Original subtitles

Hi, my name is Brooks van Norman.

And in this module, I'm very excited to

be sharing with you how to create your perfect buyer avatar.

Because this step in the process of becoming an excellent marketer is the

most important piece that we can get good at and do well in order to make sure that

everything that we do with our marketing from this point forward is successful.

So let's get into it.

The goals of this module are to get.

Crystal clear on exactly who you serve and the outcome you provide and the

problems you solve, it's to understand your target buyer on a deep level, so you

can get their attention and turn them into your customers.

And finally to do that, we need to be able to create marketing content that is

potent and that is what we're going to be able to do by creating the perfect buyer

avatar, some expectation setting up front.

This process is going to take you two to five hours to complete properly.

I'm going to be going through an example of what a finished buyer avatar looks

like, but understand that took hours to get done.

In fact, it was something that we came back to over and over in order to get it

right. So don't try to do this all in one

sitting. Expect that you'll come back to this work

again and again as you get to know your target buyer better over time.

And anytime you need to create new content and marketing, you can refer to

this work to ensure you're speaking to the right audience and that you're

creating messaging that will resonate with that audience.

So what is a buyer avatar? Well, the best description that we've

come up with is that a buyer avatar is a semi fictitious character who represents

your ideal customer.

Another way to look at it is that it's an

understanding of this person from multiple dimensions.

And it's a specific and deep awareness of everything that relates to influencing

them. There are some pitfalls here in this

process. The first is not having enough detail and

rushing through the process.

We're going to be going through a

document in a moment and the temptation here is to skip through this and get into

the rest of the content of this Academy.

But I can tell you if you don't get this

right, everything else that you learn and.

Try to do with your marketing is not going to work as well as it could, so

please take the time and invest it in getting as much detail as you can in

creating your avatar.

The second pitfall is that your avatar is

too wide and too encompassing.

We really want to focus on one person.

Not multiple people, just your ideal customer.

It's one person.

Think about that one person in the room

out of 100 That is your perfect.

Customer that they've been waiting for

you, praying for you to show up in their lives and you have to know exactly what

that person is.

We like to say that you need to know your

buyer better than they know themselves.

That's a great framework to think about.

And then finally the pitfall of having a conflicting buyer avatar.

So what we mean is that you start out with the vision of what that one person

is at the beginning of this process and then you start changing it.

As you go through, you really want to have one person and one person only as

that semi fictitious character as you go through this process.

So your avatar is your foundation.

It is the number one most important

thing. And as I mentioned a moment ago, I have

to say it again because it's so critical.

If you don't get this right and you don't

take the time to invest in getting as much detail as you possibly can in this

process, your marketing is not going to work.

No technology, no learning, nothing is going to be able to save you from failed

marketing if you don't get this process and this step.

Right, because your ad copy, your ad images, your blog posts, your social

images, your headline, they should all mirror your avatars, feelings and deep

emotions about your situation.

And the only way you can do that is if

you really know that semi fictitious character as well or better than they

know themselves. Your job here as a marketer is to

discover that person, number one.

That's the process that we're going

through. And then number two, when you're out in

the field and you're using the platform and you're doing the process of marketing

is to reveal that person.

In other words, hold the mirror up to

show them who or where they are right now and who or where they could be with your

help. That contrast is really important.

And as we go into the next modules, you'll see that where people are and

where they want to be are the two polar.

Fields or polar opposites of what you

want to be thinking about in everything that you do in your marketing.

So really important is to think about showing the buyer who they are holding

that mirror up to them.

So how do we create it?

Well, it's a document.

It's a living document too.

We're going to be going through this process here in a couple of minutes and

doing it together.

And the document is called the Avatar and

Niche worksheet, and you can download it from somewhere around this video, maybe

below it. And there's a template that you will be

able to download to use for your own market and buyer avatar.

And there's also a sample that we'll be using of a gym owner.

That we created for this module so you can see what the level of detail and the

type of thinking and the context and really everything that you should aspire

to in creating your own buyer avatar.

Because examples are really valuable here

if you've never done this process before.

So you can see the level of detail that

you need to have in order to get this process right.

