When I was little, mom had trouble getting other kids to play with me. (I didn’t share well, tended to be a little bossy, and wanted everyone to sit in rows and listen to me lecture endlessly.) So I ended up inventing lots of imaginary friends — they found me fascinating and did exactly what I told them to do. Years later, they keep turning up on Facebook and we laugh and laugh about the good old days and all the fun we had.
Even if you didn’t have imaginary friends when you were little, it might be good to come up with a few imaginary customers now that you’re a successful business owner. If you hire an expensive marketing agency they’ll call them “Personas” — “fictional characters created to represent the different user types” that you use to help design and focus your marketing and sales efforts.
Here’s an example from the US Department of Agriculture:
USDA Senior Manager Gatekeepers
Matthew Johnson
Program Staff Director, USDA
Matthew is 51-year-old married father of three children and one grandchild. He has a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics who spends his work time requesting and reviewing research reports, preparing memos and briefs for agency heads, and supervising staff efforts in food safety and inspection. He is focused, goal-oriented within a strong leadership role. One of his concerns is maintaining quality across all output of programs. He is comfortable using a computer and refers to himself as an intermediate Internet user. He is connected via a T1 connection at work and dial-up at home. He uses email extensively and uses the web about 1.5 hours during his work day. He is most likely heard saying: “Can you get me that staff analysis by Tuesday?”
To begin with, I’d limit your work to about four “made up” people — that represent a cross-section of your customer base, each mapping to a large segment of your market.
For example — if you had a landscaping business — it might look like this:
Monica Homeowner, working mother, 1 acre yard, doesn’t have time…
Fred Architect, designs housing projects, specifies landscape services…
Susan Realtor, manages rental properties, hires vendors…
Bob Nursery Store Owner, sells retail to homeowners, often asked…
Once you’ve got some stock photos to put with these descriptions, put them up on the wall at your desk and use them every time you write copy or develop any kind of content, and write directly to one of these people. You’ll find that your descriptions and voice come much more naturally, and it’s like talking to a friend rather than a huge bunch of people.
After you’ve done this for a while, you can add or change your list of personas, or even create “sub-personas” if you find that one segment of your business has grown. You’ll also be able to share these out with your staff and vendors — “No, that’s just not something that Bob would respond to — let’s go back over what we know is important to him.”
In one sense, you’re doing the same thing that an actor does as they prepare for a part. You slip on the character and prepare to react to a situation as the person actually would in the role, rather than what you yourself might do. The more that you do this, the better you get at submerging your own personal preferences and feelings and getting in tune with what your customers and prospects need.
And that’s what makes your cash register ring.