Whether you are a freelancer who does contract work for others or an entrepreneur who is building an enterprise around products or services, you need ways to know if what you are doing is connecting with your idea client.
Your daily activity is either positioning you closer to your client or putting barriers between you and your client.
If your message is not connecting with your ideal client and providing them a clear path to your products and services, it doesn't matter how much you post about your products or services. Posting in a void, where you are not heard, wraps you up in busyness, instead of business. Yes. Being busy is a sign that things are happening, but busyness itself does not mean your operation is progressing strategically.
There is a journey your client takes from becoming aware they have a problem to applying YOUR solution to their problem. The more experienced you become in your operations, the better equipped you will be to map this journey and then guide them along this journey. Perhaps the journey you set up takes them from social media to your website to an email list to a one-to-one discussion with you to a purchase. Whatever the route, it has to be planned. It has to be deliberate.
If you are unwilling to think about how to structure your client journey, you will end of wasting lots of resources, your resources and the resources of others. Here's where being conflicted about running a business inside capitalism makes well-meaning people feel stuck. You may feel conflicted about planning to market and sell to people. But, to continue your business, you have to find a way, that aligns with your values, to create order for yourself and your clients. If you cannot find a way using your existing skillset, you have to grow your capabilities by getting assistance from someone who can help you map your client journey.
Let's imagine you have the support you need to think through and map your client journey. Let's imagine you can bring together, in one meeting, 5 people you trust to help you with a map. These individuals would volunteer their time to listen to a description of your product or service; listen to a description of your ideal client and their wants and needs; then, help you map the client journey.
The client journey map is one of the most important tools you will create in your business. You deserve to have confidants and supporters help you develop this tool, which will continue to evolve, by the way.
The client journey map is a living document. It should adjust to your needs. In the different phases of your business, your needs will be different. In those phases, your client journey map will add value in different ways.
Let's think about the map in the following phases:
Planning your business
Starting your business
Untangling what you've started
Resetting what you've untangled
Preparing for growth
There may be overlap in these phases. You may experience more than one phase at a time.
In the planning phase of your business, your client journey map helps you think about what messaging and systems you need to put in place (and in what order) to connect with your client. The client journey map can be based on outside studies, your own surveys and your own focus groups. The most precise data you need to construct your map will come from one-to-one conversations with your ideal client.
In the starting phase of your business, your client journey map helps structure your daily work. It becomes a contract between you and your ideal client, even if you've never talked to them. It defines where and how you will spend your time to support the client along that journey. If you get involved in activity that does not support this journey, the map can help you refocus or help start a conversation about whether the map is still relevant.
In the process of untangling what you've started, the client journey map enables you to think in steps (or categories of activities). You can mentally separate these steps from each other and judge each step on it's contribution to or subtraction from the client journey.
In the process of resetting what you've untangled, the client journey map helps you get firm and direct about what activities stay and what activities go. Because of the wisdom you've gained prior to this phase, you'll be able to use the client journey map to get crystal clear about who you are, what you do and where you want to spend your time and other resources.
In the process of preparing for growth, the client journey map helps you think about the scale at which you should be serving your clients. It gets you to thinking about how much personal touch you want to have vs how much tech you want to use in interacting with each client. Consideration of the ratio of touch-to-tech will prompt you to think about whether you now have a different ideal client.
The client journey map is a powerful tool. You need this and other tools to help you think through your business. You need these tools for yourself. You need these tools to bring others into your business and reduce your load.
Let's take a few minutes to talk about which of your 5 trusted supporters are going to assist with your client journey map. Schedule here:
https://KimberlyDouglass.as.me/?appointmentType=30114466