All right.

There's a few pitfalls here to be mindful

of as you create your perfect buyer avatar.

And the first thing is thinking you're going to have this figured out overnight.

This is a process, and it's a process that begins with what we're going to do

here in a moment of really just getting the big pieces in place, trying to figure

out the edge of the puzzle.

If you've ever made a puzzle, very often

it's the edges that people do.

So we kind of start with that thinking

and then we come back to it and fill it in.

Don't be surprised if there's questions that you just don't know, and if that's

the case, good.

That's good, because that means you're

going to be able to get to know your buyer avatar better.

You're going to have to go and figure those things out.

You're going to have to talk to your existing customers or think about the

people that you've spoken with in the past in sales calls or that are your

existing customers that you can use to bring that information into the buyer's

avatar development. So not revisiting your avatar and

updating it is.

Also a huge pitfall.

Doing this once and then never coming back to it is what amateur marketers do.

It's what rookies do.

It's what people who have skinny kids do,

as zig Ziglar used to say.

So really make sure that you continually

improve this as you get more familiar with your audience and your market,

because that's what really separates the best vibot marketers from the ones who

really struggle is constantly updating their buyer avatar and knowing their

buyer. As we say, better than they know

themselves. And finally thinking that this is easy

for everyone else but you.

This is tough work.

This is difficult work.

This is foundational work, and it's

really important. So don't be surprised if you feel a

little frustrated or if you struggle with some parts.

And if you do, we're here to help you reach out to us, and we'll give you the

guidance based on our own experience of learning how to really make this as great

as it could possibly be.

Ok, let's jump into the buyer, the

avatar. Niche worksheet and we'll start going

through what that looks like now.

Welcome to the Avatar and Niche

worksheet. This is a document that we have refined

over the years and it is one that we are now able to present to you as a tool that

is comprehensive and will help you see that buyer that you need to attract and

get the attention of in your market from multiple dimensions.

So this is the template and again this is a downloadable for you from the.

Assets or the resources below this video south all of the key things that we're

going to be going through here are in the document that you can have access to.

And the key here is to remember that everything you do, say and write should

speak directly to your most perfect customers or clients because you cannot

charge premium prices while pleasing the masses.

You must zero in on your avatars deep problems.

So we're going to be going through this process with the example of Jim.

Owners and let's say you're in an agency, let's say you're a marketing agency that

specializes in helping gym owners get members or get clients.

And so we have worked with, Jim agencies that help gym owners.

And so this was a great example for us to be sharing with you.

But again, think about this from the context of your own market.

So the other document that you have available to you is the sample document

that we're going to be going through here.

Which is the avatar and Niche worksheet gym owners.

You can download this as well from somewhere below the video.

Now the key point I want to make about this is you don't have to go through

these questions in a linear fashion, like you don't have to start with number one

or number two.

You can do what I mentioned a moment ago,

which is to start with the edges of the puzzle.

Start with the things that you know are the obvious questions that you have the

answers to because of your expertise.

Artists and experience with your market.

And then as you get to the places that you don't have, you can then go and get

that information. So you can fill these in.

But for the purposes of this video, just to make things a little easier to

consume, I'm going to be starting with one and then going all the way down to

the end of this document.

And again, I'm going to be speaking to

the examples that we have from the perspective of what you should really be

thinking about as you go through each of these questions.

I cannot underscore the importance of getting this right.

And if this looks like tedious work to you and it's not the work that you know

you were prepared to do what you wanted to do, I can tell you right now if you

don't do it, you are going to struggle in your marketing.

There's nothing more important than this work, and I know I'm repeating this

multiple times in this video, but I can tell you that when we look at our most

successful customers, they solve a specific problem for a specific person

and they know that.

Person and that problem as well or better

than any of their competitors in the marketplace.

So really give this your all.

Ok. So the first question is what's the

biggest result I can help a person achieve 2 to three statements.

So here you want to put in as few words as possible the statements of who you

serve. So in this case it's Jim owners and then

what the outcome is for their business.

