Defining Your Ideal Client

Defining Your Objective: Who Is Your Client?

• Many companies lack criteria when soliciting sales from potential clients, leading to wasted resources, stress, and strained relationships.
• A salesperson's broad targeting without company objectives can lead to inefficiency and wasted time for both the salesperson and administrative staff.
• A salesperson targeting clients from A to Z in a telephone directory wasted time and resources reaching clients.
• Administrative staff was forced to spend time writing letters, preparing sales kits, and dealing with phone lines.
• This resulted in wasted money on postage, promotional material, and long distance calls for prospective clients who weren't interested.
• Companies fail to define their objectives, expected achievements, and required client base, often prioritizing existing client needs.
• Sales staff had to prepare client interaction sheets, but never explained why specific clients were on the list.
• Existing staff scrambled to add names the the sales list when new sales staff came aboard so the clients belonged to them.
• Not all clients are equal.
• Some clients can hinder your company's progress.
• A business cannot be sustained if it's set up to be unprofitable.
• Draining resources on one client can force reliance on other loyal customers, straining those relationships.
• An event planning company lost a long standing client due to demands for earlier payments strained the relationship.
• Doing business with a company that expects losses is not advisable.
• A company needs to ask itself if a potential client is actually desirable before signing off.
• Ineffective market development and management can lead to valued staff and clients quitting.
• Overworked staff and overlooked loyal clients can lead to business decline.
• Establishing business objectives and determining the type of clients allows a company to become successful and attract the right staff.
• Short- and long-term objectives apply to employers, employees, and clients.
• Company growth can affect employee satisfaction.
• A company's ambition for rapid growth may cause some clients to seek smaller firms.
• One event planning company lost long-term employees when growing from 6 to 100+ personnel.
• Differing styles of operation can hinder growth.

Skills to Create Successful Events

• Visualization.
• Research.
• Development.
• Planning.
• Execution.
• Reconciliation.

Visualization

• Envision the size and style of company you want to create, work for, or work with.
• Consider whether the company should be small and have everyone be familiar in all aspects of the company.
• Alternatively, consider if the company should be larger with each section having its own responsibilities and less overlap.
• Determine if it needs people with special skills or expertise.
• Determine you see the office being one of many or a stand-alone operation.
• Determine is the direction the company is headed in five to ten years.
• Determine your role in the compnay's growth.
• Determine the kind of cash flow you will require.
• Visualize the location of the office, commute, and parking.
• Understand the costs of renting and running the office.
• Consider that not all companies need a downtown location to impress clients.

Office Structure

• Some companies allow employees to work from home, saving money and increasing employee satisfaction.
• Incoming calls were put directly to employees who worked from home and clients weren't aware of the actual office location.
• Other companies have a more traditional office set up.
• The most suitable structure fits the vision and employees' lifestyle.
• The audience the company's service are marketed towards can affect company vision.
• The appearance of affluence isn't appropriate for every company.
• By using event planning visualization principles companies can apply it to the type of office desired
• They can also apply office of energy needed.

Research

• Market research is where options are brought into play, examined and either discarded or set aside for further development.
• What needs to be considered in market research is what area of the industry you will be focusing on
• Consider what area of the industry you will be focusing on.
• Understand the prerequisites of being able to work in a chosen area and what you bring to the table.
• Know who your competition is and how much business they do.
• Know who their customers are, if they locked up the market, and if there is room for development.
• Identify strengths that set you apart from your competition.
• Identify currently unmet client needs and know how you can help clients meet their objectives.
• Determine if the market has shown growth over the years and if it's profitable.
• Determine if profitable companies handle business or struggle.
• Companies planning large scale events need someone who is proficient in setting up custom computer systems to tailor them for its clients.
• One company required someone proficient at logistics and group sizes of over 2,000.
• Another required someone be innovative and bring creativity to the event planning process.
• A company locked up the talent by offering them not just a salary but shares in the company.
• This gave them had a vested interest in staying and growing the business.
• Combined talents help a company stand out and be more marketable to their clients.
• An independent entertainment marketer worked to determine if there was a need in his locale for a trusted local entertainment source.

Development

• Ask are you fully qualified to service your proposed client base?
• Ask are there areas of development that could be explored to increase your marketability?
• Ask are there any areas of development that could be explored to increase your marketability?
• Online registration increases efficiency by offering clients a means to custom reports and 24-hour access to their guest invitations.
• It's important to stay ahead of the competition.

Planning

• Once objectives and clients' needs are identified, thought has to go into planning your next move.
• Do not play someone else's marketing.
• Focus on your own plan for success

Who Is Your Client?

• Identify where you have a possibility to be successful.
• Some companies subject vendors to an intense bidding process that isn't worth the return.
• They had 20 companies clamoring to propose at one point.
• They requested payment concessions and cancellation extensions.
• The process resulted in employees working around the clock with little return.
• Sometimes it pays off to perservere to challenge the competition and to take on a new venture, but there has to be value in it.
• Don't perservere if it's going to divert your focus and not bring a return on investment, the decision to move forward needs.

Return On Investment

• It has to be questioned.
• It is not just based on money, and the cost must be weighted against the reward.
• As a result event can fast-forward a company or an individual to a new level of skills or marketability,

Executing

• Can you deliver what your company promises and what your clients need?
• Do you speak their ndustry language and understand their event requirements?
• Cover all the bases
• Are you fully prepared to be the solution for the challenges your clients face?
• Asked questions to be answered before you start to cold-call clients.

Reconciliation

• The bottom line-profitability.

Company growth, direction and expansion

• A return affects this.
• There has to be a return on the work being put forth as you can lose the competitive edge if you lose the ability to reinvest in yourself or your business
• If you find yourself stuck in quicksand you need to be prepared to cut your losses quickly
• The bottom line can be money, time, and personal and professional satisfaction.
• Client demands/behavior can also affect profits.
• One event planning company fired a client due to unreasonable demands.
• One Hawaiian hotel needed to have sales and service staff who were pre- pared to start sales and service staff who were pre- pared to start their workday before the sun came up.

Questions to Ask Yourself When Defining your Objectives and your Client

• What size of company do I want to create or work for?
• How large do I want my company to grow or how large a company am I comfortable working for?
• Is everyone involved in all aspects or is each area specialized in the company?
• Ask about hours of oeration.
• What market do I want to create events for?
• What size event would I feel comfortable handling?
• Where do I want to host events?
• Is there an industry that I want to specialize in?
• What would that industry specialization require of me in the form of knowledge, skills and expertise?
• How do I define my role in the event planning industry-planner, supplier or client?
• Who would my competition be?
• What investments do I need to make now and in the future to take me to the next levels?
• What is my criteria for clients?
• What do I need and expect from them?
• Do I want to deal with one decision-maker?
• Am I comfortable dealing with decisions made by committee?
• Do I want to focus on large or small businesses or a mixture of both?
• What client type would my talents be the best match for?
• Will working with this client base be profitable?
• Do thev pay their bills on time or do they have a reputation for being difficult?
• How can I protect myself from repeating any of my competition's mistakes in managing this type of client?
• Will working with this client be pleasurable?
• Will working with this client enhance my reputation?
• Will I be required to learn a new set of skills or invest in new equipment?
• Will I come away having learned something of value that could aid in meeting my objectives?
• How can I or my company be the client's solution?
• How am I best positioning myself to have maximum appeal?
• Are there special concessions that I have to be prepared to put in place?
• What are my areas of negotiation?
• What areas are non-negotiable?
• What value do I bring to my clients and they bring to me?
• Will working in this field and with this client help me to reach my objectives, or move me away from reaching my goals?