[00:00:02] Speaker A: Ramping up your business. The time is near. You've given it hard. Now get it in gear. It's passage to profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: I'm Richard Gerhart, founder of Gearhart Law.
[00:00:15] Speaker C: A full service intellectual property law firm.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Specializing in patents, trademarks, and copyrights.
[00:00:20] Speaker D: And I'm Elizabeth Gerhardt. Not an attorney, but I do marketing for Gearhart Law, and I have my own startups and podcasts.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Are you one of the two in five Americans wanting to start your own business or already a business owner? Stay tuned. This show is about starting and growing your business. Welcome to passage to the road to entrepreneurship, where we learn why and how ordinary people, just like you, started and grew their businesses. And we also talk about the intellectual property that helps protect your innovations.
[00:00:48] Speaker C: It's time to talk about your exciting new business journey.
[00:00:51] Speaker E: Two in five Americans want to start a new business. So should you start a new business journey? Often our listeners ask, how do I.
[00:01:00] Speaker F: Identify my ideal customer?
[00:01:02] Speaker E: Let's turn to our guests to find.
[00:01:04] Speaker F: Out how they identified their ideal customers.
[00:01:07] Speaker E: John, talk to us a little bit.
[00:01:08] Speaker C: About how you identified your ideal customer.
[00:01:11] Speaker G: I never actually believed that the riches were in the niches. I actually believed everybody could be my customer. I could actually go after everybody. Let me build this product that everybody can use, or everybody can service everybody. And it wasn't until I realized that the more specific you can be, and I know, Elizabeth, you do a lot of marketing stuff, the more specific you can be on exactly who you're targeting. You can be so focused in your marketing, spend in your focus, and when the people see your message, they resonate with it and they click on it. And so the one tip that I learned that changed everything for me was to visualize my ideal customer with very, very, very specific visualization techniques. What is this person's name? Where do they live? Do they have a family? Not family. What kind of car do they drive? How old are they? What do they do in their daily lives? Why do they need your tool? And very, very specifically outline two to three customers that are your ideal visualized customer as a very specific pinpoint. And then you can build around that to get a little more general, but be very, very specific on who you're targeting. And that really helped me. That visualization component changed everything for me.
[00:02:13] Speaker C: That's great. That's great advice. Justin, how did you identify your ideal customer?
[00:02:18] Speaker H: We kind of had the similar approach to John where at first we thought we could build a tool that was going to be helpful for everyone. We put it up on the Internet. We thought all entrepreneurs could use it, and they can, but it's incredibly hard to market to everyone. So what we did, we started with a hypothesis, and then we just kind of watched customer behavior. We talked to our customers. In the beginning, we thought it was going to be other bootstrap entrepreneurs like us. As it is, they don't have a lot of money, so it definitely helps.
[00:02:43] Speaker F: Not ideal from that standpoint.
[00:02:44] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:02:45] Speaker H: Ideal is kind of mutual, right? So it kind of pivoted to authors for a while, self publishing authors, testing book titles and book covers, which are also great, but it's not a very recurrent activity. Then we started having game companies, testing characters and all that kind of stuff, marketing assets. And then we finally landed on e commerce brands. And what we found was that there were so many product decisions that they were making with such a valuable impact. So product design and packaging, branding, marketing assets, and with such frequent cadence that this became our ideal customer. And so it actually took quite a bit of searching and analysis and talking to customers for us to identify our ideal customer. I wouldn't advise people to get caught up on saying, like, I have to know this from day one before starting my business, because you could have a product vision or a hypothesis, and you just kind of have to keep testing that and flexing that in the market.
[00:03:35] Speaker C: That's great. Rm Easterly, how did you identify your ideal customer?
[00:03:41] Speaker I: Well, I was my ideal customer because I was the one that got stranded.
But I ended up working for all the gig companies and the major roadside company that left me stranded for 5 hours on a busy highway and learned that I was not the only person that had ever been stranded for hours waiting with roadside assistance, but also learning that people needed help inside and outside. It's everyone. So we actually don't have a specific target market because two thirds of the population is 18 and up that will require our service or that would actually need it. So the customer was anyone that needed help.
[00:04:18] Speaker F: There you go.
[00:04:19] Speaker C: That sounds great. Elizabeth, how do you identify your ideal customers?
[00:04:24] Speaker D: I think talking to people and seeing really who does really want this and who's really motivated and would want to spend their money that way. So I've been talking to a lot of people about the podcast studio. Some people are more serious than other people, and I have changed my target market a little since I first got this idea. I do want to have it for people that just want to do a podcast, but I think I would love to get business clients more.
[00:04:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:46] Speaker D: So, yeah, just talking and seeing what people really want.
[00:04:49] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree.
[00:04:50] Speaker F: For the law firm, we've been doing intellectual property law now for 18 years, and really, our practice has evolved over time.
[00:05:00] Speaker C: So I think our ideal customer has.
[00:05:02] Speaker F: Actually changed over that period. And part of it depends on the team that we have have certain skills and patents or copyrights or trademarks or, or maybe litigation. Then our marketing sort of changes to kind of focus and search for clients that need those kinds of skills. You know, I'm not really sure that the search for the ideal customer ever really ends right as the business grows or changes. I think your ideal customers can also grow and change. So I think that when people want.
[00:05:32] Speaker E: To start their new business journey, pinpointing.
[00:05:35] Speaker F: The ideal customer is really an important.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Part of that passage to Profit is a nationally syndicated radio show appearing in 31 markets across the United States. Thank you to the P two P team, our producer Noah Fleischman and our program director, Alicia Morrissey. Look for our podcast tomorrow, anywhere you get your podcasts. Our podcast is ranked in the top 3% globally. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram X, and on our YouTube channel.
[00:06:01] Speaker C: And remember, while the information on this program is believed to be correct, never take a legal step without checking with your legal professional first. Law is here for your patent, trademark, and copyright needs. You can find
[email protected] and contact us for a free consultation. Take care, everybody. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back next week.
