{"id":54592,"date":"2018-05-20t10:00:38","date_gmt":"2018-05-20t14:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/48e130086c.nxcli.net\/?p=54592"},"modified":"2018-05-24t08:36:01","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24t12:36:01","slug":"persona-closer-look","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2018\/05\/20\/persona-closer-look\/","title":{"rendered":"the persona: a closer look"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"closeup<\/a>how to create one and what to do next.<\/strong><\/p>\n

by jody padar<\/i>
\nfrom success to significance: the radical cpa guide<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

at my firm, one of our big personas is a real estate investment firm. they like a one-stop shop. they like our personalized attention. they know that we have a certain amount of practical, specialized tax knowledge that they can use.<\/p>\n

more on radicalism:<\/b> happy tax: why you need to know its name<\/a> | product management: start with these 6 steps<\/a> | product management meets strategy<\/a> | transitioning to radical: how carl famiglietti did it<\/a> | how to develop productized services<\/a> | firm product management is the way to the future<\/a>
\n\"goprocpa.com\"exclusively for pro members. <\/span><\/strong>log in here<\/a> or 2022世界杯足球排名 today<\/a>.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

what do they dislike? they dislike the detail, because they\u2019re deal guys, they\u2019re big-picture guys, they just want to know: can they defer the gain, can they not defer the gain, what is the gain? they tell us to take care of the details. hands off, get it done yesterday, keep me out of jail, i hate taxes. i\u2019m sure you know the type.
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\nwhat are some of the challenges we have with them? they\u2019re hard to track down, they\u2019re somewhat disorganized, they\u2019re reactive, and there are deals flying all over. in fact, you probably have a real estate guy in your firm who looks just like this. we have several of them.<\/p>\n

what\u2019s their responsibility? they need to provide us documentation; they need to keep us informed of any deal happening proactively, instead of sending us some closing statements and saying, \u201cokay, i need to make an estimated payment on this.\u201d they may or may not be technical, but they\u2019re business-savvy. they are often in their cars or on the golf course, and they live for sales.<\/p>\n

knowing all this, we must think about how we\u2019re going to communicate with them. yet, it\u2019s more than communication; it\u2019s also about data organization and data delivery for them. they live in a transaction-based world, which is very different than operating a small business. who they are and how they do business impacts how we relate to them.<\/p>\n

let\u2019s look at another persona, one that i\u2019m sure many of you experience: joe small business. mr. business wants responsive action to his questions, he wants a fair fee, he values what he\u2019s paying for, but he\u2019s concerned about price. he\u2019s not growing, so he feels like the same thing that happened this year is the same thing that happened last year. his biggest goals are probably making sure he is complying and maintaining low taxes. he may or may not want advisory services, or he may or may not be willing to pay for advisory services. he wants access to information. he may try to get away with everything. he sometimes even disagrees with bank statements.<\/p>\n

i don\u2019t know if you have a client like that. they get caught up in immaterial issues sometimes, and they have multiple people with different agendas. their skills are usually technical, but it\u2019s very specific to their field. someone on their team usually has limited office knowledge. usually there is an extra person between you and the business owner. maybe they\u2019re that office manager, or the spouse who manages everything.<\/p>\n

when you work with them, you\u2019re going to work with them very differently than when you work with your real estate guy. it\u2019s important to know who your customers are as you start to productize your service because that\u2019s going to help you figure out how you\u2019re going to serve them. and, of course, what you are going to sell them.<\/p>\n

another persona that we have is a graphic artist. they\u2019re the typical solopreneur. usually, they\u2019re one or two people. they need handholding, they like simple software and minimum involvement, but they\u2019re pretty tech-savvy. sometimes they\u2019re flaky, they may get overwhelmed easily, they\u2019re not responsive, and their follow-up is sometimes terrible. we just let them do invoicing, and we do everything else on the back end. the way we interact with them is very different than how we interact with our joe small business and very different than we act with our real estate guy.<\/p>\n

what i\u2019m trying to get at here is, as you start to productize your service, and you determine who you’re serving from a practice management standpoint, it\u2019s going to help you to clarify how you\u2019re going to serve them, what you\u2019re going to sell them and how you\u2019re going to sell it.<\/p>\n

you\u2019re no longer going to be selling time for value because you\u2019re going to put something special into the bundle. this is going to help you.<\/p>\n

if you can go back through your firm and figure out how you treat certain customers, and what\u2019s important to them, then you can help create products around that, and you can sell via fixed prices or value prices.<\/p>\n

how to create a persona<\/h3>\n

part of changing your business model is knowing whom you\u2019re going to serve.<\/p>\n

to discover my firm\u2019s personas, we went through our customer list and grouped them into business-related and \u201cwhat do they like?\u201d categories.<\/p>\n

then we had a meeting and discussed the subsets and asked\/responded to the below questions as a group.<\/p>\n

we then documented the answers so our whole team would know and understand who we talk to daily.<\/p>\n

it was funny that most of our customers fit into a subgrouping that we could define. we enjoyed the experience because it gave us new, organized information that helped us market our firm.<\/p>\n

aside from marketing, it\u2019s important to understand who you are communicating with and their point of view so that you can help them understand their solution.<\/p>\n

the way we communicate is very different based on subgroups. if your whole team communicates to the right customer in the right way, the relationship stays with the solution, not with the partner.<\/p>\n

when you are creating personas, start with these basic questions:<\/p>\n