Do You Know Who Your Dream Clients Are?

For Designers

9 Aug

It can sound like you have your head in the clouds when you start using the words dreamy (and a little woo) when it comes to clients and this makes it really easy for us to convince ourselves that dream clients isn’t a topic we need to think about.

Surely we are just happy with any work we can get? The clients I would work with in my dreams would never know who I am, right?

But actually thinking about who your dream clients are, even if they’re huge, huge businesses or people who have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, can really help you figure out how to run your business and can give you amazing foundations for how you present your marketing, your branding, your pricing, your portfolio, your content - basically every part of your business.

Just as it’s important to think about your own business values and how you want to represent your brand, it’s equally important to think about people and brands you actually want to work with and how you can make sure the right people have their eyes on your work and ultimately work with you

PREFER TO LISTEN?

Listen to the podcast instead! An episode that perfectly fits this topic is here for you to listen below and if you want to listen on the go, search 'The Daring Designers Club Podcast' wherever you listen to podcasts for more design business insider tips, personal stories and advice.

How Finding My Dream Clients Changed My Business (and life!)

Let me tell you a little bit about my story of figuring out who my dream clients are and hopefully, this will help you understand how important it is to know who they are…

Where I Was

A few years ago, I’d been running my small business for about 18 months and was ready to take things a bit more seriously. I wanted to pivot to bespoke design services and cut out the difficult clients I’d been working with at the time for a much happier workload.

At the time, I was working with an amazing coach who was guiding me to make these changes and in one of our sessions, she asked me to write down who my dream clients would be. I saw it as a bit of a jokey, woo woo sort of exercise because the people I had in my head would absolutely never work with me. I added this page of notes to my mental list of “things that will never happen”.

Changing My Thought Process

However, as soon as I had this list, a few things clicked and I realised with the knowledge of who my dream clients were, I could:

Find other people and businesses who were similar to those on the list who would also be dream clients
I could switch my business and marketing to attract those kinds of people
It was much easier with the knowledge of who these people are to feel like I was speaking to these people through my content

When working on any business task, I imagined those dream clients in my head to see if they would like what I was working on, whilst also being mindful that it was working for me and my brand. I felt like I was talking to one person who I’d researched and understood, instead of trying to engage with a huge crowd.

The Enquiries Came Rolling In

As the months went on, I started getting more and more people jumping into my inbox and my business was building steadily. Not just that, the enquiries were actually from people who I was really excited to work with. Not necessarily the exact people on my dream clients list, but they seemed like a really good fit for me.

When I started attracting clients who really fit with my personal design style through my marketing, content and branding, I managed to start building a portfolio that really worked for these dream clients too. No more:

Bending to the clients’ design style
Working on projects I didn’t enjoy
Not liking any project enough to put in my portfolio

Remember That Dream Client List?

Then a pretty amazing thing happened, one of the people on my dream clients list (the one I ignored as completely impossible?) got in touch to work with me on their website! All the work I’d been putting in to try to appeal to a certain type of person and all the times I had one of these specific people in mind had completely paid off because I had managed to get my business to a point where those actual dream clients were getting in touch.

Since this time (and this was around 3/4 years ago), I’ve managed to work with all but one of the people I wrote on my list and these are people I was never in touch with before. They found me because I switched up my business to make that happen!

Want More Advice for Designers?

The Lesson

So what’s the lesson here?

I honestly believe without me identifying who my dream clients were, I never would have been able to change my business in a way that made these people want to work with me.

I wouldn’t have tweaked my branding, my marketing efforts, and my content to intentionally attract these people and I would have been stuck in my old bubble of working on projects which weren’t a great fit and causing a snowball effect of more and more of these projects.

Who Are Your Dream Clients?

A few questions for you:

Do you know who your dream clients are?
Have you sat down and thought about the businesses, brands or people you would love to design for?
Do you include these people in your marketing and in your thought process when making changes to your business?

If your answer is no to the above, you might be really holding yourself back from the work you really want to be doing and in turn, the dream business you want to run.

How to Find Your Dream Clients

A task I work on with basically all of my coaching clients is to write down five dream clients. People you would love to work with. They don’t have to be people who would 100% work with you - maybe they have their own designer already, maybe they have loads of followers online, maybe they generally do their design work themselves - but they have to be people you really resonate with and would love to have as part of your portfolio.

Once you have your list, pin it somewhere you can see it really easily - add it to your laptop background, stick it to the wall, put a post-it note on your computer, or you might just have it easily remembered in your head. But make sure you can see it and be reminded of those people. Now every time you’re doing anything within your business, I want you to keep these people in mind and think about whether what you’re doing will attract them.

If you’re writing an Instagram caption, write it as if you’re talking directly to them.
If you’re adding a new colour to your brand palette, make sure it’s something that appeals to them as well as fits your brand.
If you’re planning a new video series or workshop, think about what they would find really useful.
If you’re putting a new project in your portfolio, ask yourself if this is in their style too and would make them want to work with you.

You’ll find the more intentional you are with the output of your business, the more you’ll get enquiries for projects which feel like a better fit and you can build your business on the foundations of the knowledge you have about the people you want to work with.

I really hope this has helped you think about your dream clients and maybe you can start incorporating this into your business if you don’t already!

If you want some more support with your design business, join us over at The Daring Designers Club Facebook community! It’s completely free to join and we have accountability, exclusive workshops and so much support from amazing designer business owners.

Cassie Kelly