How to Pinpoint your Ideal Customer

July 28, 2021

How to Pinpoint your Ideal Customer

“Gosh, honestly, it does not feel like work. We work hard, we work long hours still, and but we have a ton of fun doing it. And it really does not feel like I’m clocking in clocking out, you know, and like I said, we like having the flexibility of a schedule, we’ve been living in the shop still a little bit. And it’s just kind of how it goes sometimes. But we will have some flexibility down the road.

So the next step for us is just to keep growing, I want to bring on some more equipment, I mean we still have a pretty good lineup of everything we need that gets us by really well. But I still want to continue to grow and add product and add, like I mentioned a second powered kiln, and we’ll have some solar kilns to complement that to kind of pre-dry a little bit but I want to have a bigger shop in the next two years. I want to have, twice the space, and I want to be drying twice the amount of wood and getting twice the sales.”

Nick Mooers

The Power of an Outside View

“This past year, we started working together a little bit more. And when I was launching the Woodpreneur mentorship program, I’d reached out to you because we kept in touch and I just noticed how you just kept progressively growing your business. Why did you join the Woodpreneur mentorship program?”

Steve Larosiliere

As you mentioned, we’ve chatted off and on over the years, and but you’ve always been a great resource for us in terms of “Hey, here’s what you should try to focus on. Do this next and see what happens.” We’ve done those things, and it’s worked out well.

Especially with making the transition to full time, having some outside eyes and ears where I can talk with you about our certain situation, you can say “Hey, why don’t you try this?” It was a ton of fun because you’ll see things that we don’t see, or see avenues to go down that we hadn’t really thought of before and it’s worked out great because we can kind of focus on that.

It kind of hits a whole new market for us, when we would’ve never noticed it, or just overlooked it completely before. An outside view is always always a good thing because you get focused on what you’re doing, and you can kind of get a little bit of tunnel vision, so it’s very good to have some outside perspective.

Being Results-Oriented

So I mean [since the mentorship program] business has just steadily been picking up. One of the things that you mentioned was “Let’s do some more posts, let’s keep people updated on what you’re doing day to day, and kind of show everyone along the way.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ll do a quick video of what’s going on in the shop, or us walking through the log deck, and someone will send a note and say, “Hey, I’ve been thinking about doing this project, I just saw that one you’re working on. Can we do something just like that?” It’s a direct response from them seeing it right then.

Before, I would get busy doing things and forget to take photos or videos or anything like that. But that was the big thing. I always think about this, and you said “It takes you two extra minutes to kind of snap a photo or a quick video, and then you can look at it later and post it later.” And yeah, no need to write the caption right away, you don’t need to do it right then and there. You don’t have to stop and think about what to say or anything, just take a quick photo or video and look at it later when you’re at home, kicking back and with a fresh mind.

The response has been great. As soon as I started doing more of that, people were like, “Oh, I love it, keep doing this! It’s fun to see what’s going on in the shop right now or what you’re doing!” When you post your story, it speaks to somebody, it’s the guy thinking about building a mill cover when we just posted a story about doing our mill cover. Those are the guys that are reaching out and chatting about different ideas and things. It’s the engagement with our followers that I normally wouldn’t have had on this regular basis otherwise.

Finding your Target

“One of the things we came up with was figuring out who your ideal customer was as we came up with your avatar. Another result of that was building this little network of people around you and some nice relationships as well, that emerged. How do you feel about that change?”

Steve Larosiliere

It was exactly like you said, it was pinpointing who my ideal customer is, and what are they doing? What are they thinking about? It came down to getting in their head a little bit. Once we kind of started thinking that way and building those relationships it kept working great. I’m a big relationship guy, too. I’ve worked with the same fab shop and my main suppliers for many, many years throughout different businesses. I stay with them, no matter what I’m doing.

I’m a big believer in keeping that relationship going when you have a good relationship. So I want to be that relationship for some of these local shops and woodworkers, and just anyone really wants to be involved with it.

“Knowing your market helps so much. It takes an abundance mindset to say “Listen. This is my lane. I’m gonna stick with it.” And Nick’s lane is walnut, right? All sorts of variety, mainly black walnut, but walnut is what he knows. Then on top of that, he’s drying for himself and has created a platform and a resource for his community. And he knows who his target market is.

Once you know your target market and you know what you’re doing, then you can literally build your business around that. What does this target market need? Oh, they need kiln-dried lumber. What does this target market need? They need flattened slabs because they don’t have space for it. You have the space for it. You love to produce usable lumber. I see the path that you’re going and I’m sure it feels twisting and winding but you know where you’re going because you have a target.”