So the formula here is you know I help X

which is the gym owners to do Y which is to get 5 to 10 calls with qualified

prospects and then if you can add a qualifier to it which would be the Y in

the formula. So I help X to do Y with Z for example.

The qualifier could be like every week or here's another one that we came up with

helping Jim owners.

Sale revenue at record speeds while

staying extremely capital efficient.

This is an example of the qualifier, and

the reason this is important is because when you put this kind of messaging in

front of your audience, there's boxes that need to get picked in the mind of

people who are going to be seeing your posts and seeing your ads or seeing your

LinkedIn profile or seeing your Facebook profile.

And when they see you come across their feed, they're going to want to know who

you are and what you do.

So this part here is really important

because you can use this as the headline for your social profile for your company

or for you personally if you're doing outreach on any of those platforms.

So helping gym owners scale revenue, that's the outcome at record speeds.

This is again another element that's part of the outcome.

And then while staying extremely capital efficient, that is something that is.

Relevant to the audience, right? What does your audience?

What does your target buyer? Fear or not want to do well.

This is the opposite of it, right? A lot of gym owners think they have to

spend a lot of money in order to scale revenue and that worries them.

So you can see we're already starting to develop and showcase that deep knowledge

of our market.

So if we show them an ad or a headline or

a social media profile, that says that you help them achieve the goal that they

want without doing the bad thing that they don't want or staying away from that

bad thing.

You're already aligning very closely to

the way they think and the things they're worried about.

So the difference between that one and this one, I help gym owners get leads in

sales. This is fine, but it's kind of like what

the rest of your market says, you know? And so having something that's more

potent, and that's why this is highlighted, is because it's really an

extremely good example of how important it is to focus on the specific outcome

and what they want in order to get.

Bad outcome.

Ok. Describe the favorite client that you've had that you want more of.

This is a good one because it gives you a filter to think about the people or

customers or clients you've worked with and start to draw out some of the

qualities of them that you like.

Because if you like them, chances are

good you got them results and they were a good customers or clients, so.

Working with struggling gym owners to get their marketing message, sales process

funnel ads dialed in.

I love the work very much got Members

proven results and profitability very quickly.

The owners are open minded, patient metrics driven, has existing revenue and

are not close to bankruptcy.

They're long-term thinkers who value

people and process and their owners who get the importance of understanding their

market and aligning their marketing.

To that, so you can see this is really

important context of like what is the kind of gym owner in this case.

If we're that agency that would be a great fit for us.

All right, number three.

What's the biggest problem your most

ideal client has? We want one to three paragraphs here.

Well, they need to close deals consistently with the repeatable,

scalable process based on precise market alignment and customer value.

They're burning cash.

They're likely not profitable.

They're probably freaked out.

They're going to go broke soon, and

they'll have to lay off all their most of the staff.

Then investors and family will never take them seriously again, and they'll have to

go back to a regular job whoa.

That is so insightful.

Like just knowing that you have to know that level of detail about the biggest

problem your most ideal client has continuing right along.

Maybe they've raised some funds for their gym, but they're not confident they'll be

able to hit profitability before they run out of runway and run out of money.

It's scary for the owner because they don't know how to get out of this

situation. That is really important to understand.

Again, thinking about.

Showing the mirror of their situation to

themselves, reminding them of that good marketing should freak people out, but

also then rescue them with the outcome that they want or the pain they want to

get away from.

Ok. What frustrates your ideal client the

most? Again, we want to describe this in rich

detail. Well, they're being left behind.

They know that sales and sales process is important, but they don't know how to do

it right. They're struggling with strategy and

messaging. They're very short on time.

Maybe they're struggling with their product if it's a, you know, a gym.

It's like a get fit service over a certain period of time or months, or

supporting their existing clients out of the gym.

They need to get more customers.

They see other gym owners doing it and

they have fear of missing out.

Maybe he or she is sick of advertising on

the radio and sending out Flyers.

They're not getting any results.

Maybe if they are having sales calls they're inconsistent and they're not

closing a high enough percentage.

Or maybe they aren't totally sure on

their exact market.

Are there offer or they don't have a

sales process that can take a stranger to a closed sale?

