So the who is your dream customer, and this is an interesting topic because there is when I got into online marketing, there are all these, like, ideal client avatar exercises. And there's, like, you you got these, like, long questionnaires and worksheets, and it was like like, how old are they? Are they is it a man or woman? Like, where do they go to school? What kind of work do they have?

How many kids do they have? Do they have what magazines do they read? What's their favorite TV show? What books are they reading? What blogs are they reading?

I'm like, I have no clue. Like, I don't know any of those. Like, what magazines do they read? I don't know. Like, who who reads a magazine anymore.

Right? And I feel like that's that's stuff has changed a bit because the way it used to be was that we would need to Like, how did you reach people in the old days? Right? Like, how did you reach people before? Like, you would go actually put up flyers.

You would run an ad in the newspaper or you would run an ad on television, like, nobody could afford that. Like, not people like us. Right? Or referrals or, like, literally post a flyer into your local supermarket Right? Remember there's, like, these you could hang up of, like, a thing.

But now the way it works is that we're running ads on social media. Or we're posting free content on social media, which is also kind of the form of an ad. Or we're getting JD partners like people other people who have our audience to send messages out to them. So it's it's a different way of getting at people. And so so we can it becomes more about Like, what are the characteristics of the person that we actually care about?

Like, what pain do they have? What's going on in their minds? What are their belief systems? Which is why we start with a why? Like, it's about attracting people who are gonna be naturally drawn to us.

And So the questions that we ask ourselves about who our dream customer is are different from the way I was taught. Originally. So this is how I think about Dream Customer. Your think about it. So imagining Imagine the person who you would most want to work with.

Right? Often like I've said, it'll be you from the past. Not literally, obviously, not literally you from the past because you from the past doesn't exist. But But someone who's similar to who you were in the past in some meaningful way, and it's up to you to define what that is. Right?

But they're probably they might be in a similar kind of situation. They might have a similar similar personality, disposition, worldview, etcetera. And the more that you can go back and dig into, like, how did you actually feel? How did you actually think? Like, what was your mindset at that time?

The more you can speak to that person because then you're inside their head in a way that is hard for anyone else to get. And the important part here is you choose who you most want to work with. It's your decision You don't have to work with everybody. You don't have to work with everybody who happens to show up. If they're not a good fit, you don't have to do business with them.

You get to choose. We want it to be to be there is a what's his name? Joe Polish has this this acronym that he says, it has to be Elf. Elf. It has to be I don't actually remember what the e is for.

The l is for lucrative and the f is for fun. What is the e for? I forget now. Joe Polish, l, with Creative, fun. Easy.

Easy. Alright. It has to be easy, lucrative, and fun. There you go. Oh, alright.

So we can choose that businesses easy lucrative and fun. Like, let's freaking do that. Let's, like, find out how to make it easy, lucrative, and fun. You get to decide decide the criteria for doing business with you. Like, I only work with clients in this particular type of situation.

I only work with clients who will will work with me on my schedule. Am I on my schedule? I don't have to work on my schedule, or I only wanna work with clients who well, who does the work? And if you, like, don't do the homework, you're kicked out of micro I'm sorry. But that's how we operate here.

Like, Here are my nonnegotiables. Here's every single client I work with. They have to do these 5 things every day or they're out. Like, you you get to choose. You get to choose.

Of course, you can set the criteria so tight that there's literally nobody, but chances are with 8,000,000,000 people in the world and say, like, Half of them are are have maybe I don't know. A billion of them have money to pay and and whatnot. Like, we can there's a lot of people who can help with my point. Right? So we can be quite picky if we want to.

And especially if you're Like, depending on if you're going for more of a mass market thing or more of a high ticket thing, like, there's usually a lot more money in working with fewer people at a at a higher cost and going a lot deeper with them and being much more picky with who you work with. Right? You can when you when you get more clear, when you get more picky, you can You can ask for more money because you can deliver more value because you're more specific about who you work with. Alright. So criteria here is you want absolutely people who have strong pain or strong desire.

Right? If there's not enough pain or desire, they're not gonna be motivated to buy, to pay a lot of money for it, to do the work and get the results. And if they don't do the work and get the results, you don't get the case study, Right? So then you're just wasting your time. Even if you make a little bit of money, it doesn't build an asset for you.

So the most important thing Like, it we say it says starting crowd here because the idea is if you're if you're selling hot dogs, like, it you But you can choose like, would you rather if you're trying to sell hot dogs, would you rather have the best hot dogs in the world? Oh, would you rather have a starving crowd of people? Right? If you have a starving crowd of people that doesn't make a damn difference, how good your hot dogs are, they're gonna buy them. Right?

They're gonna want it. But if people are hungry, you can have the best hot dog in the world, and Like, they might not care. Right? I had that literally overheating last week. I I was walking.

In the state, and there is a hotdog stand that was giving away hot dogs free, and it looked like it was like this super gourmet hotdog experience organic and all the things. And I just wasn't in the mood for our dogs, so I didn't get an on dog. It was free. It was for the best hotdog in the world, possibly. And I didn't get it down because I was neither.

