Build Your Own Personas
Persona's ~ Get in Touch with your Clients
Definitions:
Persona: Identifying characteristics of a segment of individuals.
General Demographics: Identifying characteristics including age, gender, income, experience, health, location, and more.
Psychographics: Identifying characteristics around attitudes, fears, emotions, needs, desires, aspirations and more.
Attrition Drivers: Those actions and communications that drive a person from becoming a client.
Adoption Drivers: Those actions and communications that encourage a person to become a client.
Every time your client is in contact with you, they get a feel for who you are, how you respond and what style, skills and essence you will offer them. I am sure you heard of the extraordinary doctor with no bedside manner, well, that only works with a select type of patient. What are you offering to your Clients that make them want to come back or RUN!
No matter where I go, I always look for how a doctor or healer treats me at every touchpoint. A touchpoint is any contact I have with them, a call, a bill, the portal, our discussions, the office, a newsletter, and on and on. Why is that? I want to know that they match my needs and help me succeed.
For my clients, I always ask them to describe their most valuable clients. 100% of the time within the first few seconds, I get a blank stare and then “Well, I am not really sure. I can tell you who I like talking to or who I can get talking!”
Interesting, the word VALUABLE is what is throwing them off. Why?
- Most managers don’t look at the data and let data tell the story. Managers tell the story of the client based on interactions with the client and that is it. Typically, the managers are so very wrong.
- Valuable is not defined by the manager. It can mean the “most”… most profitable, most notable, most referenceable, etc. Management has not decided how to categorize value.
- Focus – well this is the one that I see the most. Managers look at how they suspect the client feels, what revenue, sales, and any top line number are, and detail a story that makes the manager feel good. Managers are not focused on what makes a client an amazing client.
How do I Build Personas?
- You may choose one or many Personas on who will benefit most from what you offer. One of my clients was able to create three personas based on the types of treatment the client wanted. Make sure you are categorizing how your client needs you to see them.
- Building a persona starts with looking at your clients patterns and habits. Listen to each client and start to identify patterns in what they say and how they respond. You may also choose to do surveys, interviews and just witness if they send referrals or offer testimonials.
Once we gathered the data, start sorting through your findings and start to categorized the types of clients. What are their generalizing characteristics? How do they pay you? Do they have common ailments, fears, social behaviors, etc.
As you develop the personas, remember that they will change over time as will you! Perhaps you update your intake forms to capture more relevant data?
The key is to stay REVELANT with your clients and the only way to do that is to really understand them!