Who Is Your Avatar?

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Who Is Your Avatar?  Who is that ideal client? In this episode, I unpack what you need to do to define your avatar and why you need one if you want to have a large cleaning business.

You need to figure out who you're going to target. Take out a sheet of paper. On one side, write out every single service you are currently offering or want to offer. Are they in alignment? Are they generating revenue? Or are you carrying dead weight because you're spending time marketing a service that nobody is buying? 

Then on the other side of the paper, write out every niche you'd like to target. Make a list of churches, schools, office buildings, etc.  Here's the hard part: pick only one to start. Why? It helps eliminate distractions. Instead of being pulled in with all of the client possibilities out there, you are now focused on one. Dive in deep to that one. Be known as the expert within that niche, like a "school cleaning expert" or a "bank cleaning expert". Change up your website copy and blog.

Now dive deep into that niche. Go to Google and google, "schools near me" or "dentists near me" or whatever niche you want to target. Open up Excel or Google Sheets and put headings on the top, like Company name, Company address, Company URL, and so forth. As you find leads, fill them in and grow.  With a simple Google search, you have all the information you need to call and mail them. Use sites like Hunter dot io or Seamless dot ai to find emails. You can now email your list.

Dive deeper into that avatar. Where do they hang out? Figure out what associations they belong to or networking groups they attend. Find individuals who can connect you to. Always ask for referrals.

Now, all you have to do is to prospect to them. Grow a large business!

Resources Mentioned:

https://americassbdc.org
https://hunter.io
https://www.linkedin.com
https://www.seamless.ai
Fanatical Prospecting - book

If you felt this show is worth 5-starts, I would truly appreciate a rating and review through whatever platform you happen to be listening on.

This podcast is brought to you by My Clean Pivot, LLC. Face it, we all need help growing our businesses. Check out My Clean Pivot if you're looking to grow your business to that next level. www.mycleanpivot.com. 

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:01):
Who is your avatar? Who is that ideal client, you would
love to have? A I'm MarkLineberry with the on the mop
and today I'm going to talkabout building the avatar.
What's about why you need oneand how it can help your
business grow.
But first, each episode, I wantto include a pro tip something
well, resource or full cup,something that helps your

(00:24):
business grow to that nextlevel. And I'm going to talk
about this Do you sometimes feelstuck within your business? And
do you wished her you feelthere's like a resource out
there like an experienced teamthat could help you get over
that next hump, or that nexthurdle or obstacle? Guys check

(00:45):
out the Small BusinessDevelopment Center SBDCs are
broken down in our regionalaffiliates, and our even a
partner program with the SmallBusiness Administration. In
fact, they offer help for freebusiness consulting free and at
cost training weekly and monthlywebinars. In fact, this month,
we talked about, well growingthrough COVID, cybersecurity,

(01:08):
and like we talked aboutmarketing trends, and even
working with QuickBooks. Theyhave one on one mentoring. Some
locations even offer the use oftheir office or center for
meetings, or employeeinterviews. And if you guys are
looking for guidance andstarting up your business or
helping grow into next level,definitely check out the SBDC or

(01:28):
Small Business DevelopmentCenter. You can find them on the
web at America's sbdc.org fact Iwas watching a recent F episode
of undercover billionaire as thefirst season and Glen I forgot
the guy's last name but he ownsthe finance company is on there
he is you utilizing the SPDC alot to grow his business

(01:51):
absolutely free during hisduring his startup in that show,
but his awesome way anyway. Backto what we're talking about with
avatars, what are they? And whyyou need one? Well, who is your
avatar? Who's that ideal client?
It D No. I mean, is it 1000?
square foot office spaces it maymillion square foot office park?

(02:14):
Is $100 a month in monthlyrecurring revenue back into your
pocket? Or is it $100,000 Amonth in monthly recurring
revenue? Is your ideal client aschool? Is it a bank? Is it
medical? Is it residential? Isyour avatar ideal client a low
bid or no bid situation? Thoseare great. Or are you bidding

(02:35):
against 50 others or as mybusiness partner likes to do he
makes movie noises under hisbreath has were herded around
like cattle throughout a walkthrough joint walk through.
Where's your avatar located? Isit in your city? Is it in your
county is it 30 minutes away isan hour away? Guys, you gotta
figure all that out before youstart your business. Or if you

(02:58):
haven't done it already, you cansit down and go through this
exercise. So here's, here's whatI'd like you to do. If you want
to create a largest business hedefinitely read need to refine
that avatar that ideal client, Iwant you to take out two sheets
of paper or take out one sheetand use the other side
whatever's on the one side, makea list of all the different

(03:20):
services that you would like toprovide. There's no wrong
answer. So move in, move outcommercial kitchen cleaning,
janitorial border, disinfecting,specialty floor work, window
cleaning, and so many othersmake a list of all the different
services that you provide now oryou'd like to provide in the
future and make that list. Andhere's why you want to do that.

