Dr. Jurgen StraussAre you ready for an open discussion with the best of the best and the best of what’s next? Welcome to the Tony DUrso Show. Join in on a great conversation today with some of the world’s great influencers as they showcase great advice and techniques that made them the game changers they are today. Now here’s Tony DUrso. Tony: Welcome I’m your host Tony DUrso. I interviewed some of the most successful people in the world and I thank you for joining us. The show is dedicated to helping you turn your vision into reality. And here’s a successful entrepreneur who provides insights and guidance you can use to move along your vision path. And you can listen to all of my shows and most podcast platforms. If you have Apple podcasts, AKA iTunes, please subscribe. And if you like what you’re here, Hey, a kind review really makes my day and you know what? It’s going to make your day too. And now before we get going, here’s a big thank you to some amazing sponsors of our show. Please stay tuned for an important message from Ancestry DNA who connects you to the places in the world where your story started and coming up as a significant message from Zapier about an online automation tool that connects your apps and services. You need this more info on them just ahead. So please stay tuned. Today’s show is about your ideal clients with Dr. Jurgen Strauss. Let’s see what we can learn through the success of others. And here’s some info on Dr. Jurgen Strauss. He’s the host of the Innova Buzz podcast over 200 episodes and the Tales of Marketing Transformation show. He’s is the owner and chief innovator of Innova biz and he partners with innovative, exceptional business coaches and consultants to enable them to acquire more leads and more business by reaching their target ideal audience with their message. Oh, and by the way, at the very end of this interview, I’m going to do a little summary recap of what we talked about. So stay tuned for that. And guys, he’s brilliant. Here we go. Welcome to the show Jurgen. I am so glad to have you on and I want to thank you once again for having me on your show Innova Biz and I’m so proud to have you back on. Thank you and welcome. Jurgen: Thank you, Tony. It’s real pleasure to be on the Tony DUrso show and to be here and hopefully to serve your audience because you really contributed a great deal to my insights in our interview on the Innova buzz podcast and certainly I’m looking forward to sharing that with my audience, which I think we’re doing today as we record this. Tony: Oh, thank you so much. That’s very cool and I love the concept of it’s not a concept. I love what we’re going to talk about. We’re going to talk about your ideal client and I just can’t wait to jump in and get some real information to our audience, which I now call visionaries because they’re out there trying to achieve their vision. They’re out there looking for what can they do? They’re solo-preneurs, they’re entrepreneurs, they want to get there. They’re great vision, they’re a great item, they’re great product into reality. And it’s with shows like this and information that we can give them that guidance so that they can speed up. So I am jazzed, but right before we do that, we’d all love to know first things first. How did it all start for you? What’s your backstory? Jurgen: Well, my backstory, I mean I’m, I studied chemistry at university and for almost 30 years in the corporate world, progressing through a whole range of roles from starting off in the laboratory and doing work in the laboratory through to managing teams, first of all, people in one location. But then I ended up having multiple teams across seven different countries. So different cultures, different languages, different, you know, different values and beliefs. And so it was a real challenge to bring all that together into one team and obviously learned a lot during that time, made a lot of mistakes, but learned a lot at the same time and gained experience in a whole range of areas as I progressed through different things like marketing and business management, product development, supply chain management. And of course, all the time managing people and, and a lot of travel. So that was fun on the one hand. But on the other hand, of course quite draining in a personal sense with family and children growing up. So often there were times I would miss key events with my children, but at the same time, I did have the flexibility to balance that with taking time off when there were important events around. So I had a bit of flexibility, also did a lot of work from home because with the international nature of the business, there are a lot of teleconferences that were either late at night or early in the morning for my time. And so I learned the discipline to work from home, which has served me really well now as I’ve gone out into my own business. So I saw a lot of changes in that time and a couple of the big ones of course, where the PC became a mainstream tool in business and the internet came up. So, and, and I was always fascinated by technology and innovation and what was coming down that track. And so I, I was a very early adopter of PCs and the internet and got involved in the internet early on. And my, I guess one of the things I’m really passionate about or why I’m really passionate about innovation is my very first job when I came out of university was in the photographic industry with Agfa to researching and developing new film material. Now that was a passion for me because ever since I can remember since I was a very young child, I was really passionate about photography and it’s been a hobby of mine still is. And so I thought I had the dream job. But of course, within about a year or two of, of starting that job, digital photography started to become mainstream in the consumer market. And the film manufacturers were very arrogant, I would say. They said, you know, this is never going to take off. The film is always going to be much better quality, so we’ll just keep making better films. And they didn’t understand that we’re not in the business of making a film or photographic paper. They were in the business of capturing memories for people. And now all of a sudden