One of the things that my clients struggle with is the idea of who your ideal client is. And I totally get it because I used to struggle with that kind of thing too. When I first started my business, I went through many different ideal client training.

The Avatar that would help me understand who my Ideal Client is, But I was Wrong

When I was looking for a way to understand who my ideal client for my business is, I went through this client training where I created an avatar. I figured out where she would shop. I even did meditations about it. I did all of the things and tried so hard to figure out who I was talking to and who my ideal client really was. 

It felt so hard, and it felt so heavy, and because of that, I learned a lot about who your ideal client is. When I took all of this training and created my ideal client avatar, I never felt connected. I never felt like I was talking to a real person because I wasn't. I was talking to an imaginary person who likes to shop where I wanted to shop. I felt like my content fell flat because I was trying to converse with an imaginary person with whom I had no connection.

How to Make Connections with Your Ideal Client

What made me connect to my ideal clients was how they made me feel when reading their content. It was how it made me feel when they talked about the problem that I was experiencing. And that was when I realized that it doesn’t matter what the avatar's name was, or where that avatar likes to shop, or what gender of that avatar was. I started to realize if I can put myself in somebody else’s shoes and help them put themselves in my shoes, it will help me connect to other people's content.

It made me realize that one of the biggest mistakes and misconceptions around ideal client avatars in the Online Entrepreneurial Course creation industry is this crafting of avatar. I don't understand why people still use this method of identifying your ideal client. When you do this, you go through the procedure of naming that avatar, where that avatar shops, and what you end up doing is crafting this avatar who is ultimately just you. That avatar may end up having the same interest, the same socio-economic situation, the same demographics that you’re in, and they have the same family situation. You end up creating your best friend, not a potential buyer. 

Your Ideal Client is Actually an Earlier Version of Yourself

I often think and talk about this before that your ideal client is actually an earlier version of yourself.

Did you once have that problem? That is probably why you want to help people solve problems because you went through something in your life that you were unable to overcome, but you have now personally overcome it.

When you help people through something you have personally overcome, you teach them from a much deeper understanding. You teach them from the Knowing, rather than just the Knowledge. It is a concept I learned from my mentor Brandon Lucero. 

It completely changed the way I create content, and that I understand the ideal client avatars like I know this, but Brandon Lucero took it even much deeper. 

What he means by the difference between knowledge and knowing is that you can have knowledge of how to do something but not know how to do it. He used a beautiful example of how to ride a bike. You can read all the books, watch all the YouTube videos, and study hard on how to ride, but if you never get on a bike, you won't know how to ride.

Understanding the Knowing and Knowledge Leads to Knowing Your Ideal Client

Another great way to look at this and the way that I've always taught this without understanding that knowledge and knowing is that you're on one side of a river and your ideal client is on the other. You know how to cross the river because you've already crossed it, which is why you're on that side. But, because you were just over there, you remember what it was like to be on the other side of that river. And who do you think is the best person to help that person cross the river? You.

What I mean is, you know what you've gone through, and you know the struggles. Look back across that river, and ask yourself who is your ideal client who's the person on the other side of that river. They're not a sum of interests and demographics. They are the person who needs to get across that river, and that person was an earlier version of you. 

So think about the problem you solve, the outcome you help people achieve, or the thing you do from a place of teaching from knowing.

The Step in Creating a More Impactful Content

When you understand the knowledge and knowing, that's when you can create content from a much deeper place, because you can say to them that “I know how it feels to stand on the riverbanks and feel like how the heck am I going to cross this river, because I've been there too." And that content is what's going to connect with them on a much deeper level because they're going to say, "Oh my God, she gets me. She's in my head.” And when you can create content from that place, from that deeper understanding, and from that knowing, that's when your content connects, that's when you get your message across because that's when you're speaking to them at a much deeper level. So, creating content from that place of deep understanding is way more powerful.

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