Again, this is the level of detail that we need to know and we want to get close

to 20 here if we can.

All right, what are the four to five

steps for them to achieve success and get results?

Now these four to five steps are what you do at the highest level.

So we don't want to explain how you do it, we just want to explain.

What you do in order to go from where they are to where they should be, O in

this case, the agency that would help the customer, the gym owner, get

profitability and scale up sales.

The first step is fixed foundation, so

that would be the focus.

So they have to get clear on their buyer

avatar. They have to figure out what the offer

is, you know, what's the gym going to promote, you know is it a just a gym

membership or is it a gym membership? Less nutrition or gym membership, plus

nutrition, plus mindset coaching plus accountability, right.

There's all kinds of things that you've really got to get clear on that their

avatar will get as a result of their signing up.

And the thing to remember here is, and again this is true for you too, and what

you're offering your audience, is that a compelling offer is 75 % of marketing,

packaging. The how part is how you get them into it.

That's only 25 % of marketing.

You know, like the different membership

plans. It's what the Avatar gets is the main

piece here. And then in this case it's messaging,

email scripts, funnel architecture, drip sequences.

Notice how all of this lays beautifully into vbo and then next step implement

systems so that the gym owner can get time back.

I'm not going to go through these in great detail because you can see now the

level of detail you should have in your business for your target.

Market, but implementing systems is like sales process you know sales enablement

tools. Again you can see V about coming through

here sales automation to support funnel, throughput tracking sheets for daily and

weekly activity measurement, customer acquisition costs, their pipeline

metrics, lifetime value.

You know how long does a subscriber in

the in that gym stay on and then I'm going to market and iterating and scaling

with either.

Paid traffic or, you know, getting more

salespeople in the gym when their existing utilization rate of current

salespeople hits about 80 %, that's Nirvana for the gym owner is when they

have to add more salespeople.

But these are the things that marketing

agency would explain that the gym owner gets when they're communicating to the

market. Again, what they gets 75 % of it.

So imagine the gym owner saying, OK, well that's great.

You're an agency that can help us scale our revenue.

What do I get? Well, we're going to help you fix your

foundations, then we're going to implement systems to help you get time

back. Then we're going to help you go to market

and grow a profitable unit case based grow on a profitable unit case so that we

know we can then go to the next stage, which is to actually advertise.

And then when we are successful with that, we're going to be ready to scale up

salespeople once you hit 80 %.

Very clear. Alright, what keeps your

perfect client awake at night? Worrying fearful exams?

Anxious again? I'm not going to go through all of these

because you can read some of them.

I'm going to abbreviate the rest of this

document, but you want to take away the level of detail here as your inspiration

for what your target avatar should look like.

So things like they don't know how they're going to get their business up to

one hundred K to five hundred K a month, depending on their market.

You know, they might be able to get that big as they always wanted without

sacrificing their health, mental Wellness, or taking an irresponsible

financial risk. They feel like they've been fooled to

believe that it's possible for them to grow a profitable gym business and that

sales process is elusive for them.

Maybe they've never really believed it's

possible so That's something that keeps them awake at night.

They wonder what they're going to have to do to fix their problem, or that they're

going to have to do so much work.

Or they fear that the market doesn't want

their product.

Maybe they bought a whole bunch of gym

equipment that is the wrong kind.

Or, you know, maybe they bought spin

bikes or something.

So these are all the kinds of things that

you need to know about your avatar.

All right?

This one's really important.

What humiliates your perfect client?

Could it be an event or an occurrence they're trying to avoid?

So here are some examples.

O maybe thinking they were going to close

a client, but then they lost the sale and they have no idea why.

That would be super embarrassing.

Maybe they've been setting business

goals, but they missed them because they aren't closing more deals and signing out

more members.

Maybe they don't want to have to get a

real job because they're not creating enough cash flow.

Oh, that would be so embarrassing for the gym owner, right?

He's working at, you know, some other job in order to support himself or herself

because they're Jim.

Is struggling financially.

These are all the kinds of things that you really want to understand ask if you

don't know, ask your customers.

What's the cost of staying where they are

right now, and how bad can things become if they don't fix it?