there was another way to do this. And yes, the early digital photography products that came on the market first were pretty poor quality, but they were certainly proof of concept. And you know, we know what happened since then. We know what’s happened to Agfa for and Kodak and to a lesser extent, Fuji because they did reinvent themselves a little bit. And so I saw the writing on the wall and moved on from the photographic industry. But that was a big lesson for me that, you know, you need to pay attention to what’s going on in the marketplace. You need to really understand what is it you’re doing for your clients in terms of the experience you’re providing for them, not just the product because they actually by the experience, not your product. And so that’s driven my philosophy around innovation, all the walls. So when I started my own business, it was almost a no brainer that I kind of use innovation as a core theme. And that’s why I called it and Innova Biz and built around, you know, marketing for innovative businesses and also marketing in an innovative way. But in some ways, we’ve gone back to core principles and that’s around really serving your customer. Tony: Very interested in, you know, what really got my attention. You never going to guess this in a little seg-way for our visionary audience here when I’ve interviewed some 500 people, millionaires, billionaires, and so forth. And when they say, Oh, you know, I made a few mistakes along the way. There’s always this little smirk. There’s a little smile. It sounds so, you know, kind of like cool, like, you know, I made a few mistakes. I hear this so many times, but I want to point out when you’re in it it’s like, Oh no, Oh my God. It’s like, Oh, it’s horrible. It’s terrible. Sometimes it’s like the world changes, you know? That’s right. Yeah. But when you’ve got through it, which you do and you look back, you realize it’s a great lesson is so if you make a mistake out there to your audience, you get through it. If you’re in like a catastrophe now get through it, it gets better and then you can look back at that and smile and go, yeah, I made a mistake. Hahaha, and I learned so much and now look at me, I’m so successful. So it really does happen. I just wanted to point that out as a little lesson and I do really appreciate you telling us your backstory. Very interesting. What’s happened, especially in the photography business and now it’s changed so much now, you know, movies, commercials, professional photography is done on an iPhone and a camera phone. It’s like, Jurgen: That’s right. Yeah. Tony: Who would have ever thought, so just a little segway. So now back to the main, to the main event. I would like to know you’re again, we would like to know about your vision for what you’re doing now and how that came about. Jurgen: Hmm. Well, as I said, I’ve always loved serving people and I get a real buzz out of knowing that I’ve made a difference in my contribution to their world or their business. And I’m also a lifelong learner. I love learning. So, when the internet came along and PCs came along, I was fascinated. I was curious about what, what can this do for me? And of course the inner geek in may as well kind of got excited, but a lot of it was around learning and then the ability to understand things and teach others. So it was kind of one part of my vision is to serve others through sharing what I’ve learned along the way. And also, you know, one of my philosophies is there’s no such thing as can’t. It’s, it’s only, I don’t know how to do that right now. So there’s, you know, and then there are two possibilities from there. I can either learn how to do that if I’m motivated enough and if I am, then I will learn how to do that and I can become good at it. If I’m not motivated enough to learn how to do that, but I am motivated to have that happen, have that done, then I’ll find somebody who’s good at doing that or who will become good at doing that. So, that’s another philosophy I have. I can help people in that way because I just won’t accept. There’s no way to do that. In a personal sense. My vision is really to leave my ideal day. So a lot of the work I do with clients, particularly when we do business planning stuff, is start off with what’s your ideal day? Because if you’re in business, you really should be in business to serve you. Your business should be there to serve you. So it’s around how would you like to live your ideal day and how would you then how can the business then support you doing that? So my vision is to live more of my ideal day and I’ve got a really detailed description of what that looks like. And you know, that’s sort of some of the things in that are going out for my early morning bike ride in lovely weather and you know, doing photography, as I said before. Maybe going out for a walk, spending time with my wife, visiting my children, one of whom is close by, but the other one is over in San Francisco, which is a little way away. So spending time with him also, and I don’t take kindly to the Melbourne winter. It’s very miserable. Dam dam wet cold. So, you know, one uh, one part of my ideal day is looking at the year and dividing it up into three and spending of that time, in Southern Germany where I’m originally from. And a third of that time with my son in San Francisco or thereabouts and touring up and down the West coast of the US which is the limited part I’ve seen is pretty spectacular. And then that’s it. Tony: You got to look me up next time you come out that way Jurgen: I will do. Yeah. Tony: And I will show you, I will show you God’s country in nature. Like you’ve never seen it before. Jurgen: Yeah, I’ll do that. I look forward to that. Yeah. Tony: There are beautiful mountains there. I’m referring to the Western Sierras. Jurgen: Hmm. Yeah, yeah, we were actually planned. Last year we spent time in San Francisco and we did plan on heading out to the West and Sierras, but unfortunately, they had severe forest fires there, so we abandoned that. Tony: You’re again, you’re still discussing your vision, love to get like a sentence or two. What is the vision for what you’re doing? In other words, what do you see where do you see yourself going in a couple of years