Don’t Label Your Target Market _Final
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>> Have you ever noticed how as a society
we have a tendency to place people
into groups or categories for our convenience,
students, senior citizens, single moms, young professionals?
We do this because it's helpful for creating communities,
designing programs and services, for marketing purposes,
and for establishing our own personal identities,
knowing who we are and where we belong.
As coaches, we group people together when we think
in terms of our target audience or target market.
We're taught to narrow the scope of our coaching programs
and aim our marketing at specific groups,
overweight moms, stressed out middle-aged corporate women,
vegan teens, and so on.
We're encouraged to create a very specific
and vivid image of what our target audience looks like
to imagine what they look like,
and what they think, what they do,
where they shop, and so on.
Now this is great wisdom for marketing our services
and attracting prospective clients,
and I wouldn't argue against it.
But for the purpose of being strong coaches,
today, I want to look at this in a different light
and examine the risks of pigeonholing our audience.
If we're not careful to avoid coaching
through the lens of a target market,
we can hinder our relationships with clients
by inadvertently creating labels, making assumptions,
and projecting our own beliefs, judgments, and values
upon individuals and groups.
Now I'm not saying we shouldn't have target market
rather that we need to make sure that
just because we create an image
of who we want to attract and work with
that we don't make the mistake of treating people
how we think they are instead of who they actually are.
So you work with busy moms
who are trying to lose baby weight,
you speak to and relate to your audience, as you should,
by identifying the commonalities
they face as being part of this group.
For example, poor sleep,
the struggle of balancing work and home life,
finding time for exercise, and so on.
This relatability gets their attention
and gets them in the door.
But once they're in, you have to remember
that there are far more differences
across the individuals in your target market
than similarities.
So while your work may focus on the shared challenges
typically experienced by this group,
you still have to first and foremost take the time
to really get to know them as unique people,
and to work with them as such.
This means being mindful to not make assumptions about them
based on your vision of your target market
or by using a one-size-fits-all coaching program.
The experience of a new single mom will be very different
than the experiences of a new mom who's married.
The culture of motherhood will be different for a mom
who was raised in a farm in the southern United States
as a child of a family of seven
and a mom who was raised as an only child
on a military base in Asia.
Attitudes around parenting will differ between a mom
who is a devout catholic preschool teacher
and a mother who is an atheist college professor.
A mom with a trust fund and a part time job
will have much more flexibility
to implement self-care and find time to exercise
than a mom who's working two jobs finishing up school
and just barely scraping by.
For you to really reach these moms,
you have to approach them all with a beginner's mind
knowing that they're all coming to you
with different stories,
different needs, and different limitations.
You have to get to know them as complete unique individuals,
not just as members of your target audience.
Otherwise, you'll never truly develop empathy
because you won't understand
what it's like to be in their shoes.
You'll make recommendations to clients
that don't fit their situation,
and they'll likely feel frustrated and misunderstood.
We all want to treat all of our clients
with the utmost respect and dignity
as unique, worthy, and inherently good people.
As coaches, we want to make them feel like
they're part of a community
or a group of people facing a similar struggle
so they feel connected.
But in order to competently coach people
from diverse backgrounds,
we must also acknowledge and honor their differences.
This is why we teach you a variety of coaching methodologies
in addition to stressing the need
to explore a person's background,
so that you can truly be flexible
and customize your interventions
to meet each client where they're at.
So to recap, we want to always be careful to avoid
alienating our clients by getting to know them
and treating them as individual people
instead of viewing them as members of our target market.
To do this, we must use a beginner's mind
by really getting to know them
and keeping in mind that they have more differences
than similarities as a group.
Do you think you might be making assumptions
about your target market?
Head on over to the Facebook group
to discuss your concerns and experiences
and lean on each other for support.
Thank you so much for watching. Take care.