I really love this one because it anchors the problem around tangible things.

So in the case of the gym owner again, that whole thing about having to get a

job and being humiliated if their gym business didn't work out is really a big

one. High salesperson turnover and having to

retrain salespeople repeatedly, that is expensive or they'll have to work.

Crazy hours to fit in all the sales calls because they have such a terrible closed

percentage. Maybe they'll like lose confidence in

themselves or their business or their spouse will leave them.

I mean, you can see these are pretty hard hitting outcomes and that's what you want

to get to.

All right?

What's their most urgent pressing crisis they have to have resolved right away.

You know, what's the real pain they're facing right now?

The thing they need to get fixed immediately.

This is really important because as I mentioned earlier in the video, you

really want to meet.

Your avatar, where they are in their

journey, are they just struggling with the vision or they're coming to reality

with their problems, or do they already know that they have a problem and they're

looking at solutions? That's really important because if the

problem is they're trying to decide which gym to sign up with, that's very

different than the person who's just come to the realization that they have a

health condition that could affect their longevity that's a different place.

So it's really important to understand that like where is your target avatar

typically in their awareness of their situation and that's really important.

So in this case, the gym owner needs to consistently get customers with a proven

sales process that can scale revenue.

There it is.

What are the top three things that frustrate your perfect clients on a daily

basis? Is it doing things they don't want to do?

Is it people? Is it circumstances?

Is it chores? These are the examples that we've come up

with. So maybe they're putting in a ton of

content on social media and it's not working.

Maybe they're having 10 sales calls lined up and dreading it because they're not

going to close any of them.

Maybe they have no sales calls lined up

and not knowing how to make sales happen consistently.

Maybe people come in to sales calls and they say I'll have to think about it and

they're constantly dealing with that.

That's a big problem.

So these are some examples, 11 what does your perfect client.

Want more than anything else, this one is really important because in the next

module, I'm going to talk about a strategy for actually going out and

creating the content in your market around what you're doing right now in

this module. And it's really important for you to get

this one dialed because it's going to help you when it's time to open up your

laptop and start writing content to strike a nerve with your audience and

yank them into your world.

So here's a few examples.

They want the confidence that they can really take their business to the next

level without working harder.

They want less pain trying to figure out

how to grow the business with unproven strategies.

They want Peace of Mind.

They're going to be able to have a bigger

impact on their market.

Maybe they want to be able to

consistently break the six figure a month amount.

Finally, maybe they want just want a business they can be proud of.

Or maybe they want a gym that can attract members.

Without having to be worried about it every single day.

It's really important.

This is the heaven that we talk about.

We contrast heaven and hell and this is the heaven.

These are examples of heaven that we want to put in front of our audience.

Remember, we're showing them themselves.

The mirror.

All right, explain what you would do if you were in their situation.

The high level steps.

Again, we want to explain the what, not

the how here.

So maybe they need to do buyer avatar

work. Maybe they need to do market and niche

focus maybe they need to be very specific on the outcome that they provide.

Maybe they need to optimize their pricing or validate access channels.

Like is it best to be marketing and putting messaging out on YouTube or on

Twitter or Facebook? Like what is it, you know, that's really

important. Maybe they need more powerful case

studies of people who came into the gym and they were out of shape and tired,

with low energy and terrible quality of life.

And then after working together with them 90 days, they were vibrant and

attractive. And full of energy and more productive

and getting promotions and, you know, just having a great time in life.

Those are maybe the kinds of things that your mind goes to when you think of what

you would do, what you would do if you were in their situation.

Alright, what are the biggest mistakes your perfect client is making right now?

Again, super important.

This is the hell of the marketing content

you're going to be creating.

Remember we're contrasting the heaven and

the hell.

This is really important for you to

really spend time on and invest to get right.

So I'll give you a few examples here, maybe the gym owners making the mistake

of focusing on low yield business development activities like maybe

they're. Spending money on radio ads or Flyers or

cold calling or old school networking and counting on referrals.

You know, maybe that stuff doesn't work anymore in their market.

And for a lot of gym owners it doesn't.