I wasn't in the mood for my hotdog. Right? So a starting cloud with strong pain and desire is the most important aspect. We also want people who have money to pay. Right?

There's a lot of people And I mean a lot of people who are who are like, I wanna help people. Right? I am not in for the money. That's great. I love it.

I'm not in it for the money, but we need the money to pay ourselves and you deserve to get paid. We need the money to pay the team. We need the many put money to invest in qualities so we can really give good service to people. Right? We need money.

And if you want to help people who don't have money, The best way to do it is to first help people who do have money and then use all that time that that buys you to help the people who don't have money. For free. Right? So focus on people who have money. If you wanna make a business, You wanna you wanna sell people who have money to pay.

Easy to target. So that means Like, do they hang out in a place where we can find them? Is there a way like, the easier they are to target by specific things. Right? Like, the world the ads are going more and more broad, more and more algorithmic.

So it's like you put stuff out there and then And then the content, the creative itself, is the filter, and and then the algorithm figures out, like, who to put it in front of. So and that sends the the game of targeting is changing a little bit, but if you if they're targetable and sends that, you can find you know, 2 or 5 or 10 or 100 different people who have already built an audience of your exact audience of your exact people. That's very helpful. Right? I have a we have a member Robin, who who built a business deal oh, wait.

Oops. Build a business doing acupuncture, teaching acupuncturists how to do acupuncture with kids. That was her start. And she went from 0 to $60,000 in just 3 months because that is a highly targetable market. They're easy to target.

She found one person went 10,000 acupuncture on his email list, and she got him to promote a webinar with her and sell her her course, her $500 course there, and she made $60 in just 3 months. Right? Because they're easy to target. Acupuncture, they gather in certain places, easy to target. That's super helpful.

Most aware, is, like, they're actively we in in marketing, we talk about the the stages of awareness. There are people who have a problem, but they don't even know they have a problem. Right? Very hard to sell to. There are people who know they have a problem, but they don't know solutions exist.

They're not looking. Also hard to sell to. What you want are people who are not just products aware, a problem aware, They're problem where they're also solution aware. I mean, they know that solutions exist, and they're actively looking for for solutions. And they're more than that, they're actually actively buying solutions, and they're actively using those solutions.

So we we we tend to think that we wanna sell to someone who's, like, brand new and it's like, oh, like, Yeah. Like, this is the first time I've tried to go to the gym and build muscle or do exercise or overcome my stress or comma or whatever. Those are the hardest people to sell to because that you have to get them to to actually spend money on trying to solve this problem. Going from, like, yeah, I have a problem. Yeah.

I know. I was like, I should do something about it, but to Actually, no. I'm gonna start investing money in solving this problem. That's a big step. But once they're actively buying stuff, doing much more likely to buy more stuff.

Right? Buy it from me in 2008, I bought my first online course on online marketing. That was a big step. That was a major step. It was $2000.

I was like, crap are these people, like, scammers? Or, like, what's gonna happen? Is this any good? Am I just being am I just being suckered into this thing? Right?

Like, it was a major decision. It was really hard to overcome that hurdle. Now, I buy marketing courses like all the time. Right? Easy.

Like, because I know the value of I've already okay. Yeah. Great. Like, new person, new angle, new thing I can learn here. Easy.

Right? Like coaching. Right? The first coach I hired. Major decisions like, oh, am I wrong?

It's like, woah. What is this thing? It's scary. Whatever. Like, Now I have a bunch of coaches.

I've worked with a bunch of coaches for for years. Right? So it's a lot easier to work with people who are actively buying to try to solve the problem that you are solving. So those are the most aware people. We want someone with a short sales cycle.

Right? So they make a decision quickly. If we're working with corporations or or, like, big entities that have a very long short sales cycle just makes it more complicated. It makes it a lot harder. Right?

It just takes a long time. Short success cycle is about how quickly can these people get success. Right? Someone who's never done any online business and they're kind of thinking about it, and maybe they should. I don't know.

Maybe someday. And then, like, the they're getting them to a successful outcome is gonna take a lot longer than someone who's like, yeah. Already done, like, 3 businesses before, and now I'm looking to start this one and some new thing, new area, whatever. Like, I need some coaching. I need some help.

Like, gonna gonna be a lot easier. Right? Or someone who's never worked out and never ever, like, you know, paid attention to their diet, and now they wanna lose weight and get in shape. Like, gonna be a lot longer success cycle than someone who's actively working out and actively working on their diet. And now they want a new they want some some change.

Right? They're they're like, they've reached a plateau or, like, they feel like they're stuck with their current method, but they're but they're ready for change and you think that your thing can help them overcome that. That's a short success cycle. It's gonna be so much easier. And finally, a growing market.

Right? So if you're selling to newspaper publishers or newspaper printing companies. Right? That's probably not a growing market. Right?

If you're selling to retail stores, maybe not. So growing a market. Right? So pick something that is growing because then you don't have to suck too. You can still suck and still grow with the mark.

Right? If you're trying to grow your business, selling to a shrinking market, you're gonna have to outpace the market by a lot. To actually grow your business, whereas if the market's growing, you just have to follow along, not be stupid. Alright. One more thing here.