or, or where did you see yourself going that has brought about the success that you are now? Jurgen: I guess I saw myself building a big business and you know, then at some point I realized that was kind of probably not my goal. It was what I thought was the right thing to do and what people have expected of me. So now I’m thinking I, you know, I want a business that actually serves my ideal lifestyle and I looked at what I was doing. There’s a lot of different things. I do, a lot of different experiences I’ve gained along my journey so I can help people with many different things. But now I really get a joy out of doing podcasting. Tony: I love that. Jurgen: And you know, interviewing people on my podcasts. So I’ve, I’ve focused more and more in now on helping people either get started with podcasting or a lot of people find great joy as I do in having these conversations, but they don’t find joy in doing the editing and the back end and the production stuff. So, we’ve kind of set up all our own processes that are really robust. So we now help other people with that part of it as well. If they’re really keen to podcast but not to do the backend production stuff. Tony: Very interesting. As an aside, if I can be of assistance, I know a great methodology to promote and market podcast and get a lot of visitors. Jurgen: That’s right. Tony: Just if, if it can ever help, I can hook you up. Jurgen: Yeah, I’m sure we, I’m sure we’ll be having that conversation. Tony: This is the Tony DUrso show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just to have the check continues about your ideal client with Dr. Jurgen Strauss. 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At the end of this interview, I’m going to go over some recap summary points of what I got out of this and share some knowledge with you on it. So stay tuned for that. Dr. Strauss says, “I’ve spent years of both the corporate world and small business world at the intersection of technology, science, human behavior marketing, and business management”. And it shows in his brilliance. Alright, and now back to the chat with Jurgen. Oh, this is very interesting. Now we’ve got the vision. You want this big podcast and you’ve got a great show and for our visionary audience to the guest list that you have and you’ve been so so soon on this, you’re, you’re a newbie on this end. You’ve got these powerhouses, giant VIP celebrities on the show. I’m like in awe at what you’ve done, just to let you know, it is quite something. Jurgen: Thank you! Tony: Oh, you’re welcome. Let’s go into, Jurgen: I find it a real privilege to actually speak to people like you and, and have these conversations and I learned so much each time. Tony: Well, thank you. Now, I presume your purpose in, in your podcasting and your business, I presumed that really helped take you off cause it’s gotta be a great purpose. Can you share your purpose? What is it that gets you up in the morning, whether you get paid or not? What’s your reason for doing this, please? Jurgen: Yeah, that’s a really great question and I’ve done quite a bit of work, on articulating this better and better over time. So really it’s to assist coaches and, and business coaches and consultants. That’s my ideal audience, to assist them in building professional credibility by engaging their target audience. And that’s where the ideal client bid comes in and connecting with their ideal client by getting their message out to them in a way that resonates with them in a way that serves them and also will start to grow their business. Tony: I like that. Jurgen: So, they, you know, the result is that they actually reach the right audience, that that audience says yes, that person, I really liked that person. I want to work with that person and they almost self-select. Tony: I liked that. And before we get really need deep into the ideal client. One more key question here. What’s the longterm objective you see? So let’s go for a few years in the future. One, two, three years. Where do you see yourself doing and accomplishing? What’re people call it a goal, but so many people think different of a goal. So I say longterm objective. What do you see yourself doing? Jurgen: Well, one of the things I’ve had on my bucket list if you like for a long time is to actually present a Ted Talk. So that’s, that’s something that for me is a, a longer-term vision. You know, I’m, I’m doing various things, I’m doing a lot of work on my speaking so that I become hopefully more entertaining and more engaging. And at the same time, I don’t have all my filler words. My favorite filler word is, so you’ll probably hear that a few times on this Tony: As a little aside, if you have a Toastmaster group out there, which I know you do because there are hundreds and thousands of Toastmasters groups. Jurgen: I actually am in Toastmasters. I’m the vice president of education. Of the Jalong City of Greater Jalong Toastmasters group. Tony: So you know exactly what I’m talking about. You will get cured of the filler words and be able to speak well. And I’ve got to say, I joined Toastmasters when I started my podcast with revenue chat radio nearly four years ago, and I did that so that I could speak extemporaneously off the cuff and make sense at it at the same time. So really great practice. If you’re podcasting out there, if you do public speaking, if you do meetings, if you meet with the boss, if you work at a company, if you work for yourself, if you have a spouse, what else? If you go to the store and buy things, you will find being on Toastmasters really helps when you’re interfacing with anyone. And of course, yes, it helps greatly in speaking with groups of people. So that’s very cool. Jurgen: That’s right. Yeah. Tony: You will find the changes. How long have you been in Toastmaster? Jurgen: Probably three years. Tony: You’re your old hand. Jurgen: Yeah, I’ve been cured. Well, not quite cured you. You may hear a one um or two, but, I did have lots of ums and I think I’ve improved that quite a bit. Tony: I want you to know that I am in the Toastmaster hall of fame. Jurgen: Wow. Tony: My first Toastmaster meeting I won. It’s called Jonah the Jonah Award. That’s what we had. So I won. I won the little