This is a Contributor’s Post from former Voice Bureau Collaborative Partner and now, Advisor to Visionary Solopreneurs, Tami Smith.

As a business owner, you’ve been told: an ideal client is a very clear description of the type of client you would love to have more of.

She or he may be an exact replica of a client you’re working with today, or she or he could be a combination of qualities you’ve seen in past and current clients.

You took this advice and you created your ideal client. You’ve even named her. (This is not so kooky as it may sound.) You care about her.

But even with your good intentions to cater to your ideal client through your business and your brand, something is missing.

You have a feeling you might have not be having the same experience as all those other people who rave about the power of knowing your ideal client, because you aren’t seeing or feeling much of a difference in your results.

Oh, the agony and the ecstasy of the Myth of the Ideal Client.

It’s true that ideal client profiling is supposed to be the Holy Grail of building a values-based microbusiness for the web today. And, well, we at The Voice Bureau agree.

But here’s what we see: it isn’t unusual for our incoming clients to feel like all the exercises they’ve done to define their Right Person were nothing more than going through the motions. If you’ve felt this way, rest assured, you aren’t the only business owner who’s had a temporary high of defining an ideal client, only to later feel like Meh. What was that all for, anyway?

An ideal client profile is supposed to be the most important aspect of your marketing. If ideal clients are so important, why doesn’t yours bring significant results?

There’s a good chance the way you created your ideal client is the real problem.

There are 6 common mistakes people make when creating an ideal client. Read on to see if you recognize your past efforts in one of these scenarios.

The 6 biggest mistakes people make when creating an ideal client:

Mistake No. 1: WISHLISTING

Wishlisting happens when you define your ideal client based on your wish list, or all the characteristics and qualities you would just love for her to have. This is the ideal client you “would love to have lunch with” and “hang out with” because she is just so darn nice.

• What Wishlisting sounds like: This could sound like anything based on what would appeal most to you, the business owner. If you’re childfree by choice, she’s childfree by choice. If you like cupcakes, he likes cupcakes.  [Abby’s note: We jest. A little.] Chances are, your Right Person Profile sounds a lot like your dream best friend (you know, the one who “really needs your services”), or like someone you wish existed.

• Where Wishlisting comes from: More than likely, we do this when we’ve absorbed the popularly taught notion that your ideal client is someone you’d like to have as a friend. This may indeed be true (as some of our Empathy Marketing clients find out), but it’s not the most effective place to start getting a picture of your ideal client.

• Why Wishlisting doesn’t ultimately work: When we use ourselves as the focal point — if I’d be her friend, she’d be a good client for me –– we risk letting our own ego, our own personal needs, or our own projections of ourselves creep into our Right Person Profile, thus missing the true needs of the person Most Likely To Buy from us.

Mistake No. 2: HODGEPODGING

Hodgepodging is when your ideal client is a hodgepodge of various people, usually all your favorite attributes out of the clients you’ve worked with so far.

• What Hodgepodging sounds like: “Hank is a 28-year old web developer and unisex jewelry designer who comes from privilege and money (and so has plenty in a trust fund to spend on my services), yet chooses to live a rather minimalist, ascetic life. He’s outgoing, kind, but can also be kind of a jerk in relationships and he doesn’t know why. He refers to himself as a ‘bacon-eating Vegan.’ He wants to travel the world on a dime, reduce his carbon footprint, create big social change (through his jewelry line), and have a great relationship at some point — after he figures out if he should chuck both of his current career pursuits and start a band. After all, you only live once, and why not let it be epic?”

• Where Hodgepodging comes from: There’s a notion that “if I could just take his grit, her experience, and his sense of humor, I’d have the perfect client!” But alas, people are not hybrids of many different people. They are themselves. Your Right Person deserves to have a complete, nuanced identity unto herself, complete with high sides, low sides, strengths, weaknesses, gifts, and challenges. (And, huge bonus: your Right Person, as unique as he or she is, represents many people.)

• Why Hodgepodging doesn’t ultimately work: Just like you and me, your ideal client is imperfect, full of internal tensions and paradoxes, and is consistently inconsistent. When we fail to regard and respect our ideal clients as the whole human beings they are, we miss out on lots of opportunities to connect with and serve them.

