Question for Marriage Minded Singles – Who Is Your Target Ideal Prospect?

Marriage Minded Singles: Identify Your Ideal Prospects to Target Them for Marketing and Selling Efforts

While as a dating coach one of the behaviors I recommend to singles just getting into the swing of dating either after a social dry spell or dating again is that you date a lot and date a variety of singles.  In a manner, by doing so, you are breaking out of a social rut as well as your mental frame and definition of yourself.  Sometimes the package of what you want and need in a marriage relationship does not present itself in quite the way you have in mind.  So many single then married women will attest to their dear love wasn’t quite what they had been looking for but was everything they had really hoped for.  So, they did have an idea of what they wanted.  Just the packaging of the person is sometimes pleasantly unexpected.  By getting out and dating a variety of other singles, you stretch yourself socially.

Well, that is a good initial exercise.  The same holds true for business owners responsible for their own business development and sales as well as for the front line sales people who sell the services or goods of a company.  When you are first starting out, you need to talk to a variety of people about your business and what you do.  You drink a lot of coffee, sip many glasses of wine at chamber of commerce mixers, and sip fizzy water galore in order to get the word out initially about your business.

However, after a few months of doing this either for the business person or the single, you have enough stretching and experience under your belt that it is now time to focus your efforts.  You should have had enough experience of what works and what doesn’t work that you start to be more discerning.  As a single, what that means is you flirt with many people, but you neither pursue nor accept just any date.  As a business person that means that you shake hands with many but do not pursue the networking conversation with everyone.  Additionally, not everyone who applies to become your customer qualifies to do business with you.

As a business person, when I am speaking before a business association and ask the small business owners present, “Who is your client?  Give me an example of 3-5 profiles of your typical client.”  If they cannot do that and respond it could be anyone then I know for sure they aren’t doing enough business.  If you cannot tell me a few examples of your target ideal prospective (T.I.P.) client then you don’t recognize them.  If you are not choosing and discerning based on the criteria of your T.I.P. either in business or romance, eventually you are wasting your time.  In business the expression is, “If anyone can be your client than no one is.”

In marketing terms, who are your niche markets?  Let’s be real.  You cannot be an expert at servicing anyone and everyone.  One of my criteria for accepting dating coaching clients applications is I ask a number of questions about their relationship motivation.  They have to want it.  Many people may “need” my help, but if they don’t want it and value it, they won’t take all the actions necessary for actual success.  I won’t waste my valuable intellectual property of those who don’t want it.  The other side about that is it would be annoying to the other to thrust advice upon them which didn’t solicit and don’t want.  I mean, unsolicited advice is always a bit annoying isn’t it?

On the dating front, after a time of dating, you will start to develop a list of a few essential characteristics for your T.I.P.  Mature singles with good discernment, that list isn’t  “Not divorced.”  Instead, the attributes start to reflect the person’s character – “generous spirit”  or “kindness” – as well as “financially stable” – and relationship skills valuing “good communicator of their emotions, wants, and needs.”  As that list refines and reflects real people and not a protect-my-wounded-heart list than their chances of finding lasting love and getting married increases exponentially.

What about you?  In business, love, and romance, what are some of the characteristics and attributes of your T.I.P.?

Happy Dating and Relationships,

April Braswell
Marriage Minded Singles Dating and Relationship Expert