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“This is for everyone.”
If you’ve ever said that about your business, your offer, or your email list, you’re not alone. It’s one of the most common things I hear from entrepreneurs who are working hard on their marketing but not quite getting the results they hoped for.
The problem is that when you try to talk to everyone, you end up connecting with no one. Your messaging becomes vague, your offers feel generic, and your marketing starts to feel like shouting into a void. You might find yourself jumping between channels because “your clients are everywhere”, sending broad emails that nobody responds to, or struggling to explain what makes you different from everyone else doing something similar.
Almost always, the root of these problems is the same thing: not having a clear picture of your ideal client.
And that’s exactly what this blogpost is here to help you fix. By the time you’ve worked through it, you’ll know who you’re talking to, what they actually need, and how to reach them in a way that feels natural rather than forced.
What actually is an ideal client?
An ideal client is someone you love working with, and who loves working with you. They find exactly what they need in what you offer, they get real results, and they’re likely to come back or recommend you to others. The communication is easy, the work is energising, and everything just flows a bit more smoothly.
But here’s what an ideal client is not, and I say this from experience. It’s not just anyone who can pay you. It’s not the client who keeps you busy but slowly drains your energy. And it’s definitely not “everyone.” I’ve been there myself, and I see it constantly with the coaches and entrepreneurs I work with. You take on a client who doesn’t quite fit because the money is there, and six weeks later you’re exhausted, the project has scope crept in three directions, and you’re dreading their name in your inbox. That’s not a client problem; that’s a problem with the clarity around your ideal client profile.
There’s also an important distinction worth making between your target audience and your ideal client. Your target audience is the broader group of people your business serves. Your ideal client is the specific person within that group who is the absolute best fit for what you do. Like ‘female coaches that want to create a community’ is a great target audience, but you want to be more specific for your ideal client. She’s the female coach in her early 40s who has been running her business for a few years, knows what she wants to achieve, and is ready to invest in making it happen.
Getting clear on your ideal client doesn’t mean turning people away. It means getting so good at speaking to one person that the right people feel immediately understood when they find you. And when people feel understood, they buy.
How to work out your ideal client
Who did you love working with?
The best place to start isn’t with a list of demographic questions. It’s with the people you’ve already worked with and loved.
Think about a client you absolutely loved working with. Not just someone who paid on time, but someone where the work felt easy, the communication flowed, and you actually looked forward to working together.
Write down as many details about them as you can. What do they do for work? How long have they been in business? What’s their personality like? What made them easy to work with? What were they trying to achieve?
Now think of another one. Someone else who gave you that same feeling.
And write down those details again. Then look at both descriptions and ask yourself: what do they have in common? Where do they overlap? That overlap is gold. That’s where your ideal client lives.
Now, write down what you see in that overlap. If there are demographic patterns, like age range, industry, business stage, or location, write those down. If you’re noticing personality traits or values or a certain vibe, for instance, they’re all creative types, or they’re direct communicators, or they’re people who value authenticity, write that down too. You might see both, or you might see one more clearly than the other. Either way, that’s your starting point. Once you’ve got that, you can go deeper.
Your ideal client fears
What was keeping that amazing client you loved working with, up at night before they found you?
This is a question my clients never see coming, but it’s one of the most powerful ones. When you think about a real person who was struggling before they found you, suddenly it’s much easier to describe what problem you actually solve.
The dream results
Let’s do the same thing for their dreams. What results were they looking for, not just in their business but in their life? What was their hope of what might feel unachievable but a ‘best scenario’ feeling? That helps you describe them even further and will help you in your messaging (see below).
All of this together turns it from ‘everyone’ into an ideal client profile, or better yet, into a real person you understand.
Taking your ideal client research further
Working out your ideal client from your existing clients is a great way to do this. But if you want to go deeper, there’s an optional next step: actually talking to people who fit your ideal client profile.
That could be a survey you send out, a few conversations with people who fit your description, or a combination of both. The goal is the same either way: finding out more about their problems, their frustrations, their dreams, and crucially the exact words they use to describe all of it. Because the words your ideal client uses are the words you want to be using in your marketing.
If you want to go deeper on how to do this well, whether that’s structuring a survey, knowing what questions to ask, or how to get people to actually respond, Bente from Research by Bente specialises in customer research for entrepreneurs and has a brilliant guide on exactly this as well as services to help you do this.
How to use your ideal client profile in your marketing
Once you know who your ideal client is, something shifts in how you communicate. You stop writing for a vague, general audience and start writing for one specific person. And that changes everything, from the words you choose to the tone you use to the topics you cover.
Let’s say you’re a business coach helping people build a business around their passion, like writing or crafting. Instead of just talking to ‘everyone’ because everyone has a hobby, your ideal client is someone who’s been dreaming about turning their hobby into a real business, that isn’t a ‘hobby business’ but pays the bills. They keep telling themselves they don’t know where to start.
Once you know that, you stop saying “I help people build businesses” and start saying things like “I know you’ve been thinking about this for a while, and you’re not sure the timing is right.” or “What if this hobby COULD turn into an actual business?” That’s not magic. That’s just knowing your person.
Everything your ideal client says becomes the raw material for your content and messaging. If your ideal client is telling themselves “I’m not ready yet,” that’s something you can address directly. If they’re seeing other people’s success stories and feeling behind, you can speak to that too.
This is also how you start to figure out where to show up. Different channels reach people at different stages. Your ideal client profile tells you not just what to say, but where they’re most likely to be when they’re ready to hear it.
When to revisit your ideal client
Your ideal client profile isn’t something you do once and file away forever. Your business changes, your offers evolve, and the people you want to work with might shift too. That’s why it’s worth revisiting at least once a year, even if nothing feels obviously wrong. It might be that you immediately realise it’s still good or moments where you go ‘yeah it needs tweaking’.
There are also some specific moments that are a good trigger to take another look. If you’ve launched a new offer, if you’ve noticed your messaging isn’t landing the way it used to, if you keep attracting clients who aren’t quite the right fit, or if you’ve consciously decided to go in a new direction with your business, those are all signs it’s time to revisit.
It doesn’t have to take as long as the first time. You already have the foundation. Sometimes it’s just a case of updating a few details, tweaking the language, or narrowing things down a little further as you get clearer on who you do your best work with.
Think of it less as starting over and more as checking in.
If you want to go deeper on choosing the right channels for your business, I’ve written a full guide on that here: How to Know Which Marketing Channel Is Best for Your Business (Without the FOMO)
So, who’s your ideal client?
If this has got you thinking about your own ideal client profile, start with the questions above. And if you want to dive deeper, download my Marketing Strategy Starter Kit, a free workbook that walks you through your ideal client (with even more questions), your Marketing Circles, and your next marketing focus, all in one place.
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And if you’d rather work through it with someone, that’s exactly what a Pick My Brain session is for. In two focused hours we dig into your marketing together, figure out who you’re really talking to, and map out what needs to happen next.