Mistake No. 3: CAVALIERING

You’re Cavaliering when you define your ideal client around all her problems or claim you can help her with “anything” because you have “the power of helping people get clear.” Like boiling the ocean, this is a problem of trying to solve too many problems at once, often using a single tool.

• What Cavaliering sounds like: “Miranda is tortured. She hates her messy closets — she thinks of them as ‘closets of shame.’ On the outside, she’s warm, competent, and pulled together. Her friends and neighbors would never suspect that underneath her cool exterior, lies a tidal wave of unopened mail, years’ worth of receipts, and clothing with the tags still on — all enclosed behind the perfectly painted-and-trimmed doors of her suburban upper middle class home. She’s not just messy, she’s desperate, lonely inside, and feels ugly and worthless because of what she’s keeping stuffed inside her closets. She wants to get a grip, she NEEDS to get a grip, and when she finds me, she knows that someone can finally help her get clear. She sees that I’ve done it for myself, and she automatically believes that I can help her do it, too. She knows I can help her with more than closet organizing — I can help her get clear on who she wants to be. Because I am that woman she wants to be more like.”

• Where Cavaliering comes from: The origin of Cavaliering is the misguided belief that people reach out for help when they are all but flattened by their pain, and thus respond to sales pages full of pain points and Calls To Action that promise to save them. Also, in some cases, Cavaliering comes from — dare I say it? — a God(dess) complex: too much ego projection into the business. This often sounds like: “I’ve been put on this planet to help women like you do X, Y, and Z! It’s my gift to the world and to you, so you, too, can live a fuller, richer, sweeter life — just like me.” Oftentimes, it’s presented in a more subtle way than that, but the subtext is still clear: my life rocks, and I can help you make your life rock, too.

• Why Cavaliering doesn’t ultimately work: Despite what some ‘turn up the heat’ marketers will tell you, people don’t seek solutions from the depths of their despair. Usually, people buy products and services from integrity-based businesses when they are in a more resourceful, emotionally integrated place. In fact, some values-based coaches and consultants have a policy where they refuse to start work with a client who’s in crisis mode. A healthy, resourceful buyer is still aware of his pain points (as awareness of pain points is a critical piece of the buying process), but he’s standing on his own two feet again, looking to the future, and ready to do something about his problem. He doesn’t need (or want) you to save him.

Mistake No. 4: STEPFORD WIFING

This is similar to Wishlisting, but instead of including ‘everything but the kitchen sink,’ Stepford Wifing draws the description of the ideal client into a very narrow view of the person, one who perfectly fits your needs, whims, and predilections as a business owner. (You’ve seen the movie or read the American cult classic novel, The Stepford Wives? It’s a satirical thriller.) Meanwhile, your ideal client’s imperfections are glossed over, as you narrow in on her extreme and oversimplified needs/desires.

• What Stepford Wifing sounds like: “Marika is a smart, savvy, fit 40-year old wife and mama who, although her family lives on a tight budget, always manages to pay for her premium fitness coaching with me. Despite staying home with 4 kids under the age of 10 while her devoted husband works full-time plus, she never skimps on personal time because she understands the importance of putting herself first. She manages to maintain her size 6 figure through healthy eating and regular intentional movement, though it isn’t always easy. All of this plus she uses social media like candy so she’s a HUGE brand evangelist for me!”

• Where Stepford Wifing comes from: Fear — specifically, the business owner’s fear that a “real” person with “real” problems and “real” challenges won’t hire her. So she draws her Right Person Profile to a (rather self-serving) tee.

• Why Stepford Wifing doesn’t ultimately work: When you gloss over a potential client’s challenges, struggles, and imperfections, you risk having her miss herself on your sales pages. If she can’t see herself reflected in your brand, she won’t buy, because she won’t believe you ‘get’ her.

Mistake No. 5: BANDWAGONING

Bandwagoning happens when you jump on the bandwagon of whatever the popular teaching is and use a list of over simplified, means-nothing-really-but-sounds-good qualifiers as your ideal client characteristics. Bandwagoning oversimplifies the holistic and the nuanced aspects of what it means to stand in your Right Person’s shoes.

• What Bandwagoning sounds like: “My ideal client is ready for what I have to offer, and happily pays what I’m asking without question because he sees the value in it.” Is this true? But of course. It’d better be. Is this all there is to understanding your Right Person? Absolutely not. Do these qualifiers help you see, clearly and with empathy, what your ideal client’s core needs and motivators are, his developmental desires, and his emotional triggers (for better and for worse)? Not even almost.

