Sell to who your customers Want to be

Recently I was speaking with a friend who works for a large B2C company in the marketing department. She remarked that her target demographic was 18-34 year old males with a few other characteristics. Later in the conversations she remarked her actual customer was a 45 - 54 year old male.

My no duh, flash of insight moment came when I realized, it’s not selling to who your customer is, it is selling to who they want to be. If your customer wants to be a childlike, sell to them as if they were a child. If someone wants to be the exclusive billionaire, sell to them as if they already are.

Aspirational selling makes the person feel how they want to be perceived and who they strive to be.

Who or what do your customers want to be?