You’ve probably heard it a million times: “Define your ideal customer avatar!”

Everyone practically yells at you to do it. Easier said than done though right?

Well today I’ll take you through the exact process I use to extract the ideal customer from my client.

But first…

Think about the importance of this for a second… If you were hiring a FB ads team to run ads for you would you pick:

• company A who services all different industries for ads? • company B who services your exact niche for ads?

If you’re like me… You’d pick company B. So…

By defining your ideal customer you’re able to narrow down the pool of people you can help but then:

• help more people achieve great results • speak to them better through copy • create better content for these people

But we’re getting off topic so I’ll pull it back…

Whenever I start working with a client I send them two documents:

1. what I’ll need from them in order to start working on our project
2. an ideal customer avatar worksheet

This allows me to “skip” lots of market research and do some basic searching of my own with this info.

Here are the 13 questions I ask them on that document:

1. Describe your ideal client. What do they call themselves? What shared characteristics do they have? Think of the best client you’ve ever worked with and describe them.

2. Describe the worst client you’ve ever had. Specifically, what made them the worst so you know what to avoid

3. List out the painful problems your ideal client is suffering from. Then highlight the most painful one you feel confident in solving (Present pain > future gain)

4. What will it cost them in terms of time, money, energy, and status if they don’t solve that problem now? Time - Money - Energy - Status -

5. What does your ideal client want more than anything in relation to what you do?

6. Describe what life is like for your ideal client BEFORE working with you. What does it look/feel/taste/smell/sound like?

7. Describe what life is like for your ideal client AFTER working with you. What does it look/feel/taste/smell/sound like?

8. Describe what would be a nightmare scenario for your ideal client. Your job will be to prevent this from happening.

9. What are the most common mistakes your ideal client is making right now as they try to solve the highlighted problem?

10. What have they already tried to solve their problem that didn’t work or they didn’t like?

11. In 1-2 sentences… what would you tell your client to do right now to fix their problem? Focus on the WHAT not the step-by-step HOW.

12. Who are your top 3-5 competitors? What separates you?

13. What are the 3-5 steps you’ll take your ideal client through to go from BEFORE to AFTER?

Some of these questions repeat the same ideas but ask questions from different angles.

This allows me to really see the depth they know about their ideal customer/client.

And as a warning… Some clients will fill this out better than others.

I always ask for a couple sentence on each and there are always a few people that put the bare minimum down.

Not sure if it’s because they really don’t know or they don’t feel like it.

Luckily anything helps. After that some basic research is always good.

I will say that I’ve build these questions up from my own and 3 other people’s “ideal client worksheets that I’ve seen.

One of those being from @SeanAnthonySays who I added a couple of these questions from recently (so check him out).