Ideal Client Profile - Do Your Clients Pass the Dinner Test?

You've certainly heard me talking about the importance of designing a business around your ideal clients. In our business, we refer to ideal clients as champagne clients. I know each business has an ideal client profile. Or at least, they should!

Who's An Ideal Client?

How do you quickly discern at the moment when you're speaking with a prospect, if they really are an ideal client for you?

You may have heard that it's important to design an ideal client profile that could include things like demographics, psychographics, filters for choosing them, even energetic. That's a term we use, which is really all about the chemistry that we may have with working with a potential client.

How do you in the moment filter through all of those different things to say, "Are they really an ideal client for me?"

Especially if there's somebody that's willing and ready to start working with you. Ready to hand over a credit card, or write you a check. It can be really confusing at that moment to know if they are an ideal client.

How To Discern an Ideal Client

We devised a system in our own business that's one key question that we ask ourselves to discern if that person is an ideal client for us or not. It helps to really cut through all of the other noise that we may experience, and it's the following.

Do they pass the dinner test?

What does this mean for us and our business?

The reality is most of our clients, are going to be working with us for the minimum a year and typically, multiple years. We're celebrating going into business for five years now with some of our clients. Given the length of the relationship that we're going to be having with those clients, we want to really enjoy working with them. Enjoy working with them, taking that business to the next level. We'll be spending a fair amount of time together.

Working with Ideal Clients

For us, the question: "Do they pass the dinner test?" means this.

Would I want to invite those prospects into my home? Spend time with me, my husband, my family? Have dinner together?

When I ask that question and my answer is, "Eh, that's really not what I want to be doing with those prospects." - that is not my ideal client. If the answer is clearly yes, we know that they're an ideal client for us. If all of a sudden I'm not feeling sure, it probably means they may not be the right fit for us at this time.

The beauty in that question is that it enables us to cut through really quickly who is ideal. It's a yes or a no. 

My Challenge To You

What is that one question you can be asking yourself that really helps you to discern your ideal clients?

How do you decide if they are an ideal champagne client for you and your business, or not?