What is an Ideal Client Profile and Why You Need One for Your Cleaning Business

To win new clients for your cleaning business, you need to be clear about three things:

1. Your Target Market;
2. Your Niche; and
3. Your Ideal Client

Before marketing to your ideal clients, you need a detailed understanding of who they are. You need to know which marketing channels to use and what marketing messages and offers will resonate with them.

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It allows you to understand to who you’re marketing your cleaning services to.

It also enables you to tailor your marketing messages to target a particular type of client.

Many cleaning businesses fail to do this. They offer a commodity-based service where prospects choose based on price rather than value.

To position your cleaning business in a category of one and create predictable revenue, you need to create an ICP.

What is an Ideal Client Profile and Why You Need One for Your Cleaning Business

• What is an Ideal Client Profile
• The Benefits of having an Ideal Client Profile for your Cleaning Business
• How do you Build an Ideal Client Profile for your Cleaning Business
• Ideal Client Profile Mistakes to Avoid
• Key Takeaways

1. What is an Ideal Client Profile?

An ideal client profile (ICP) is an in-depth assessment of the perfect client for your cleaning business. It outlines companies that your cleaning business wants to do business with.

An ICP defines the different attributes of those companies, including:

• Industry
• Annual Revenue
• Employee count
• Challenges and pain points
• Strategic goals

Having these insights guides the marketing and business development of your cleaning business.

A detailed ICP enables you to create specific content for inbound marketing. You're also able to create lists of potential clients for outbound marketing campaigns.

With a marketing focus on your ICP, you create targeted and relevant leads for your cleaning business.

It also increases the chances of winning cleaning contracts from clients you want to work with.

Knowing and understanding your ICP is an important part of growing your cleaning business.

What’s the difference between an ICP and a Customer Avatar?

You might have heard of customer avatars or buying personas.

An ICP identifies the type of company you want to work with. Whereas a customer avatar identifies the decision-maker(s) at that company.

A customer avatar factors in personal characteristics like:

• pain points,
• goals,
• personality traits,
• demographics; and
• psychographics.

Creating customer avatars as well as an ICP fine-tunes the marketing for your cleaning business.

The quantifiable characteristics of your ICP together with the emotional insights of a customer avatar help direct your cleaning business toward the right type of client.

2. What are the benefits of creating an Ideal Client Profile for your Cleaning Business

Marketing efforts that target a broad range of prospects are often unsuccessful.

"When you  market to everyone, you market to no one."

If 90% of your marketing is being ignored, you’re spending time and money reaching prospects that will never convert.

An ICP allows you to create content and marketing material that is relevant to your best type of clients.

It helps you to:

• Plan and launch more successful marketing campaigns;
• Optimize your marketing message specifically to your ideal client’s needs;
• Reduce marketing spending and customer acquisition costs. You don't waste resources on prospects that don't convert. Instead, you attract ideal clients with whom you can build long business relationships. This, in turn, increases the lifetime value of your clients, which increases revenue.
• Improve your sales strategy and process. By understanding your ideal client's pain points, you know what to say to a prospect to win them over.
• Create more relevant content. Every blog post, LinkedIn post, or YouTube Video created attracts your ideal client.
• Boost lead generation and save time on low-quality leads.

Building an ICP for your cleaning business deepens your understanding of existing clients. It also helps attract new clients.

Having detailed knowledge about your clients is key to being successful in a very competitive cleaning market.

3. Does having an Ideal Client Profile limit your Cleaning Business?

You may think that an ICP limits the opportunities for your cleaning business.

In reality, focusing your marketing and sales efforts on one ICP increases performance and drives better results.

By niching down and specializing, you’re cornering a section of a  particular market. You position your cleaning business in a category of 1.

Your ideal clients value your service because you understand their problems and requirements.

In return, you can charge a higher price for cleaning because your service is not a commodity.

Building an ICP doesn’t mean that your cleaning business has to turn away business.

The point of an ICP is to provide focus, not exclusion.

Exclusions may apply in certain instances. For example, you could decline to work for a client who doesn't meet the revenue criteria in your ICP. You do this knowing that they cannot offer the contract size or margins that you need.

When you're building an ICP for your cleaning business, keep in mind the following:

• Don't create an ideal client profile that’s too broad. Too many generalizations mean ending up with an ideal client profile that doesn't have the essential details you need.
• On the flip side, don’t get too hyper-focused with your ideal client profile. Excluding important details or invaluable insights creates an unsuitable ideal client profile.
• Base your ideal client profile o real-life company characteristics. This requires researching your existing client base and external market research. Avoid using characteristics that relate to a specific company. Instead, identify common characteristics of a particular type of business.

As you build your ICP, strike a balance between outlining ideal client characteristics without being too vague.

Your cleaning business will end up with an ICP that’s a true representation of a particular set of companies in your chosen market.

