Simplify & Scale

Build your dream client profile

One person. Not a segment, a list, or an avatar. The single person you most want to work with. Answer these about them, press build, and you will get a first draft of their profile to bring to your next session.

Keep one real person in mind. Type your answers, or use the microphone on your keyboard to dictate them, whatever is easier. Beside every question is how it was answered for Sam, as an example of how to answer, not what to say. Unsure of one? Leave it, the gaps are useful too.

Give your dream client a name

Start here, the essentials

Seven questions. This is enough for a strong first draft.

Who are they, and what is going on for them right now?

Sam: An expert who left employment to do the work properly, on their own terms. A professional first and an owner second, with a business that grew up around the craft and now runs on their judgement, at the ceiling of what that alone can carry. As they put it, “I did not get into this to run a company, it just happened.”

What do they feel day to day, that they would rarely say out loud?

Sam: Proud and frustrated at once, and they would say neither out loud. A low hum of this should be further along. In their words, “it feels messier than it used to, and that unsettles me, because I assumed by now it would feel more in control, not less.”

If you asked them what they came for, what would they say they want?

Sam: To reach more people and make more impact, and for the business to move forward on purpose rather than only when they push it. And underneath, reassurance, because a part of them worries “there is an obvious way to run a business that everyone else was taught and I somehow missed.”

Your work sits in the space between what they say they want and what you know they need, so this next section is key.

What do they actually need, that they cannot yet see?

Sam: Not more push. To see that the same instinct and judgement that built the business is exactly what takes it further, turned into a method, so it grows on purpose without risking what works. They cannot see this yet.

What is really holding them back, underneath?

Sam: The belief that the next level has to come from more of their own effort, so growth feels like a risk to what already works. And a quiet certainty their clients could not pay more, “my clients just won’t pay that,” which has never once been tested.

In their own words, a few real phrases they would actually say.

Sam: “I know it should be further ahead than it is, and I cannot work out what is holding it back.” “I did not get into this to run a company.” “I do not want to work less, I want to know the work is purposeful.”

What lands with them, and what turns them off?

Sam: Lands: possibility, permission, and being treated as capable, plus a sharper read of their business than they have heard before. Turns off: fear, false urgency, hype, generic coaching language, and being called the problem.

Go deeper, when you are ready

Optional. Five more that turn a good profile into a rich one.

How do they think, and what does that mean for how you speak to them?

Sam: Curious, steady and high-standards, drawn to ideas over tools and not easily flustered. So speak plainly, lead with the invitation, and never rush or frighten them. A lot of the work is quiet permission.

How do they find you, and decide to work with you?

Sam: By referral, or they find you and seek you out. The first real conversation is what converts, because they leave with a clearer read of their business than they arrived with, thinking “there is no reason that could not be me.” Their only real alternative is doing nothing.

What does their life look like after working with you?

Sam: The business moves without their hand on every moment, and work comes back better than they would have done it themselves. They charge properly, and the pride shifts from the quality of the work to how the whole thing runs.

What do they value, and what are the mantras they live by?

Sam: Quality, and doing right by their clients, team and community, sometimes at their own cost. Mantras like “we do brilliant work, we could be helping so many more people” and “I just want to do right by my clients.”

Who are you to them, the person delivering this?

Sam: The mentor who brings thirty years and hundreds of businesses into the room, finds the thread they cannot see, and names it plainly. Someone who will not flatter them and will not overwhelm them.

Your dream client profile, first draft

See Sam’s profile

The one person Sam, on a page. This is the depth you are building towards.