If you want to sell your work, it’s crucial to know which type of person is most likely to buy from you.
Otherwise, you’ll be spending a lot of time and resources talking to the wrong people – and that’s inefficient, frustrating, and costly.
And so, people talk about demographics, customer avatars, psychographics, ideal clients… and usually, it brings us nowhere.
How many kids or cars someone has, where they worked or where they live, their spending power or their hobbies and social circles… all that says something about them – but it says nothing about the two of you.
As in: are you a match? A good fit? Is there resonance, are you two on the same page?
Put differently: will you and your new buyer have instant rapport, given that rapport is a requirement for building trust, and without trust there's no sale, and the sooner and the greater the rapport, the more likely that you’ll actually land the sale?
Demographics can’t predict that, and even psychographics only go so far.
But there’s one identifier that you can use to reliably predict whether or not two people will hit if off:
Shared values.
So, instead of demographics or psychographics, think in terms of ‘valuegraphics’.
Because shared values instantly put you on the same page with another person.
And, someone’s values are super-easy to glean, from just reading a few blog posts or checking out someone’s social profiles, or their About page.
Our values are always on display.
So if you start by looking for people who share values with you, you’ve effectively crossed the rapport-hurdle – one of the most important and tricky things in the context of sales – long before you even reach out to a potential client.
And once you identify people with values similar to yours, it’s really easy to add in psychographic or demographic markers, to further niche down your targeting and your marketing efforts.
Efficient? You bet.
Fun too, because once values become your North star, you keep meeting people who are just awesome to deal with – and it becomes a lot easier to enroll them in your work as well.
So if you’re struggling to find buyers, start by looking for people with whom you have values in common, and talk to those people first and foremost.