4. How do you build an Ideal Client Profile for your Cleaning Business?

To build an ICP for your cleaning business, use two sources:

• Market Research
• Client Research

One requires you to assume a lot about your clients. The other gives your more accurate insights.

Market Research

If you have very little client history or you’re shifting focus to attract a new set of clients, start by using Google.

The following sources will help you learn more about your target audience:

• Industry research or reports. Focus on documents published by industry associations and other professional bodies.
• Customer discussions on online forums, industry communities, Q&A sites, etc.
• LinkedIn and Job sites. By reviewing job descriptions you discover your ICP's responsibilities, skill sets, and challenges.

You may not find the most accurate insights, but you can find enough details to get you started.

You can outsource the market research on platforms like Fiverr or Upwork. Or you can use market research companies.

Either way,  you provide the parameters and the information you need and they will do the work for you.

Specialists will use tools and techniques that you don't have access to. As a result, they can provide you with better, more informed market research.

Client Research

The most valuable data source for your ICP is your best clients - past and current.

You can build the ICP for your cleaning business based on research and feedback from clients. Doing this creates an ICP that includes your best client information with data based on reality.

1) Make a List of Your Best Clients

Use the 80/20 Principle to identify your best clients. The characteristics of your top 20% of clients should include:

• The most profitable;
• The best lifetime value; and
• Payment within an acceptable collection period.

You should also consider these questions:

• Do you like working with this client?
• Does the client provide positive and constructive feedback?
• Do you provide a high ROI in delivering cleaning services requested by the client?

2) Collect Client Feedback

Speak with your top clients and understand their common characteristics. Find out why they find your cleaning service valuable and where to make improvements.

The sorts of questions to include ask are:

• What people in your company make decisions about selecting a cleaning service provider?
• What’s the size of your company (revenue, employees)?
• In which industry or industries does your company work?
• What is your cleaning/facilities budget per year?
• What social networks do you use and how do you use them?
• How do you begin the search for a new cleaning company? Do you search for a company on Google? If so, what keywords do you use?
• Why did you decide to work with our cleaning business?
• What did the decision process look like for your team?
• How are we unique from other cleaning businesses you have worked with?
• What are three important qualities you look for in a cleaning business?

3) Compile the Information & Create Your Ideal Client Profile

Use the information collected to build an ICP with details of:

• Industry
• Annual Revenue
• Employee count
• Location
• Cleaning/Facilities Budget
• Buying process
• Do they use paid ads
• Social media activity
• Challenges and pain points
• Value proposition
• Strategic goals

Once built, use the ICP to drive the marketing, business development, sales, and customer service for your cleaning business.

5. Ideal Client Profile Mistakes to Avoid

Avoid making these common mistakes as you build your ICP:

1) Creating a broad profile

It’s easy to make your ICP too broad and unfocused. Don’t try to include too many elements in a single profile.

You should aim to correspond your ICP to real-life clients and how they relate to your business.

The more client information you have, the better you can understand the type of client you want to sell to.

2) Not talking to real clients

As mentioned, the more information you have about your clients the better.

You should collect feedback from your clients as well. Take the opportunity to speak to people and get a better idea of what they are looking for from a cleaning service.

Post surveys on social media and join industry-specific forums and Facebook groups.

Build an ICP that's closer to the real-life clients you're aiming to target for your cleaning business.

3) Not creating ‘no-go’ profiles

When you’re building your ICP, don’t only think about those clients who will buy your cleaning service. Consider the sort of clients you want to exclude from your marketing efforts as well.

Chasing prospects that are unlikely to buy your cleaning service is a waste of time and money.

Create ‘no-go’ client profiles of the types of clients who are not likely to buy your cleaning service. These profiles can help save time and resources that don’t result in sales and revenue.

4) Failing to measure the effectiveness of your ICP

Once you’ve built your ICP, you need to measure its effectiveness.

Use the ICP for marketing and business development, sales, and customer service. Otherwise, there is no point in spending the time and effort to create one.

As you start using your ICP, measure which clients interact with you and review your ICP from time to time based on this information.

You can then adjust or replace your ICP based on how effective, or otherwise, it proves to be.

Key Takeaways

Having a well-defined ICP focuses the marketing and sales for your cleaning business.

You’ll see a better ROI by being specific about the clients you want to do business with vs going broad and general.

The ICP for your cleaning business doesn’t have to be set in stone.

As you find out more information about current and future clients, it should evolve.

The key is being crystal clear about who your cleaning service is for. Without a defined ICP, you miss opportunities to contact and convert prospects into clients. Marketing and sales campaigns become more general and don’t have the same impact.

By having a clear ICP, you give your cleaning business the best chance of winning new clients.

You're able to provide more value to your ideal client because you understand their needs.

As a result, you're able to position your cleaning business as a leader and authority in your market.