How to Attract Your Ideal Clients
Whether you’re looking for flexible work in education or are starting your own business, it is important to find the right clients. Not everyone will be a great fit for your products or services— and that’s okay! When it comes to learning how to attract your ideal clients, it’s important to identify who those clients actually are.
By getting clear on who you want to work with before even setting out to make those connections, you’ll make sure you’re connecting with the right people. Whether you want to work with individuals, school districts, or companies, use these ideas to find and attract your ideal clients.
How to Attract Your Ideal Clients in Three Steps
Finding the right clients is one of the most important parts of running a successful education business or finding meaningful work outside of the classroom. After all, if you’re trying to change careers from teaching, you want to make sure you’re doing work you love!
Use these three steps to build an ideal client profile so you can learn how to attract your ideal clients.
Get Clear on Who Your Clients Are
The first step to understanding how to attract your ideal clients is to get clear on who your ideal clients actually are. If you don’t have a clear picture of the type of client you’re looking to work with, it will be hard to attract them.
Spend some time thinking through everything from your clients’ struggles to their daily activities to build an ideal client avatar. This will help you empathize with their needs and wants and create products and services that truly resonate with your audience.
Ask yourself:
What do my ideal clients need help with?
Why would they come to me?
If your ideal client is an individual, ask:
How old is my ideal client?
Where do they live?
How do they prefer to work with people?
What do they do for fun?
If your client is a company or school district, ask:
What does the organization need help with?
What are they looking for when they hire someone to work with?
What type of work are they interested in doing?
Think About Your Customer Journey
Now that you have a sense of who you want to work with, the next step of learning how to attract your ideal clients is to think about how they will first interact with you.
If you are going to be selling directly to individuals, consider how they will find out about your products or services. If you’re looking for a job within an existing organization, consider how the company or district will find out about you.
Will you apply to existing job postings? Will you pitch your services directly? Try to map out your customer’s journey, from when they first interact with you to when they decide to buy from you.
As you think through how you’ll connect with your ideal clients, consider the following:
If your ideal client is an individual person, ask:
Where do they spend time online?
What social media channels are they on?
How can I increase awareness about my product/service?
If your client is a company or school district, ask:
Who makes the buying decisions?
Where does this company/district find out about products/services like mine?
How can I increase awareness about my product/service?
Listen to Your Clients
When we make buying decisions, we all want to connect with the person we are hiring or buying from. Whether you’re applying for a curriculum development job or selling products on TeachersPayTeachers, prioritize building relationships with your ideal clients.
We can get so focused on pitching ourselves, but it’s even more important to listen to others. One of the best ways to learn how to attract your ideal clients is to have informal conversations with them and listen to the words and phrases they use to describe the problems they’re having.
Ask yourself:
How do my ideal clients talk about the problems they’re having?
What do they say they’re looking for?
What words and phrases do they use?
What words and phrases do they not use?
As you think about how you could help with those problems, use the same language that your ideal client uses. Through listening and building these authentic connections, you will build relationships that enable your ideal clients to become your actual clients.
Learn More About How to Attract Your Ideal Clients
If you’re ready to learn more about how to identify your ideal client — and start attracting them! — then you’re in the right place.
In our Beyond the Classroom course, you can learn more about how to identify your marketable teacher skills to start a side hustle, take on freelance roles or launch your own education business.
No matter what alternative jobs for teachers you want, you’ll get the support and guidance you need to get started on a rewarding new career. Have questions? You can contact Educator Forever any time — we’re here to help!