Thursday Jan 07, 2010

#1 Your Ideal Customer with Matt Nettleton

Meet my sales coach, Matt Nettleton. I love his direct, no-nonsense approach to building my business.

One of the things we have focused attention on lately is the difference between my average customer and my ideal customer.

The average customer, are the clients I attract now. But the ideal, are the clients I want to do business with. Doing business with these companies will help me grow my business over time.

Want to learn more about the difference? Take a moment, and listen to the interview with Matt

This is the first interview we have moved over to Podbean from Blog Talk Radio. All these episodes will be available on iTunes and MoreThanAFewWords.com

Here’s a revised version of the introduction in your voice, followed by key points and practical takeaways—no fluff, no em-dashes, just clarity and wit where it counts:

Welcome to More Than a Few Words, a marketing podcast for small business owners. I’m Lorraine Ball, and around here, we believe marketing should make sense.

Today I’m chatting with my sales coach, Matt Nettleton. He’s got a gift for turning complicated sales advice into bite-sized, no-nonsense lessons. We talked about something that hits close to home for a lot of business owners: the difference between your average customer and your ideal customer.

If you’ve ever taken on a client just to cover the bills, knowing deep down they weren’t the right fit, you’re not alone. But Matt has a way of making the case for walking away from the wrong work, and focusing on what really helps your business grow.

Key Points

There’s a big difference between the customer who pays the bills and the one who builds your business.
Defining your ideal customer starts with data (demographics) but the magic happens when you dig into mindset (psychographics).
Asking better questions early in the sales process helps filter out the wrong customers and attract the right ones.
You don’t find ideal clients by quoting faster—you find them by qualifying smarter.
Walking away from bad-fit clients isn’t rude, it’s responsible.

Actionable Takeaways

Map your ideal customer: List demographic traits like company size, revenue, industry, and location. Then add psychographic traits—attitudes, values, buying habits.
Audit your sales process: What are you asking in the first meeting? Are you qualifying, or just quoting? Rewrite your early questions to uncover fit, not just need.
Practice your “no”: Come up with a kind but clear way to exit when the fit’s not right. You’re not rude—you’re running a business, not a charity.
Resist the pressure to pitch everyone: You can’t build a dream business on nightmare clients. Saying yes to the wrong one means saying no to the right one down the road.

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