Your Ideal Customer 

is definitely not this guy

"Hi, I'm Jimbo, the average twenty-four-year-old male.  I still live with my parents.  It will be another ten years before I own a home.  I won't marry for another five years (and that's if I can put down the game controller).  I work when I can find a job, but mom and dad still pay for the big stuff.*

"How many advertising dollars are you spending on me?"

You may be surprised. 

Who should you be advertising to?  It's really the question a business owner should be asking.  And yet, I am constantly surprised at how many have never even considered it, or who see it only in general terms:

Plumbers:  "Home owners."

Dentists: "People with teeth."

Chiropractors: "People with backs."

Do all people with homes/teeth/backs bring you the same return on investment?  Who, then, is your ideal customer?  If you could have 20 people in the same demographic walk through your door right now, which demographic would you choose?

Baby Boomers and Seniors.  One friend told me flat out that his ideal customers are sixty-year-old women.  "They need more work done and they definitely don't want to do it themselves, they aren't bargain hunters, they have the money, they pay on time, they keep coming back year after year, they refer their friends and kids to me.  One person like that is worth half a dozen twenty-somethings."

National Annual Household Maintenance Expenditure** 

Those over 40 spend a lot of money on their homes.

You don't want Jimbo. You want his parents and grandparents as customers. When all is said and done, these are the customers who put your kids through college, who pay for your big vacations, who make your business a success.  And by the way, where do they go first to find a local business when they are ready to buy?  Hint:  It's not the internet . . . .

Thanks for your business,

Reed