How To Design A Profile That Speaks To Your Ideal Client

Over 80% of people treat their LinkedIn profiles like their resume. An area where they talk about themselves, highlight their accomplishments and tout their previous experience.

Seems pretty obvious – isn’t that the whole point of LinkedIn marketing? To show off your skills so that you can gain clients and win jobs?

For the people who are seeking a new job to enhance their career, we would absolutely recommend highlighting experiences that match the role you are seeking. However, if you are using LinkedIn for business building and networking, now is the time to change your approach.

It’s all about your client, not you!

Remember that every sale you make requires another human being behind that transaction. That human being has a family, goals, dreams, accomplishments, and hopes for a better life. That person will be exchanging money to receive the value that you are providing.

When you use LinkedIn to attract more clients, you need to fill your profile with content that relates to your ideal client. When they visit your profile, you want to exude your understanding of them by using their keywords and phrases.

Remember the famous cliché, “what’s in it for me?” Keep that in mind when you are crafting your Summary, Experience, and Headline. You want to make sure that you are speaking from a place of understanding of THEIR needs, keeping the focus off of you.

Defining your Ideal Client

When you put yourself out there on LinkedIn to start developing more business, you need to make sure you understand WHO it is you want to do business. Not all of the 345 million users will be a prospect for you.

And that’s OK. Your goal is to understand your target market so well that you can immediately sift through the crowd to find the people you can serve most! Questions you want to ask when defining your ideal client are as follows:

• Where does your Ideal Client live?
• What is your Ideal Client looking for?
• What is their most pressing problem?
• How does your product/service solve it?
• Where does your Ideal Client look for answers?
• Who do they network with? Who are they friends with?

Writing your story

In a minute, we are going to ask you to write your client’s story from their perspective. When we introduce this concept during our LinkedIn training sessions, we usually get blank stares following the classic question, “Why?” If you cannot speak from the voice of your ideal client, then you will never be able to offer compelling reasons for them to seek your product or solution.

We know that you are in business to help others, and the only way you can do that is communicated to your audience using THEIR words – not yours. The moment you communicate your product or service using your agenda is the moment you lose.

The sad fact is that most people write their LinkedIn profiles on their agendas and they miss valuable opportunities to connect with their market. The result is another profile, just like the others, that does nothing to captivate their viewers.

Now, pretend that you are YOUR ideal client. You are seeking a product or service to solve a pressing problem. Take a minute to describe your situation, your family life, your dreams, your fears and your accomplishments.

Answer the questions above in the voice of your client. Describe what is MOST important to you. Take some time to tell your story as the client on paper.

With a fresh purpose and perspective, go over your notes and story and circle words that pop out to you. Circle any words that appear twice, or that truly describe the solution to the problem that your product or service solves. These words will now serve as the keywords that you build your LinkedIn copy around.

Since these words are coming from the perspective of your ideal client, these will be the terms and phrases they input in the LinkedIn search engine to find the services they are seeking. This is where you will be positioned correctly to be found by your ideal client.

Take Action

Do not make the mistake of focusing on your own interests and possibly miss a golden opportunity to connect with your ideal client. When the perfect client lands on your profile, you want to make sure you speak directly to them, using their words and phrases.

This will help establish trust, credibility and increase your likability. When you fully understand your ideal client, it will resonate through your entire profile which will ultimately lead to more leads and opportunities for your business!