SuperWAHM: Case Study

• Pinpoint the Ideal Customer. Who is the woman who needs what you offer, recognizes the need, and is ready to pay for the Ideal Solution to her problem?
• Clearly define your sales packages, making each highly desirable to its intended audience, while also making higher-tiered offerings seem exponentially more valuable—not a budgetary stretch, but a sales (or readership)-boosting need
• Help your Ideal Customer to see herself working with you, with direct language that feels tailored to her, and eliminate vague and overly broad language that’s currently dragging on sales
• Increase conversion rates on your offerings
• Find your voice—words, images, and an attitude that’s in keeping with a successful work-at-home-mum’s needs at the time when she’s considering buying from you. As part of this, consider the name of the site—is it working as hard as it could for you?

Let’s call her Ms. Force, because your Ideal Customer is just that—a Force to Be Reckoned With. She’s the hub of her home, and though everyone gets a bit of energy from her, she’s still holding on to energy for concentrating on herself and her business. She may not be as inclined as some to go for a spa day, but she needs it twice as badly. Running her business has become almost a form of spoiling herself, and she guns forward with tons of determination—but not much direction.

Ms. Force is married. She has children who are young, but she herself is not as young a woman as you’d suggested. A 30-year-old with a school-aged child (or more than one) has a whole different set of struggles than someone who can afford your services, and even a whole different set of life experiences.

The woman you can talk to convincingly is in her late thirties—she can see 40 coming, and she’s anxious to have really “made it” before she gets there! She’s well-educated, has been out in the workforce and realized her talents were better put to use in her own business… right about the same time as she realized she wanted more time at home. It’s been a blessing and a curse, but at last, her business is well on its way.

The family can get by on her husband’s income, though it’s not the best situation, and it leaves her feeling behind-the-times and inadequate in the months when she doesn’t make enough to help out. That’s not happening much anymore, because she’s on the verge of true success—but that point is where overwhelm begins to set in.

• freedom (from the ratrace of the old 9-to-5)
• free time for family
• to minimize guilt (about taking family time during her workday and about taking work time from family)
• to be judged on results, not just hours clocked
• happiness, even over money (though money is still a huge pain point, especially when the issue goes beyond her own purse to the family budget)
• security
• fewer worries

There’s not a lot of outward-facing motivators here. If family concerns count as part of ego, Ms. Force might seem egotistical. Which is true—this is a time in Ms. Force’s life when she is cocooning around family and personal concerns—all while trying to run a business!

So what drives her ego? What are her deeper needs?… What’s she out looking for on the day she finds you?

I’m the web’s business planning expert—just for work-at-home mums. Together we’ll find the time for you to make money.

Trigger point (pain point):

Planning for a business that never goes according to plan requires an expert in the unique issues facing work-at-home-mums. Every day you’re going without a plan tailored to your business’ needs is costing you contacts, prospective customers, and sales.

Your point of distinction:

No other company can match our expertise in helping successful work-at-home-mums drive their business forward on their own terms.

You’ve relaxed into the story of the new, laser-focus on Ms. Force To Be Reckoned With. You know who, you know how, and you know why she needs you and only you. As you know, [your previous business name] is a heck of a mouthful, and yes, that may be holding you back. The new name for your site: SuperWAHM.

… With the following you already have, and some excellent branding, SuperWAHM will have the energy you need to zap your business into people’s consciousness.

The name has an instant, positive association, with the best of what work-at-home-mums go through—superheroic struggles in the name of business and family—and optimistically implies success and empowerment (for that bit of selfishness!) in an instant. It should provide a powerful graphic focus, and offers the chance to inject a little fun as well—yes! it’s a little corny!—that’s what makes it a memorable hook as a name and a visual statement, and brings the site into the realm of a break from Ms. Force’s day, not just homework or purchasing decisions for her.

I believe that fun will attract both your Ideal Customer, Ms. Force, and more casual site visitors. (Imagine just a hint of strong pink in a SuperWAHM theme… or maybe, if it’s not taken too far, an illustrated SuperWAHM character?—that’s already a great visual statement!)

• Thoroughly review the new, highly focused Ideal Customer. Review your new copy, and the features of your newly packaged Services.

• Consider the site’s name/URL, with the options presented here. Would the site benefit from making a Super-transformation? I strongly believe it would.

• Begin the writing the e-books for your new Products page.

• Write a blog post announcing the new changes, almost like a mini-launch. Make sure long-time readers can’t wait to go check it out. For longtime readers: You’ve got to shake them up. Some will suddenly know how to buy from you who never knew how before, and some will realize they know just who to send to you when they could never figure it out before.

• Track improved results. How many inquiries now? How many turn into clients? Track it all.

In an ideal world you want to see an increase in inquiries and an improved conversion rate, in addition to less stress for you as you shift to [your new offerings].