If you’ve ever been asked, “What’s your ideal client’s favourite coffee order?” please… throw that worksheet in the bin. Real ideal client work is psychology, not trivia. Here’s how to really get a grip on who you are aiming for: 1. Name them Yes, literally give them a name. It makes your brain lock onto a real person vs “everyone.” 2. Identify their life stage Not age… season: New mum, newly single, career pivoting, experienced, overwhelmed, scaling, frustrated, burnt out. 3. Urgent problem vs deeper desire Urgent = what they say out loud. Deeper = what actually keeps them awake. 4. Emotional language What phrases do THEY use? Steal their words. That’s your copy. 5. Buying triggers Do they buy fast? Do they need safety? Do they hate fluff? Do they love detail? This is where real sales conversion happens. Eg. Meet John. John earns £85k, hates wasting time, and buys the minute he sees a clear, structured solution. If your content waffles? John scrolls. Tell me: what season of life is YOUR ideal client in right now?

We’ve looked at your ideal client. Now let’s apply that to your strategy. This is why it really matters. You don’t need 10k followers. Sometimes you only need 12 ‘John’s’ or ‘Claudia’s’ Let’s make this painfully simple: Your revenue goal … Your offer price or value of your ideal client… How many sales you actually need … How many ideal clients you need in your pipeline… How many people you need to reach to land your ideal client … (give me a shout if you need help analysing your data) How your content needs to land to convert them. THIS is why ideal client profiling matters. It’s maths and psychology. If you want £5k/month and your offer is £500? You need ten Johns. Not hundreds. Not thousands. TEN. When you know who “John” is… You can actually go and find him. This is where business stops feeling chaotic and starts feeling intentional. What’s your revenue goal for next year? How many of your ideal clients do you need?

A lot of business owners exhaust themselves trying to show up everywhere… but your ideal client isn’t everywhere. They’re somewhere specific. If your ideal client isn’t on Instagram, you could spend the next six months breaking your neck making really amazing Reels… and they still won’t see them, because you’re showing up in the wrong room. Your ideal client spends time somewhere. Your need to figure out where that actually is. Consider: Which platforms they actually use for solutions (not where they go to switch off) • What content they save, share or keep coming back to • What they’re Googling late at night when they’re fed up or stuck • Which voices, experts or creators influence their thinking • What they’re tired of seeing online • What they wish someone would just explain clearly for once It’s important to understand where your ideal client is already spending time, so marketing becomes ten times easier. Then you’re no longer fighting algorithms, you’re positioning yourself where attention already exists. So. Where does your ideal client actually hang out? Online, offline, industry-specific spaces… what have you noticed?

If your content gets engagement but not sales… chances are you’re speaking to the wrong crowd. In my marketing business, it is not unusual for businesses to come to us having spent a lot of money a time on creating content and increasing their audience, which in itself can be a full time job, only to have no one actually convert to buy. Often small business owners are creating content to entertain or impress their leads, instead of converting them. Yes, it feeds the algorithm, but not the business. Classic vanity-metric trap. If you’re not speaking to the right people, it doesn’t matter how many are listening. It's the last day of the 'ideal client work' = reflection day. Ask yourself: - Are the people engaging with your content actually the people you want to work with? - Are your enquiries aligned with your ideal client, or completely random? - Does your brand match the psychology and expectations of the clients you want? - Are you selling what they genuinely want… or what you prefer offering? - Are you meeting your audience where they are… or where you are? These kinds of questions shift a business fast, by removing the guesswork and helping you with clarity. Based on this week, what’s the #1 thing you’ve realised about your ideal client? Have you found this 'series' useful?

I was writing my blog this week and had one of those moments where you think, “Bloody hell, I actually know this stuff… so how have I allowed this to happen? I'm talking about those subtle moments where you hand over a bit of your power in business without even clocking it. Not the big, obvious stuff, the tiny, quiet things you brush off because they feel too small to matter, but then they stack up, and suddenly something feels off. You know what I mean… when you soften what you really wanted to say because you don’t want to come across awkward. Or you let something slide with a client even though your stomach flips. Or you downplay your experience because you don’t want to sound “too confident,” even though you’ve earned every bit of that confidence. What surprised me most was how subtle it was and it made me think about how often we all do this without realising. So for today’s journal prompt, I want you to sit with this: Where did you make yourself smaller this week, even in a tiny way and what would taking a bit of that power back look like next week? Nothing heavy. Just a moment of honesty with yourself, and if you want to read the blog that sparked this whole train of thought, it’s here... https://hayleypartridgecoaching.co.uk/blog/subtle-power-shifts-women-face-in-business