(03:43):
As a background, I got startedin sales in 1997. The company
that I co own now got started1978 I turned around bought them
in 2010 2011 Somewhere aroundthere. When in the early days,
at least when I was workingthere and certainly before then
universal janitorial servicesoffered services to everyone

(04:04):
providing everything, everythingbut the kitchen sink I think
maybe even that too. So theyoffered supply cells they offer
temporary outsourcing theyoffered maid services course
janitorial Porter, disinfectingspecialty floor work, they
offered window cleaning,commercial kitchen cleaning,
they offered one time cleaning,they offered residential

(04:25):
cleaning to certain folks. Theyoffered parking attendant
services, they offeredmaintenance services, they
offered some landscaping, theyoffered snow removal. And they
even offered a personal chefservice. And yes, I was the one
coming in. And being that Chefif our chef called in sick, so I

(04:47):
had to do all that. And when wetook over in 2011 we realize
look how much we're providing.
Every year the term or thephrase, jack of all trades but
master of none right? We weremaster of nothing, couldn't even
hang our hat on none were just Imean, we're just floundering out
there. So what we did, we made alist when we took over, what 10

(05:09):
years ago or so wemade a list of all the different
services we provided. And thenwe went back into our accounting
history, we pulled up therevenue pulled for each service.
And we realized that 95% of ourrevenue just fell in three
services, janitorial Porter, andspecialty floor work. All the

(05:29):
rest wasn't even bringingrevenue. So it meant that we
were spending time, money,energy resources, marketing,
confusion with all of ourclients, just to sell services
that no one was even buying. Aconfused client never buys, by
the way. So if you're offering aton services, definitely

(05:52):
consider honing that down.
There's nothing wrong if youwant to provide law services, if
it's going to bring you revenue,but it wasn't even bringing us
revenue, we're just spinning ourgears, getting absolutely
nothing for it. So turn thesheet over and get that second
sheet that I told you about. Nowmake a list of all the different

(06:13):
niches, types of businesses thatyou would like to clean. So
these might be banks, schools,churches, places of worship
warehouses, industrial cardealerships, parking garages,
residential community, gems,banks, and so many others, make
a list of all those differentbusiness types. And reason you

(06:37):
want to do this, there's acouple of reasons. First off,
I'll dive into the second reasonhere in a second, but it's so
easy to get distracted, I getthe strike, you'll probably hear
me on the podcast get distracteda lot. But as you're driving
through your service area, yousee all these tall buildings
around you see all these shinyobjects, right? Shiny Object

(06:57):
Syndrome, you see all these tallbuildings, you go, Oh, I went
clean that one and this one thanthat one, I'll be so cool to
have this and this and this andthat. And that, that that and
all sudden your head just getsbogged down with all these
potential clients, and you don'tknow where to start first. And
it slows you down and actuallyhurts your business.
So I told you to put all thistogether, make the list. Now

(07:22):
here's the hard part. Pick one.
Now you could pick more down theroad. But pick one to start
focus on one be known as thechurch cleaning expert in your
community, or to school cleaningexpert, or the bank cleaning Pro
or what have you been known asthe go to guy for all things.
Fill in blank here cleaning. Andthere's reasons why you want to

(07:45):
do that. Number one, besides thedistraction part, you want to be
known as the expert, right?
Again, I told you jack of alltrades and master of none. But
imagine if you had the abilityto be known as the expert and
get referred over and over andover again. So here's what you
want to you want to create alist, Kray lists, so go into

(08:08):
Excel or whatever spreadsheetsoftware, you got some sheets or
what have you. And then putheaders at the top. So you want
put company name, you want putmeaning prospect name, you want
to put prospect or companyaddress, prospect city, state,
zip, phone number, URL, and allthat. So whatever information

(08:31):
you find that you feel is usefulto you put them put start
filling in that information. Sohere's what you want to do. You
want to go to sites like Googlejust go to go to Google type in
well school cleaning, or let meback up not even school clean
schools nearby or schools nearme, right if schools is your

(08:53):
target, if if it's banks putbanks near me if it's churches,
put churches near me, just typein Google and you'll see the
search results. You'll see tonsand tons and tons of results.
Start filtering through those.
And right off the bat just bygoing into their website, you
got their URL, which is handy tohave. here in a second, I'll
tell you why you can easily findtheir phone number you can

(09:14):
easily find their address. Sowithout any excuses, guys, you
can now call them and mail themanytime you wanted to a sales
letters or what have you phonecall you just use the phone
script. Be more than happy toshare your mind just let me know
send me a message. And now keeplooking in keep diving in. You
could use sites like hunter.ioor if you have LinkedIn, pair up

