You know the old saying: “Any business is good business”? Sounds like it makes sense, right? Wrong! These days, any business is not good business. In fact, in 60% of businesses, success seems impossible because of the wrong type of customers.

Understanding and figuring out who is your ideal customer is paramount to success. Narrowing your focus and restricting your buyer profile will do wonders. This may sound counterintuitive to most people. Why would you want to reduce the number of people who could qualify to give you their money?

Here are 3 steps to take to stop attracting the wrong customers:

1) Creating a focused buyer persona or target profile strategy

The first thing you would need to do if you are just starting your venture is to work out who your correct customer is. Even if you have been running your business for a while and are struggling with attracting the wrong customers, evaluating your existing customers and figuring out your ideal buyer persona is critical.

Targeting a broad range of customers is a recipe for a disaster. At the very least, it would mean mediocre business success. You have to really drill down and get to the core of whom you want to serve.

Granted that when you are starting out, it may seem like brand suicide to focus on a narrow niche and reject the broad world out there. But understanding who your ideal customer is very important and nothing else should be done till you nail this down.

2) Creating the right pricing and profit strategy

Do you know that nine out of ten times, when a business attracts the wrong customers, it is due to a bad pricing strategy? Most often it is due to pricing too low. Not knowing your value or the value of the products or services that you provide is all too common.

Most business owners simply price their products or services based on the competition or their need to grow the business.

Read also: Who needs a brand language!

Both these approaches are flawed. Basing your pricing on the competition means you are simply entering a dog race that is influenced by price wars and the race to the bottom. If your competition lowers their pricing, you are forced to do the same just to survive in the market. Economies of scale and a more efficient process may enable your competition to lower prices and still make a profit. That may not be the same case for you.

Basing your pricing on your needs to drum up some business is a serious flaw too. It just shows that you are not prepared to think long-term. If you do not have the means to survive a slow business growth then you should not be starting your business at that point in time. This may sound contrary to what most business gurus say. Waiting for the right time may be too late for a business.

Jump right in and then sort out any issue is the prevailing mantra. In my opinion, that is wrong.

Having a buffer to survive at least six to eight months without cash flow is fundamental to any business. This allows you the luxury of looking at the value of your product or service and then pricing based on the value you bring to the market.

I am not advocating that you simply price your product or service high. I am saying that you need to reframe your business and your brand story to enable you to charge more. If you have a valuable product or service – even though it may be one of the hundreds of options out there – you deserve to set yourself apart through value storytelling. With the right kind of storytelling, you can charge more.

Charging more and increasing prices has always increased business and profits for a ton of brands out there – if done properly. So, take a serious look at your product or service and go for value-based pricing rather than trying to be the cheapest out there. By being the cheapest or lower-priced, you attract the wrong customers. You attract customers who make decisions based on price and not value. You do not want to work with such customers.

3) Create the right storytelling

Your brand narrative, the visual language, and your online presence all act as beacons in attracting the right or wrong customers. Telling the wrong story attracts the wrong customers. In fact, in most businesses, there is no story. They simply have a product or service and a sales pitch.

Often the sale pitch is not confident or focused. It goes back to point #1 above and tries to be generic and attract everyone or anyone. It is a watered-down to try and appeal to a broad range of customers. This leads to a message and story that are neither effective nor powerful.

So, what happens when you have a watered-down story or even the lack of a brand story. You end up attracting the wrong customers. You need to step up and distill your brand essence that in turn helps you create a powerful brand story.

Dig deep to understand why you started the business in the first place. Understand your motivations and those of your brands. Find elements that make your brand unique. What sets you apart? What makes you stand out?

When telling your story, try and visualise the ideal customers. Craft your story to appeal to them. Introduce story elements that would filter out customers that are wrong for your business.

Last line

Every business is different and everyone has different circumstances and my narrative above may seem a little too generic or black and white. This is about learning to say “no” to all types of business and trying to focus on saying “yes” to the right kind of business.