trophy. It was my first time. I never won again. But I want you to know I’m in their hall of fame. Tony: All right, let’s get into your vision. This conversation. This is all centered around your ideal client. So Jurgen, let’s tackle this first. Great question. Why? Why is it important? What’s the niche? How narrow focus the one in the million metaphor. Let’s get into your ideal client. Why? Why is this important? Jurgen: I guess the example is if, and somebody told me this on a podcast recently, if you’re in the market for buying a car, you’re looking for something very specific. So, you’re the client. Now if let’s say your a mother with a young family, then your primary concern is probably can I fit everything in there? It cannot fit the shopping in. Can I get the baby seat in the back? Can I fit the proms in the back? Is it safe? Whereas if you’re a young chap that has plenty of money and there’s some sort of fancy-free and maybe wants to impress the girls, then you probably want a fast sports car so fast is important and that it looks really good and maybe it’s got to be red because we all know that red is faster. Tony: Yes, we know that. We know the police like red. Jurgen: Yeah. As the car salesman pitching the red Ferrari sports car to the mom who’s just coming with her needs is a waste of time. He’s never going to sell it to her. Now he can do, he can be the best salesperson in the world. He’s not gonna sell it to her. And likewise, if the young chap comes in with his needs of, or his wants of the sports car, then trying to sell him the family sedan with safety features and it’s big and plenty of room for all the shopping and so on. That’s not gonna work either. So in business, it’s really important to understand who the ideal client is and what their needs are, what drives those needs. So in the case of the mother with the young children, there’s a convenience factor and there’s also a safety factor cause she’s really, her primary driver is looking after her babies. Whereas in the case of the young chap, his primary driver is impressing other people and it’s an ego thing. So it’s a completely different driver that is driving his want. Tony: This is dr Jurgen Strauss talking about your ideal client and you can find him at innovabiz.com.au and I’m going to spell that I N N O V, A. B. I, Z.com. A U. Did I get that right Jurgen? You got it right, Tony. Beautiful. So, yeah, so that, that example about the car is very concrete and I guess most people would understand that now in business when you’re selling a service, perhaps it’s still really important because if you’re selling, let’s say a podcast recording service like we’re using at the moment to record this, to somebody that wants to do videos, this doesn’t record videos, this service, it just records the audio. It’s geared very specifically for the people doing podcasts that are just going to publish audio. So if somebody is looking to do video, then this isn’t the right product for them yet. I think they’re going to change that, but Tony: They are, and I look forward to that because I’m going to take my podcast on video, but meanwhile, meanwhile I’ve do converted using, here’s a great resource, repurpose.io. I convert my audio and it’s on YouTube just for my visionary audience. You can find my YouTube at Tony S D U R S O and check it out and, I would love it by the way, if you would subscribe in lichen and share with other good visionaries that you feel would benefit from the show. Jurgen: Yeah, that’s right. And it’s important for visionaries to see things. So repurpose is definitely a great, great tool to do that. Tony: This is the Tony DUrso show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. 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Be sure to send questions and comments to Tony at tonydurso. com now back to Tony and his guests. Tony: All right, we’re back on the Tony DUrso where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Let’s see what we can learn today. Today’s show is about your ideal client with Dr. Jurgen Strauss. At the end of this interview, I’m going to go over some summary recap points and tell you a little bit about what I got out of this interview, so please stay tuned for that. Dr. Strauss says. “Well, my philosophy is making marketing human” and boy does he say it all there. All right. And now back to the chat with you again. Jurgen: So with the ideal client, there’s, there’s a lot of tools around where you can go through, I guess the common term is an avatar defining your avatar. And they ask questions like, well how old, are they? Are they male or female? Are they, you know, how much do they earn to their live-in inner-city areas or suburbs area? What kind of car do they drive? And all of these things that are, what’s the right term; their demographics, demographics about the person’s habits and the person’s characteristics, but they are important. But even more important is the psychographics. So what drives them? What do they believe? What are the things that frustrate them and make them angry? What are the things that keep them awake at night? What are their dreams and aspirations? What’s their vision? What’s their purpose in life? So questions that you asked earlier on Tony. So those visionary things. And I think for the visionary listening to this podcast, they should really ring a bell. They should. I feel really comfortable digging into those things a little bit further. And that’s what I encourage my clients to do in getting really clear about ideal clients. And we do an exercise where I use a thing called an empathy map, which I’m a big fan of. So empathy maps were developed by a company called Xplain and a chap by the name of David Gray. And so look it up on the internet. You’ll find a lot of things there. The way they work is you draw on a big chart and X across the chart and place ahead in the middle. And in the right hand, if you imagine in the right-hand side of the triangle on the right-hand side that’s formed by that X, you label that as C in the triangle on the left-hand side. You label that as here in the triangle below your label that says and does. And in the triangle above, you’ll label that as think and feel. And then