For beginners, it is important to get the right customer before creating an offer. Take a page and put your product or service concept at the top. Don’t worry about features, tiers, bonuses, or price. Under the concept, write a single straightforward sentence that describes who the customer is. Avoid something generic like “everyone who needs assistance” or “people who want the best quality.” Think about the specific moment when the customer would be in a position to make a purchase: the working parent trying to figure out dinners for the week, the independent designer setting up a system for their invoices, the small business owner figuring out how to save on inventory costs, or the work-from-home professional in search of a more organized home office.
This step can be slow because the offer is more fun. It is easier to think about the package, the products, the logo, or the sales page than it is to think of a customer who fits a product or service. But it is difficult to sell an offer that wasn’t created with a certain customer in mind. An offer created for anyone tends to become too generalized, it becomes difficult to sell because it promises too much to everyone, and the pricing is complicated by the lack of value to the customer.
Customer profiles do not have to be complex. In the initial stage, all you have to do is write who this person is, what the problem is, what solutions they may have already considered, their anxieties around the purchase, and what will prove value to the offer. Doing so will transform a concept from a possibility to a viable business. Consider the service idea: “cleaners for busy professionals.” Versus, “weekly apartment cleaning for working professionals who get embarrassed when their friends or family come over.”
It also keeps you focused on adding features you don’t necessarily need. When you are building an offer, it is easy to overbuild with features and then spend time trying to explain why the customer should want all those features. It is better to have a small, powerful offer. Ask: Does this person need fast service? Will reassurances around the offer help close the deal? Would they prefer a cheaper, easier option? The offer starts to meet the reason the customer needs the product.
You can test this concept with a customer checklist before you go back to redesigning the offer. What will the customer need? What can they get out of it? What might cause them to pause? What proof or messaging will be helpful to reassure the customer? This exercise helps you clarify the offer itself, as well as positioning and pricing and sales tactics. It also helps you identify who the best competitors to study are; it isn’t all the other products like it, it is the products that your specific customer would likely consider.
This customer profile will not likely be perfect. It is a starting point that you can refine, revise, or shift based on feedback, research, and the economics of the project. However, this is a step up from no customer profile. You will have something to test against. With a generic customer profile, you only have a general idea of what could work.
Once you have a working customer profile and your offer, read the customer sentence out loud. Does the sentence describe something you actually need? Does it apply to a broader population than you want to reach? Sharpen the focus of the sentence. Does it point to a real problem, and a potential solution? If it doesn’t, your customer profile needs work. But if you have it, your offer is ready. All you have to do is fill in your one-page business plan with the pieces you need, the next steps you can take, and the value that you are selling.