(09:39):
LinkedIn with seamless AI andnow you have email addresses up
the wazoo for any of yourprospects, including names. And
so you could go to hunter.io forexample, type in the URL, and
I'll show you all the past emailaddresses that the website ever
had. Even if they hit it nowIt's able to be seen again, as

(10:00):
long as they didn't delete fromthe from the history there. So
you go on, he pulled thatinformation. And now you could
call now and email anyone youwant to. So as you build up this
list, you want to start reachingout to him. And I said, reason
you want to do it is because youcan now be seen as the school

(10:20):
cleaning Pro. They refer to oneanother all the time, I can't
tell you how many times myclients have said, Hey, such and
such school down, called downthe street and asked Who do you
do business with, I hear timeand time again. So now you want
to tailor your website. And youwant to do this by within your
website, you want to have like aservices section with listing

(10:43):
out all your services, but youprobably want include in there
all the niches that you do. Sonow you could send all your
potential clients to this schoolcleaning resource or score
cleaning page within yourwebsite or church cleaning page
within your website or bankcleaning page within their
website. You want to add allthat information in and they
expand it and grow it. So nowyou'll be known as the expert in

(11:06):
your community. And you'll bethe go to Resources for all
that. So you want build out yourlist, just continue to build it
out use Google. Now anotherresource he can use is figure
out where's your client hang outat figure out local Chamber of
Commerce's in your area andfigure out who your ideal

(11:29):
client, your avatars, a memberof that Chamber of Commerce
thing, you could join thatChamber of Commerce and do
networking events and shaketheir hand and get to know them
and hug babies and everythingelse to grow your own business
because your ideal client isthere with you too. And that's
the cool part. Another thing youwant to do is figure out what
associations they belong tomaybe they're a building owner,

(11:52):
well, they probably belong to abuilding owners Management
Association. Maybe they're aproperty manager or Property
Management Association. So youwant to figure out what
different associations theybelong to, you want to join
those associations. So that way,again, you could connect with
them on a more meaningful levelthan just email or a phone call.
And another thing you want to dois, well, who do they know that

(12:13):
I might know that my person canintroduce me to their person or
what have you. Let me give agreat example. And many, many
moons ago, I reached out and Ihad communication with a uniform
sales guy. And I knew thisuniform sales guy serviced, one
of our potential prospects is aschool. And a school wasn't

(12:34):
looking for services. And I'dbeen reaching out reaching out,
no luck, no luck. Well, one day,that school reached out to the
uniform guy and said, Hey, doyou know of a cleaning service?
Well, the uniform guy onlybecause I developed friendship
and relationship with them saidyeah, I happen to know Mark over
universal janitorial services,here's their number, give him a

(12:55):
call. That school called me Iend up signing them into a
contract. That was in 2013. Andwe still have them today. Nine
years later, they've beenproviding eight grand a month
continuously. They are month in,month out. So do you think that
handshake that relationship thatinitial connection was worth it?
Heck, yeah, it's worth it to myguy to because I pay him a

(13:16):
percentage, just referringbusiness to us. Another thing
you want to do is well, buildyour list, continue to grow it,
you want, call them, email themand mail all the time. And in
fact, if you ever read fanaticalprospecting, if you have a cold
prospect, you never met them,they don't know you, they'll

(13:37):
know your name or your brand. Ifyou reach out to them 20 to 50
times through calls, mails,email, shaking hands, referrals
and so forth. You know it,eventually they'll come to you
and they'll say mark, or insertyour name there. Hey, Joe Schmo,
we need cleaning services, canyou do a walk through? And just

(13:59):
by building that relationship?
Building those touch points?
They'll eventually come aroundand say yes, because if you
email them right now, chancesare they're gonna say no, if you
call them right now theirchances are they're gonna say
no, even if you connect to theright person, they're gonna say
no, because the odds of youreaching out to them right at
their buying window, with atypical one year contract with

(14:21):
the cleaning service is isabsolutely teeny, tiny. So
there's the odds of youconnecting on the first go
around slim to impossible,right? So by doing this again,
and again, and again, lettingthem get familiar with you
letting them get to know you.
And by the way, in a futureepisode, I'm talking about 60

(14:42):
ways you can market andadvertise your business. But the
more touch points you do, thenthey'll reach out to when the
buying time is right and they'llask you to do a walkthrough and
now you have the ability toserve them. So continue to
prospect again, if you reach outto enough folks, you We'll get
that walk through. Well, I hopethis information was helpful to

(15:05):
you guys. For more informationabout the show and resources
mentioned, definitely check outbeyond the mop show.com. If you
felt this was worth five stars,I would truly appreciate a
rating and review through Applepodcasts, Spotify, or where ever
you listen to this podcast. Bythe way, this podcast was
brought to you by my clean pivotbusiness coaching. If you ever

(15:27):
need help with your business andgrown it to that next level,
definitely reach out to me I'dbe more than happy to help you
out. Take care guys have ablessed and awesome week.