you, there’s a series of questions you can ask. So what does the ideal client see? What does the ideal client here? What does the ideal client say and do what they think and feel? And there’s a bunch of questions underline that where you can dig deeper into all of those things. What I do with those exercises, I start off with, who’s your best, your favorite client right now? Who do you love to work with who would actually work with for free because you so love what you’re doing for them? You so you can act, you actually make a huge difference to their world, their business. And of course, then, you know, from a commercial point of view, they pay on time. You don’t have to waste time chasing, chasing payment or redoing work. They trust you. Absolutely. And it’s right in your sweet spot in terms of what you love to do, what you’re good at. Who is that? And so we say, okay, now what we’re going to do with this empathy map exercises, we’re going to clone that client. So let’s give that person a name. We put their face in the place in the intersection of the X in the middle. And then we ask all the questions of those four quadrants of the empathy map. And what I do in the workshops is I get people to draw things, to draw symbols and diagrams and sketches, which has a lot of fun. And the visionary audience will surely appreciate this because you know, this is part of a visioning Tony: Jurgen do they actually draw their existing client, that’s their best client. Do they draw that out too? Jurgen: Yeah, they, yeah, they’d draw that out too. Tony: I love it. Jurgen: And so I get them to draw that out. And of course, I’m challenged by this because my artistic sketching skills are very poor. You know, my stick, my stick man probably wouldn’t even get a passing grade, but I have learned to do some symbols and things. So I can demonstrate this, but we do get people that are very artistic. I know my, one of my personal assistants, we had her on a workshop we did recently in Fiji. She was helping us set it all up and doing a lot of the logistical work for us. And she actually went through this exercise and her artistic skills are fabulous. She drew some beautiful photos and I said I’m going to use those. So in doing that, you know a picture paints a thousand words. So it kind of imprints in your memory, all of the things that you’ve said around that. And then we take it one level further. And at the bottom of that chart, we have two more boxes. And the lefthand one is wants and needs and fears and frustrations. And the right-hand one is now this is different from the traditional empathy map, I call it the change or transformation. And so once a needs fears and frustrations, that’s a little bit self-explanatory. So you go through, you know, what are their wants and needs and fears and frustrations, what keeps them awake at night and you, and we really dig deep on that. So with, Tony: Just to clarify for our visionary audience, we’re, look, we’re drilling down into that client so deeply. Who’s your best client right now? And let’s use that as a good, typical example of what your ideal client is because he’s your best client. And then what keeps them up at night, what’s he afraid of? What does he like? What doesn’t he like or she is, that right so far? Jurgen we’re just really like getting all these details. Jurgen: That’s exactly right. And, and if you base it on your best existing client, you should really have a close relationship with that client. So you’ll know a lot about her. And one of the things that’s important about this exercise is we say this isn’t done when we leave the room today after having done the exercise, keep adding information to that as you learn more, keep adding information to that and keep this alive. And then we’ll look at the transformation. So what are the changes or what are the transformations that they’re looking for? And we try to put that at a higher level. So, you know, going back to what I said earlier about people don’t buy a film camera because they wanted to take pictures. They’re actually buying a means to capture a memory. So thinking about things in those terms, what is it they want to achieve? And then you start to match up with what do you have that can help them achieve that? So that’s where it starts to come into where you can actually help them. Tony: This is very interesting. And let me take this all in. So we’ve got the, but what if that’s so narrow? What if that, you’re the expert on this. So I’m just asking the questions. What if that one client, who’s your best client is your mother’s brothers, sisters, fathers, uncles, cousin, you know, family. And there’s just, there’s that friendly relationship. You know, when I, my best clients, I know a lot about them and we’re friends as well as the persons, my best client. But that’s not necessarily my target market of where I’m going from. At least I don’t think and that could be something that’s wrong with me. You know, I don’t want to, you know, I’ll use my own ethnicity. You know, let’s say an old Italian man is my favorite client. I don’t necessarily want to go after old Italian families, you know, to listen to my show or whatever. There could be a one-off. So how does that work? If it’s like an anomaly as opposed to what you would go over, lets kind of rectify this so that our visionary audience can kind of thing with this a little more. Jurgen: Mm-hmm. No, that’s a really good point. First of all, I’ve found that focusing more narrow, and this is counterintuitive a little bit, focusing more narrow actually gets you much clearer on the people that you can help and it will result in a growth in business because that everything you do from there on, then you know the podcast topics that you talk about, the blog posts that you put out there, all the stuff you start to put on social media. You think about this empathy map of the ideal client and everything you put out there. You’re speaking to them and their needs and their frustrations and their fears, and you’re giving them a vision of the transformation that they could have. And you’re also giving them a lot of other information. That’s kind of consistent with your overall business purpose. So it might not be your own product or