like putting quality time and create quality work if the people do not value what you are doing. Would you agree? Right? You don't want to become a commodity. You have something different. Okay. I'm not saying, though, that everyone has to be in the high-end market. I'm saying people need to afford what you are offering and you need to be speaking clearly to the people that can afford it. Choose your customers. Choose your future. It's going to be the future of your business, how profitable it is, how much you like it, how much you like the people that you are serving, how much they are relying on you to be in constant communication with them, right?

Dream Clients And Coaching Invitation

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Let's say you are doing some kind of business. Maybe you're, let's just say you're a nurse or a doctor and you decided to do home care and you're going to be on call. You are attracting people that will call you at all hours of the night. You need to be charging what that is worth. You cannot be the lowest price on that. You will attract the people that can only pay so much, but yet they're calling you in the middle of the night. That's not how it works. All these concierge doctors and all this that is out now, it is a high price because it is high touch. And they are choosing those people that can afford it and they are willing to do the work for those people. Okay. Are you hearing me? Are you hearing me today that you have to choose your customers because you need to be appreciated, you need to get paid, you need to make a profit, and you need to love what you do. You need to love this every day that you just like, oh, I just got another dream client. She's amazing. I love her. Like my decorator, Laura, who came and decorated her home, she was talking about, you know, how she has been getting clients and she just adores them and it's been so much fun. Like she almost becomes part of their family when they're remodeling because she's there all the time. And that's the way it was for us. And I'm speaking for her, but I felt like we had a good relationship and it was super fun. And if she had told me, if I could just find more clients like you, right? That's what you want. Think about your ideal client or something that you've that, you know, someone that had purchased from you and it all went smooth. Think about that person or that situation and be like, how can I market to people like that? Because it means that your future will be going in a certain direction. Your future may be more frustrating with less profit and not as much fun. And your future will be more fun, but more profitable business with clients that you truly love. So I hope this makes sense. Thank you to Seth Godin for giving us this word of wisdom. I guess it's a whole statement of wisdom. Choose your customers, choose your future. You have control over the future of your business by the choices that you make every day, including who you want to serve. So I hope this helps. Y'all are amazing. If you want to talk about your ideal client, we can do one-on-one coaching and go through this to help you better choose your right people so that you can have an enjoyable, profitable, and awesome business. The link is down below. Contact me. I would love to help you. So that is it. Y'all have a great day. But our relationship does not have to end here. Head on over to Kimperlybrock.com, and yes, you can get more valuable information for your journey. And you know what? You don't need to go through this a lot. I would love to help. Thank you so much and have a great day. Bye.