You need a client journey map.
When you have ADHD, business feels like it is lots of things... and it is.
Regardless of all the opportunities coming your way, creative projects you're imagining, platforms you are hosting, etc., you must be clear about this part: What is the shortest distance between your prospective client becoming aware they have a problem and their choosing your product/service as the solution to their problem? What is the shortest distance between for example, (point A) a set of parents recognizing they should not go alone to request services for their child at a public school and (point B) those parents paying you to assist them with paperwork and meetings to get services for their child?
The distance between your clients’ awareness of their problem (an actual problem for them, not a problem constructed only in your marketing) and your solving their problem can be shortened a few different ways. Here are a couple of those ways:
Get clear about who the intended customer/client of your product/service is. Learn their demographics.
Get to know your client.
What you do for your client is directly tied to your mission. When you cannot identify who your client is and what they want (what they are willing to pay for as a fair exchange for your energy), that is a sign that (a) you have strayed from your mission and are perhaps being led by a new, unrelated, interest or (b) the mission no longer applies and needs to be reconsidered. It could be both.
While it helps to know your clients’ demographics (age, race, location, education, etc), those are glossary-level understandings of who they are. Demographics let you know if you are poking around in the right areas. While demographics may provide evidence you should connect with certain people, this surface-level understanding of your clients may confuse you about the how and why.
Demographics can provide you lots of data and still leave holes in your understanding of what your prospective client wants and holes in your understanding of whether or not they see you as the entity to deliver what they want. This is why you need a psychographic understanding of your client. What do they value, believe, feel, think, need, want? What life experiences do they have in common that makes you interested in fulfilling their wants?
You can always purchase data from others, but one way to get to psychographic data is to talk directly to people whom you think you want to serve. While you can gain rich insights through focus groups and surveys, a way to understand clearly the perspectives of the population you want to serve and to really receive their words is to conduct one-on-one interviews. When you just talk to people and let them tell you what they want, you not only find out what they want, but also how they want it. You find out if they are even the population you want to serve. Also, you gather the data you need to determine if you have the capacity to serve them.
Let's go back to the example above involving parents seeking services for their child: Let's say you are assisting parents with getting educational services from a public school. When you make it your business to talk regularly, before you are trying to make a sale, to parents whose children have gotten services from a public school, to parents whose children are getting services from a public school and to parents who are applying to get their children services from a public school, you get a clearer understanding of how parents are thinking about these processes, thinking about their children and thinking about themselves.
Regular open-ended (but structured) talks with these parents (your intended clients) will hand you problem definition and solution definition, in the parents’ own language. Letting your curiosity guide you in this way will yield insights about how parents will seek information and seek support. They will describe for you the journey they would take/have taken to get from their awareness of a problem to a solution to that problem.
Talking regularly with people who could be your clients will let you know if you are you are posting the right messages in the right spaces. They will let you know whether or not your social media sites, websites and other communications channels would ever be part of their journey to getting their problem solved.
Your interviewees will let you know if, upon landing on your sites, they would be able to hear what you are saying there. Their language - the language they give you when you just let them talk - should be what they hear when they arrive at your sites. The messages on your sites should indicate to them they have arrived at places where their wants will be fulfilled.
Listening to your people will provide you the features you need to chart your client journey map. Trust their knowledge of themselves. Trust the map features they give you. Use these features, these gifts, to plan for your client to arrive at spaces you have carefully curated, for them to hear specific messages in those spaces and for them to take specific actions in those spaces.
Map the shortest distance from your clients’ awareness of their problem to your solution to their problem.
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We can think of the client journey map abstractly, as a mental model that guides how you operate. Also, we can draw a physical map you can refer to as needed, to remind you of the boundaries of your mission.
It is easy to get swept along by your creativity and ideas. Studying your client journey map will help you regularly reaffirm who your client is and/or question whether or not you are expending an disproportionate amount of energy meeting the needs of someone who is not your intended client, just because you can.
A client journey map will provide clarity to you, your internal stakeholders and external partners. It will facilitate discussions, guide decision-making processes, and help maintain focus in the face of potential mission creep.
Your client journey map will function as a framework for data collection, enabling ongoing evaluation and refinement of the client journey. By aligning actions with the map and monitoring progress, you can adapt strategies as needed, ensuring continued relevance and effectiveness.
If you want to talk more about how your client journey map needs to look, reach out to me at douglass@drkimberlydouglass.com for a brief conversation.
Yes. Business is lots of things, a client journey will map help you remain clear on which of those things matter to you and your business.