related to that product, but it’s information that could be helpful to them. So my experience of, Tony: I love that Jurgen, I love that. Jurgen: Yeah. My experience of that has been that every time I’ve focused more narrow; that it actually results in a spurt of business. Tony: Aaaaahhhh, Jurgen: Which is a little bit counterintuitive. Tony: That was exactly, I was going to ask that question. I was going to say don’t, I miss opportunities if I go really super, super narrow and you’ve just answered that question. Jurgen: Yeah, well you do miss opportunities. You miss opportunities for people that aren’t a good match for your business or your product. And those people are going to cost you more energy because you’re outside of your zone of excellence. I like to call it you are having to put more energy in there and you’re having to take time away from those people where you are in your zone of excellence and where you are a really good match. So it’s a little bit of a lost opportunity in some ways as well. Now having said that a lot of businesses will not have one ideal client. They might have a bunch of different ideal clients, so it’s worth getting clear. Okay. If I’ve got two different types of products or services and they geared to different types of industries or ideal clients, then get really clear on both of those and do that focus. Tony: This is the Tony DUrso show. Where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just to have the check continues about your ideal client with Dr. Jurgen Strauss, but first, it’s time for us to take a short break. 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Go to privacy.com/tony and sign up now and tell me how you like it. This is the voice America influencers channels be inspired You’re listening to the Tony DUrso show with key influencers. We’d love to hear from you via email. Be sure to send questions and comments to Tony at tonydurso.com now back to Tony and his guest. Tony: All right, we’re back on the Tony DUrso where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Let’s see what we can learn today about your ideal client with Dr. Jurgen Strauss. At the end of this interview, I’m going to go over some summary recap points and talk about what I got out of this. So please stay tuned for that and we’ll have a little discussion. Dr. Strauss says “marketing is about building relationships with people we serve. Marketing is about helping people to achieve and Excel. It’s about working with people.” Brilliant. And now back to the chat with Jurgen. Jurgen we don’t have the visual here, so if you can walk through just a little bit. So our visionary audience can kind of thing with this, how does this map that you have to help us focus our specific products on specific people. I just, something I just want to make sure that all the let’s use the phrase that all the pennies dropped, right? All the, everything just gets into proper alignment. So maybe just kind of give us a summary or take us through that a little bit more. Jurgen: Yeah. So the, I mean, my principle around it is I started off, when I first started working in this ideal client, I started taking their traditional avatar ones, which a lot of the really good ones have a photograph in the middle so that you’ve got a visual of who that client might be. And that visual representation will trigger a whole lot of memories of the things that you’ve defined around that client. And then they put a lot of boxes around that image in the middle to ask different questions around demographics and around psychographics. I took that one step further because I ended up having three or four different sheets because I was digging into all kinds of different things. So what are their beliefs? You know, where are their beliefs consistent with mine and where do they believe different things? So looking at empathy and I started exploring this whole idea of empathy and that’s how I discovered these empathy maps. Once you do that search empathy map, there’s a lot of information there on the internet, but you won’t find them in searching for the ideal client. So that’s why I didn’t stumble upon them until I searched for empathy. But the idea of the empathy map is I can bring all of that onto one page and by using drawings it taps into the visual component. It taps into the visual component of the person that I’m working with, but it also then gives you a one-page visual representation of your ideal client that has so much information in there, but it’s one picture. And so by imagining, Tony: Okay, let me get this, let me get this in my head, how do I use this information, let’s say to construct a message or in a communication to that target audience by picturing that target audience and having that typical image of that avatar is as part of that message that I send out, sort of like if I have a banner promoting something that’s for the elder Italians, I would have some elder Italian sitting there or whatever in that banner and sending that out. Am I kind of on track this with what you’re saying? Jurgen: Yeah, yeah. Yes, sir. You’re on track. Let me give you an example. So one of my ideal clients is coach Sam. So Sam is a lady, she’s in her mid-forties she’s got a business that has between five and 20 people working for her, and she’s really driven to succeed. She’s got a servant’s heart. She wants to serve people. So I can rattle all those things off all by thinking of the image I have of coach Sam. And I can also then picture the empathy map I’ve done for coach Sam. And I can say, you know, some of her biggest fears and wants are that all of her skills and knowledge, she can’t get to her target audience and make a difference. She really wants to make a difference to the world that’s driving her. And she knows she can because she has this wonderful skill. She has a lot of knowledge that she can share and, and she has changed people’s lives. She’s done amazing things in changing people’s lives. So her biggest fear is that gee, you know, there are people out there that really need her help and she can’t get to them. So all, so then if I’m thinking of, well let me write a blog post about how do you reach your ideal client, how do you engage with your ideal client? Then