Our goal is to channel desire not to create it. What does that mean? It means It's it's very common, and I've done this a million times. It's very common to think, well, my thing can help everybody. Everybody needs this.

Everybody needs this. Like mindset, you know, health, spirituality, business, entrepreneurship. Everybody needs this. Like, Oh my god. I can help so many people.

Yeah. But if they don't want it, it's really, really hard to sell them and help them get success. Right? We want to help people We wanna sell people on our services, and we wanna get them to success. If they don't actively want it and desire it, that's both of those things are gonna be really, really hard.

So so do not think that you can generate design, you can, but it's gonna cost a lot of money and take a lot of time. And we're we don't have that. Like, that's big corporations have that, government have that, like like, you can do that if you have enough time and money. But it's not really that worthwhile thing for us to pursue. So you wanna work with people who already have a desire.

And now you're giving people a way to satisfy that desire with your offer. Right? So what you wanna ask yourself is who can you help the most in the least amount of time with the least amount of friction without them being hassel. Alright? That's kind of what we're looking for.

Can you have the most and least amount of time or the least amount of friction without them being a hassle? And the friction here applies to the process of selling them, right, and and working with them getting results. Or you can say, who would you wanna work with if you could only get paid after they got the results you promised. So what this gets to is people who are easy. It's like the success cycle.

Right? They're easy to move across the goalpost. It's okay to choose to work with people who are easy to work with. Right? And I I know for me, like, damn, I was struggling, and I really wish that that, like, I had someone who would have seen me and and and helped me and met me at that stage, which is great.

And you can do that with your free content, but I also understand that I might not have been the easiest time to work with at that point because I was very opinionated. I had so many bullshit opinions that kept me stuck. And and I can understand why if if someone would would be like, yeah, dude. Like, you you, like, you go do some more work on figuring this stuff out. Right?

Like, we don't have to work with. We we might wanna save people that just like we wanted we wish someone had saved us when we were in that place, but you don't have to make that your business. You don't have to make that your dream customer. Right? Make it easy and fun for yourself.

Work with people that are easy and fun to work with that have money to pay you. So that you get momentum and flow. And then you can use your free content or you can do pro bonal work with people who are don't have money or a little bit more more work if you feel called to do that. But as a business decision, make it easy lucrative and fun. But it's positive in the chat.

What resonated with the most with you from this? What did you most need to Here from what I just shared, I wanna see from everybody in chat. Alright. Good stuff. I see short success cycle.

Target the starting crowd, goal is to channel design not to create it, target people who already have a desire for what I offer. Easy to work with with awareness, needs to be very specifically identifying a target niche or target market. Yes. No hassle. Let me see here.

No has a channel desire. I like that confidently dumped that outdated avatar stuff. Magazines did buy blah blah blah. Yes. Oh my god.

I have struggled so much with that and felt so awkward and wrong. Like, oh god. Like, I don't know. Am I doomed? Easy to work with, people with money.

Like, things are jumping around from here. I think I needed to hear that it's okay to pick the easy sales and change and charge what my time is worth at a 100%. Yes. A 1000%. Michael will easily get a result.

Yes. Don't work with difficult people, channel desire. I saw someone's, like, VIP access. Yes. Collaborate with credentials.

We already have my target. Things keep jumping around in this chat. It's really confusing. Alright. The approach is doing clients versus the old our approach is refreshing and helpful.

I like the idea of working with people who would only pay you after they'd succeeded. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. And you can I mean, you can literally do that if you want to, and then and then set, like, really clear criteria upfront for who you're gonna work with?

And then that confidence in your ability to deliver results, like, it's very contagious. Right? People can feel that in you. And then and then that can in large part come from you being very specific about who you would work with. Because you just you you it just lined right up.

Right? I'm part of a program called SaaS Academy And SaaS Boardroom, but with this guy named Ben Martel, And this criteria for being part of SAS Academy is that you're doing at least $10,000 a month in monthly recurring revenue. From your SaaS company, your software as a service company, and that you are full time focused on this business. And that you either are technical or you have a technical cofounder. Right?

If those 4 criteria are not there, he's not gonna work with you. You're not allowed into the program. It's 30,000 a year. He ain't gonna take your money because he can't. He can't guarantee success.

Right? Taki Moore similarly has his black belt actually going to his boardroom within next week in Laguna. But he has his his black belt program, which is for coaches, and you have to be making $10,000 a month or more or you're not welcome in that program. Like and then the the higher level is, you know, is his boardroom is a 1,000,000 or more from coaching, or you're not, you know, part of that group. So you can set the criteria and the more that you do for him too.

Taki, he only works with business coaches. Like, you can be, like, a great coach at whatever else, not a fit. Only business coaches because he can guarantee a financial outcome there. Right? Business coaches can charge based on the value the monetary value that they deliver for the company.

And so it's easier for him to help his clients make more money if they're business coaches than if they're life coaches. Their clients are gonna have more money, and they're gonna be willing to spend more money. And so it's easier for him to make his investment back. So yeah. George's asking, are you still in flight club?

Yes. I am. Alright. Fantastic. Great stuff.

I really appreciate all the takeaways.