• Where Bandwagoning comes from: Again, fear. And then dismissiveness of the necessity for a deep understanding of who your business can serve best. Knowing your Right Person and practicing empathy as you design your brand conversation for her is a complex practice. It requires us, as business owners, to go deep and to set our own assumptions aside. When this gets too difficult, it’s all too easy just to say, “Ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing: here’s all I need to know. The rest is just extraneous details.”

• Why Bandwagoning doesn’t ultimately work: When we design our brand and our offers based on assumptions about who our ideal clients are (or, worse, when we say, it doesn’t matter who they are as long as they need what I’m selling and will pay my price), we end up with a Throwing Spaghetti At The Wall To See What Sticks brand. We become a hammer, to whom everything and everyone looks like a nail. Boom! There’s a problem. I can design a solution. Boom! She’s got a symptom. I can address it!

Mistake No. 6: SHADOWING

In shadowing, a business owner unconsciously projects his or her own problem onto an ideal client. Projection is a psychological defense mechanism where you “project” undesirable or unacceptable thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings onto someone else, in order to distance yourself from the discomfort of experiencing them for oneself.

• What Shadowing sounds like: Shadowing can take many forms. But if reading your Right Person narrative — Ohmygod, that’s meeeeeeee! — feels like reading a page from your diary, you’re probably Shadowing.

• Where Shadowing comes from: The current microbusiness coaching landscape sometimes pushes us toward the idea that a powerful Value Proposition comes from taking people through the transformation you yourself underwent to get the results you got. While bringing your own personal experience into your brand can be a wonderful and valuable thing (in fact, how to invite your story in strategically is part of the work we do with Empathy Marketing clients), problems start when a business owner can’t see past her own projections of what her ideal client might want and need.

• Why Shadowing doesn’t ultimately work: Shadowing can often turn up online in the form of what a writer friend of Abby’s [Abby’s note: Hi, Angela!] calls a “vanity venture.” In essence, the business exists to reflect back to the business owner that she has done a good enough job of healing herself, or fixing herself, or creating for herself the result she wants. While this is by no means a ‘wrong’ reason to have an online presence, Shadowing is not at the heart of a values-based business that offers a viable solution in the marketplace.

Why these mistakes will keep you from realizing the benefits of an ideal client

Your ideal client isn’t one person, a hodgepodge, or a wish list of characteristics. An ideal client isn’t a projection or a tidy little list of how much she values you. An ideal client is an ideal list of qualifications that make someone more inclined to buy your solution, rather than less inclined.

Creating a persona — what we at The Voice Bureau call a Right Person — is a way to avoid the common mistakes in creating ideal client scenarios.

A Right Person persona should:

• Represent a buyer who shares the problem, paradox, and desires your solution is designed to address

• Highlight search intent (queries and questions being asked in search)

• Explain core motivators, desires, emotional needs, and buying preferences

• Provide a logical way to create content that is optimized for the core practical  and emotional need of your Right Person

Your Right Person Persona will become your ideal client profile. When you understand who she or he is, you understand what he or she wants from you, and why.

When you get to this next level of clarity and create an ideal client based on methods that are proven to work, you will understand the relationship between you and your ideal client. You will see how your strengths, experiences, and intrinsic Voice Values serve your ideal client.

Your ideal client profile, created in an empathic way, is the key to articulating your Brand Proposition and your USP, and it’s the key to crafting even more effective Calls To Action.

Knowing what to say and how to say it unlocks those places where you feel stuck.

Feeling stuck and frustrated about not being able to articulate a strong Brand Proposition isn’t an experience unique to you or your brand (thank goodness, right?). It is incredibly rare to find microbusiness owners confident and clear about how they are a better choice for their ideal clients.

We think it’s important for you to know that these things aren’t easy to do and to know that persona development can bring clarity to your entire process of bringing a new brand online, or realigning an existing brand.

Your Right People are important. Understanding yours at an intimate level will bring significant results when created the right way.

In the comments, Abby & I would love to hear:

What hasn’t worked for you so far in getting clear on your ideal client? What popularly taught advice has fallen flat for you? Have you had experience with one of the 6 Mistakes described above? We look forward to discussing this with you in the comments.