I’m thinking about coach Sam and I’m thinking about what’s her biggest fear and what are her desires and what are some of her beliefs and values. And I, you know, all of those things will be, some of it will be unconscious in my mind, but it’ll be because of that image I have in my mind of her photograph that’s in the center of this empathy map and it’s all visual so that there’s a lot of information there that doesn’t take up all of my brainpower. Tony: I love that Jurgen and is the empathy map and as the steps and so forth, is that available? Can we see that at innovabiz.com.au? Jurgen: Yes. You can see that innovabiz.com.au and I also have a little free mini-course that I call it the marketing mastery mini-course that actually walks through the ideal client exercise in a kind of a remote way. So the most powerful ways to actually do it with some people in a workshop because then you have a lot of fun with the diagrams you actually learned from other people who say, yes, I can draw that sort of thing to represent what I’m thinking about, what the ideal client actually sees or what they hear and so on. So that’s more fun. But I do have all the concepts on my website with that little mini-course. Tony: Very good. Well, there you go. The visionary audience, please go to Inova biz.com.edu check out that course and sign up. Jurgen knows the stuff you know you’ve heard of this stuff. Well, Jurgen knows this stuff and he knows how to do this. So you got to learn from someone that knows this stuff. So check that out. And I want to ask now, as part of all of your success in obtaining your vision, do you have any particular personal habits that you see contribute to your vision success? Jurgen: Yeah, I think there’s quite a number on, I probably forget some here, but I mentioned earlier that I love learning. I love reading books, I love listening to podcasts. So most of my reading actually is done through audible. So listening to audiobooks and then sometimes I’ll be so enamored with the book that I’ll then buy the book and sit down and read it while I’m listening to audible as well. so that I can scribble in the pages and use a highlighter pen to Mark up. So that’s definitely one thing that I just love learning anyway, but I think that is a major contributor to what I do and to achieving my vision. I also, as I said, love photography, so that’s like my creative outlet. So I can take some really good images I think that is very creative, that is very visual. Normally, I’m not a visual person. As I said, stickmen are a challenge for me to draw, but with photos and I also use those photos. Some of them in, in some of the blog articles I write where they’re appropriate. I, I’ll bring those in just to show off a little bit I guess. And the other thing I’m really passionate about is cycling. I’m a keen cyclist, I love to get out and exercise and I think having energy is really important because having the physical energy, energy begets energy. It’s kind of my start off for the day and when I do go out and have my early morning bike ride, I feel a lot better sometimes we do that in a group and we then go and have a coffee afterward and have a bit of a chit chat and the social element is really great, but occasionally I’ll go out on my own. And the rides on my own are also really good because my mind switches off. I’m just focused on cycling and being present in that moment. And often I’d get my best ideas when I’m in that spot. Tony: Very therapeutic. I love that. My favorite part about your routine? The coffee part. That’s my exercise in the morning. Jurgen: Yeah. And then, of course, my family keeps me grounded. So I’ve got two wonderful adult kids. As I said, one of them is in San Francisco. So we luckily with modern technology we can talk to him quite often, but we don’t get to see him in person as much as we’d like. My daughter is an hour away, so we do see her much more. And I have a very supportive wife who’s tolerant of me playing in this space and lets me do my thing. Tony: That is the most important of all is having this spouse being supportive. I could, I could do a whole show on just that. It is so important now I’ve understood more of your success. This is great. And lastly Jurgen, I’d love to know, we’d love to know any great resources you have to share with our audience, visionaries. Great Resources you can use. Jurgen: Well we’ve talked a lot about the empathy map, so that would be one. But in terms of I’ve read a few really good marketing books recently, so if your visionary audiences interested in marketing, then I can recommend these. And one of them is Watertight marketing by a lady called Bryony Thomas, who I had on my podcast a few episodes ago. Tony: Repeat that name again. One more time. Watertight, Jurgen: Watertight Marketing by Bryony, Thomas, B, R, Y, O, N Y and Thomas. Now her book kind of turns the traditional funnel thing on its head. And that’s what attracted me to it because I thought, yeah, the funnel thing is so impersonal these days with technology. And I’m all about building connections. You know, that’s the whole purpose of this ideal client exercise, building a human connection. Because even if we’re selling to big business, there’s still a person that we deal with. There’s still a person who makes the decision to make that purchase. And so that’s the ideal client. It’s a person. And so to human, to human interaction is so important there. And she turns this marketing funnel idea on its head and says that you know, if you think of a funnel and think of pouring water into the top of the funnel, and then down the bottom, you’ve got a bucket to capture the water. Well, in a lot of businesses, that bucket is full of holes. So the first thing we want to do is plug those holes. And so she goes through what are those holes? And I think she has about 13 or so foundational holes that, you know, and they are kind of things like there’s poor onboarding or there’s the customer has a bad experience about customer service, so these things and she has a very structured and uses that whole metaphor. And then you know, that’s what you start with. Then you build sort of back and if you work your way back up, then your marketing at the beginning