Business owners and sales reps who try to sell to everyone will struggle to succeed until they decide to focus their efforts on the ideal customer. Today, Dr. Frances Richards, whose company helps people reclaim their wealth by transforming their health, talks about the journey of finding her ideal customer. Sales From The Street allows us to connect with a sales professional and hear about the biggest professional struggles that person faced. Dr. Frances is the host of a podcast called Black Entrepreneur Experience, where she interviews CEOs, innovative thinkers, thought leaders, and black entrepreneurs across the globe. Finding a tribe Her biggest struggle was finding her ideal customer, and connecting with the people that her message would resonate with. When you're building an internet business, there are so many different ways to connect with people that it can sometimes be overwhelming for businesses that are trying to find their tribe. She points to the fact that there are plenty of people telling you what you should do to connect with your ideal client, so it's tough to know what to do. She said that people told her, "It's all in the email list," or "It's all in social media," or "It's all in Facebook advertising," or "It's all in the messaging." Changing landscape The hardest part, she said, is trying to determine what's really relevant. And with the internet constantly changing things, the way you build a company in 2019 is different than the steps you might have taken in 2014. The steps to find your ideal customer have changed. And when you talk about sales, certain steps are appropriate whether you're online or offline. Building rapport, and building quality relationships, matters in every situation. Authenticity Dr. Frances said that in order to find her ideal customer, she had to block out all the noise and focus on authenticity. She started by deprogramming herself from the idea of working for someone else. She said she had to adjust to the idea of working for herself and to lose all of the things she was accustomed to, like listening to the bosses tell her what she needed to do. Because she had done many different kinds of sales, she was able to change her mindset from employee mode to employer mode. Then she had to be true to who she really wanted to serve. When she was an employee, she had to serve anyone. Once she started to define who to serve, then she started to attract her ideal customer as opposed to just doing cold calling. To-do lists She had an extensive to-do list of doing 10 posts a day, doing a Facebook live, doing a Periscope, posting on LinkedIn, and all of those other things. She was busy working on the business instead of in the business, which actually brings in income. Once she prioritized how she would get sales and how she would bring value, she got out of the mode of being desperate. She was listening to her clients' pain points and she set out to serve them. She went into the mode of serving and helping her clients, her fan base, her tribe. Dr. Frances has turned down consulting contracts because she wanted to make it a win-win for all parties involved. She operates from a position of making sure both parties are a good fit. Qualified clients The shift to serving her clients resulted in more qualified clients. Previously she connected with clients who really couldn't afford her service so it would have been a disservice to try to work together. She started asking her prospects what they hoped to accomplish and if someone said, "I want to lose 50 pounds in 5 days," she wouldn't even try to convince the person to work with her since the goals were unrealistic. She has found that when she gets qualified, bonafide clients, the two enjoy working together. The clients are getting results and she is building testimonies. [Tweet "Avoid the temptation to work with everyone because everyone is not your ideal client. #IdealCustomer"] Ideal client Just serve the people who really need what you have