Who do my clients think I am, anyway?

My business may be the smallest one that Aim One Marketing has ever worked with, but as Coach Randy told me, I can set some pretty ambitious goals that are still realistic.  For me, I thought quintupling my monthly revenues by the end of the year would be a good start, and Randy agreed that this is entirely achievable for me.

Digging into demographics

I continually spell that word as "demongraphics" as I write, and I note that my browser's spellcheck doesn't have a problem with that version.  This is probably because the devil's in the details.

Once I carefully sifted through my client list and defined it closely, I knew I was going to fall short of my assigned task (compiling data on my ten best clients), because I don't bloody well have ten clients yet!  It looked like that at first, but once I started digging deeper, I realized that not everyone I have done business with quite counts:

• Content sites like Suite101.com and Examiner.com have been a reliable source of revenue for me, but since my writing is self-directed I don't know if I can consider them "clients" in the traditional sense.
• I've also been managing some social networking for AltGlobe.com, but it's an arrangement that doesn't focus on my writing.
• Two clients for whom I have not yet delivered the final product can't really be considered yet.
• Three more of my clients aren't really mine - I did work for them through their marketing firm Kathode Ray Media.

I dutifully pulled together the information I had on what turned out to be my three best clients.  Was this going to be enough?

The interviews

I guess I'll know soon enough if my three clients will give me enough information, because I'm going to have to interview them!  I'll be scheduling time to sit down with each of them, find out why they decided to work with me, what they like, where I fell short, and what they think about writers in general.

It could be fun, it could be scary, but it's sure to wind up making my head explode with the information.  The idea is to discover what my clients value about my services.  The answers may surprise me.  I hope to discover what businesses look for in a writer, and to pick up some interesting psychographics (emotional traits) about my existing clients that may offer me clues as to the sort of person that likes working with me.