is almost already done because you’ve taken care of the fundamentals. So I really loved her approach and that book. And of course, then there’s Seth Golden’s. This is Marketing, which you know, his subtitle is you can’t be seen until you learn to see which to me is all about you have to have empathy with your client. Tony: Yes, yes, yes. Jurgen: You have to know what, what drives them, which comes back to the ideal client thing. And the other one I really like is the Marketing Rebellion by Mark Schaefer. And his philosophy is that most human company wins. Tony: Oh, I love that. That is so true. It is so true because it’s really all about people. This is Dr. Jurgen Strauss talking about Your Ideal Client and you can find him at innovabiz.com.au and I will spell that once again. I N N O V A, B I Z.com.au Dr. Jurgen Strauss. Thank you so much. This was illuminating and it really gives me some insights in helping to come up with my ideal client. This is a great chat. Did we, did we get it all at, well actually we have to do your class. We have to take that course to really get it all. So is there anything else important that you’d like to let us know about right now? Anything else or do we cover it all? Jurgen: Well, I think, yeah, I think we’ve really dug into it as much as we can in an hour. And I really appreciate having the time to spend with you, Tony on the Tony Durso show and also with your audience. And I hope that you know, I’ve given your visionary audience some insights that will help them do something special with getting clear about their ideal client and how they can help their best clients and do their best work and talking about best work. I love your show. Keep doing your great work on that cause it’s a wonderful service to your audience and, and yeah. It’s been a privilege to speak with you. Tony: Thank you so much. I am humbled and honored by Dr. Jurgen Strauss. Thank you very much. Tony’s Insight Hey guys, thanks for hanging out with me while I featured an elite entrepreneur who took his vision to reality. I hope this was inspiring for you as it was for me to do this interview. I learned so much. What great valuable insights. How did you like this interview, Dr. Jurgen Strauss, you know from the laboratory and managing teams around the world to working out the precise methodology to come up with your ideal client. I find his level of detail quite amazing as you would expect of a scientist. I hope you listened carefully and learned the lesson of these once giant companies that are no longer around these days are doing very much. Are you aware of any companies that are no longer around? This is why the vision map is best when it’s done for just a few years and then redo another one and so on. I accomplished everything I set to do in about two years and then I had to do another map to keep going and the results are just amazing. You know, you can’t just sail forever on past glory. You have to reinvent yourself so to speak and do a new vision map as if it’s a totally new game in nearly all cases. It is a totally new game. Are you paying attention to your market place? Are you looking into the future as to what’s happening and can happen in your industry or do you think it can go forever? I podcast and right now my audience keeps growing strong and sponsors love my show too, but I have to keep abreast of developments and read the trends of where things are going so that I can stay relevant and continue to be in the upper percentile. As far as podcasters go, why all 75% seem to fail per blueberry? My show continues to grow and I owe the Vision Map as to keep me on track through it all and that is a good point and how to deal with catastrophes. They’re really not as big as they seem once you get through them. Right. I love Jurgen’s vision all based on serving people. It shows in his business. Great vision and do you like his definition of can’t? That’s great. It’s really, I don’t know how to do that right now. Great concept and a nice concept of creating a business that serves his lifestyle. Do you have something like this going for you? Was that something in the interview we found out we both do. Toastmasters, absolutely so-cool. I owe so much to Toastmasters for helping me to learn to just speak off the cuff and make sense at the same time, and I love his analogy about buying a car and how there are different cars for different purposes. Well said. I love it. Think about this for your business and what products and services you provide or sell to the public. Do you know who your ideal client is? Did you hear of an empathy map before? I hope you check this out. Is there a client that you love so much that you would work for them for free? Who is your best client? Interesting concept here. There’s so much more I got out of this interview. What did you get? I’d love to know how you use this information to help you in your business or career. Tell us, tell the world, tweet at Tony D U R S O. Now grab hold of your vision. Decide you’re either going to start something great or take it to the next level. You have to decide first. It always starts with a decision and you can get my Vision Map to help you along the process. Free ebook is still online. At some point, the full book will be released with much more info, but for now just get the free ebook, get that and use it to stimulate your success. I created my empire in just a few years that’s all it took. I had the vision map as my guide and you know what guys you can do it too. Please follow me on social media. You can find most of those links on the homepage at tonydurso.com and you can also get the vision map there and if you have iTunes or access to any Apple device, look up my name Tony DURSO and subscribe to my show. Well you, a kind review there will get you a tremendous appreciation back in return. Thank you all and remember success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds. Be righteous. Join me on the next episode of the Tony DUrso show, We hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s edition of the Tony DUrso show with his key influencers. Be sure to tune in again next Friday at 4:00 PM Eastern time, 1:00 PM Pacific time on the voice America influencers channel.