A lot of gym owners know they can just

buy a 5000$ radio ad and put fifteen hundred dollars into Flyers in their

local neighborhood, but they get a really low yield on those efforts.

So this is again the kind of thing that you want to be writing about as we'll

talk about in content creation and the next module if you know.

This stuff, and you can put it out there, you do what we call kick the bruised knee

of your target avatar and remind them of how bad their situation is.

That gets their attention because they say yes, that's me, I'm struggling with

that. Yes, I've spent so much money on radio

ads and Flyers and I don't think I've had more than one member.

And the Members we get are bargain discount shoppers.

They only care about price, and then they cancel in two months.

So again.

Reminding your buyer, showing that

mirror, putting that mirror in front of them, maybe hiring salespeople before

they have a proof of concept and a clear buyer avatar validated.

But maybe that's a mistake.

Maybe the gym owners think I'm just going

to hire a bunch of salespeople and they're going to get me clients.

Maybe that's a mistake because they themselves don't know who the best client

or gym member is.

Maybe another thing is spending money on

ads, social media ads before they have that proof of concept.

And their organic sales funnel working really good example of a mistake that a

gym owner could be making and then the next one here.

Putting a lot of time and the majority of their focus into content marketing like

writing blogs or creating YouTube videos, Twitter posts, Facebook posts, LinkedIn

posts. Without a clear return on investment in

time, money or their ability to measure that.

You know, as an agency that helps Jim owners, you'd be able to come to them

with measurement tools that give them clear.

Return on investment.

And you could use Vibo if you were an

agency, of course, because you can show them the impact.

You see how all this comes together.

It's a beautiful thing.

Alright, so I'm not going to go through this entire piece, but again, we'll be

talking about in the next module how to write about the mistakes.

And putting this down here gives you the raw materials you need to then write

endless content that will be potent in your market to get the attention.

Of your market.

This is a really important one.

What is your perfect client complain about when they're with family or friends

like? Do they not have enough money?

Not enough time? They don't know how to do something, so

some examples they're working their tail off.

Maybe they don't have any friends because they're working their tail off.

They're constantly working.

You know they have an empty sales

calendar. Sales calendar.

Find out what your target complains about when they're sitting at a coffee shop

with their friends about their business and documented here.

All right.

Name and link to your foremost important

competitors. This is important because we want to take

a look at their marketing.

We want to see what they're doing and if

they are successful, we want to try and reverse engineer some of that because

it's possible they've done some of this work already and we can turn it into a

version of our messaging.

So really important to think about that.

My guess is you probably already know who they are.

So put them down here, Avatar targeting specifics.

So we want to have job titles, we want to have, you know, the ideal company size,

and we want to have geography.

And the reason this is important is if

you're doing organic marketing.

Let's say you're using LinkedIn and maybe

you're using LinkedIn sales navigator to do searches for your target market in

your target geography.

Having this information here is going to

make your search easy because you can just draw upon it when it's time to enter

these details in the search filters.

All right.

And then finally, this is what we call the access channel avatar targeting

specifics. Where does this person hang out online

where you can reach them and put messaging in front of them, list three to

five places you know you can find them.

So I mentioned LinkedIn and LinkedIn

sales navigator a moment ago.

It's very helpful.

Linkedin groups, that could be one thing, could be Facebook groups that could be.

Another, and it goes without saying here that you could also just say they're on

Facebook or they're on LinkedIn because when you are going to ads like going to

create and spend money on ads, if you know that your target avatar is in a

Facebook group or if they're in a LinkedIn group, well, they're of course

on the platform as well.

So that is really important, the level of

specificity that we want for groups.

Is important because we can go into those

groups and start writing about the heaven and hell of the situation that buyer has

and that becomes very powerful.

So this is what it takes.

This is what's required to become.

An amazing marketer, a powerful marketer,

a skilled marketer in the business that we're in today.

And I hope this was helpful for you.

And again, we're here to support.

If you have any questions, please reach out.

But remember the pitfalls, remember the objectives of the exercise.

And if you get this part right, everything else is going to flow much

more successfully for you in your marketing.

All right.

Thank you for watching.