How to Segment Your List and Reduce Friction in Your Buyer's Journey

Your list and, more specifically, the relationship you have with the people on your list, is one of your most valuable business assets.

The only things more valuable are your health and your skills.

To build a successful coaching and consulting business as fast as possible, start building your list of potential clients immediately.

As you build your list, begin to segment your prospects by using a CRM system with a tagging feature (if yours doesn't have one, switch asap) and set up these tags: 

Timing tags:

These are tags that segment your list by their level of urgency and readiness to solve their problem. I use and recommend three tags for this:

Now buyers: These are folks with a known problem, and the pain is high, and they're seeking a solution immediately. They'll be purchasing within seven days.

Soon buyers: These are buyers who are researching possible solutions and, while their pain level is relatively high, they've got time to check out their options. They'll be purchasing within seven to 30 days.

Someday buyers: These buyers are aware of their problem, but it's just not painful enough to be urgent. They'll be purchasing beyond 30 days from now.

Pain tags:

Business owners deal with what I call the "triad of pain." Here's the triad, and tags you can use to segment your buyers:

Time: Folks who get this tag are pressed for time and need help becoming more efficient.

Money: These prospects have profit and cash flow challenges.

People: These prospects have leadership, recruitment, and retention problems in their company.

As you follow up with and nurture your prospects, don't treat them all the same. Be sure to accommodate their timing, and speak directly about their pain and how you can solve it.

Segmenting your list this way helps to reduce friction and improve flow in your buyer's journey. It also improves the flows of information, work, leads, clients, and cash.

PS: When you're ready, here are two ways I can help you:

1. We're looking for skilled professionals and coaches we can train to help small business owners succeed. We pay the training costs. If you're currently a business advisor or coach, or you'd like to put your hard-earned skills to work as a business advisor and fire the boss for good, here's a video that explains what we're looking for.

2. I publish a weekly email newsletter each Tuesday for business advisors called "The AI-Powered Business Advisor." You'll get the latest AI tools and prompts, as well as easy-to-implement strategies for growing your business advisor practice. You can learn more here.