Finding Your Ideal Client: 5 Questions That Can Help

Julie Starr • November 1, 2022



When you start looking outside your business for the components that give your company the support it needs, you invariably conclude that the client is the glue that binds everything together. The epiphany when you discover who your ideal client is is an important moment; however, many companies can plod along for years without identifying who that ideal client really is. How do you identify the right client? Here are a few questions to ask.

Who Would You Like to Work With?

As simple as it sounds, asking yourself who you would like to work with can help you fine-tune your goals. It could be about who excites you, but it could also be to do with what makes your role easier. For example, you may have a process in place that you think makes life simpler for your back-office functions, such as MSP quoting software or CRM software. And if you have the right tools in place that make your life easier, but you also have a client that is effortless to work with, this can be a match made in heaven. 

We need the right tools to function, but without the right clients, it is worth nothing. Therefore, understanding who you would like to work with may not be about your ideal demographic, but about someone who takes the pressure off and this can be reflected in how your business processes reveal themselves. 

Who Will Waste Your Time? 

You could spend a lot of effort finding your ideal clients by digging deep into demographics , but it’s just as important to understand who you don’t want to deal with. This is an often overlooked part of the process. When you are crafting a marketing campaign, you may believe that finding your imperfect client is a waste of effort. But it’s a form of self-preservation that you find the people who will waste your time and efforts. 

There could be a number of factors at play here, for example, someone who is demanding you respond to them during unsociable hours. You might be strict about your work-life balance, and if you find a client that is messaging you at 5:30 on a Sunday morning, this may highlight them as having unrealistic standards. 

Do You Understand What They Need? 

Finding their biggest pain points is critical. You can identify what their desires are, but again like finding out who your ideal clients are not, understanding the biggest pain points can help you understand if you can solve their problems for them. You can do this by looking at their view of the world. 

Sometimes we can find a client that we get along with because we are similar in our outlook. However, at the end of the day, you still need to provide a service that solves their problems for them. 

What Is Your Current Client Base? 

Sometimes the answer is simple. You can look at your current client base and you can see an emerging pattern. There could be specific types of people you don’t like working with either, due to specific demographics like age, or that they have an outlook that doesn’t tally with you. 

Many organizations tend to use the sustainability prism as a way to find the right clients for them, and when you are finding people who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, you can slowly streamline your ideal client base to a handful of people who are providing that symbiotic relationship. When you are looking for the ideal business client, sometimes, the solution can be very simple. 

Can You Leverage for Quick Results? 

The reality of the situation is that instead of finding ideal clients by yourself, you need to find partnerships that you are already working within other, less obvious, ways. Rather than just pitching to potential partners or focusing on your marketing, sometimes the solution is more about forming partnerships with others who have already got the clients that you want. This piggybacking method may seem underhanded, but this is where you’ve got to find an organization that compliments your business and you compliment them. 

Finding another business that provides a service that is not the same as yours but can do an endorsement deal with you can benefit both sides. 

Finding the right business client is about ensuring you have an understanding of what you want first of all, but also if this relationship is worth your while. Relationships should be easy and effortless.

Smart Sensors, Smarter Supply Chains: Enhancing Traceability in Food & Beverage

By Julie Starr • June 20, 2025
In today’s competitive food and beverage (F&B) landscape, traceability is no longer a compliance checkbox—it’s a differentiator. The ability to track every step of a product’s journey, from origin to shelf, is vital for regulatory accuracy and to ensure brand integrity, supply chain agility, and consumer trust. Add smart sensors to the mix: the quiet, tireless observers revolutionizing supply chain intelligence. Traceability Has a Data Problem Despite digitization across many F&B operations, most traceability systems still rely on fragmented or manual data inputs. Batch numbers, barcodes, and handwritten logs often stand between a supplier and clarity when things go wrong. This approach struggles with latency and scale. When contamination or delays occur, root cause analysis is slow, costly, and damaging. Smart sensors shift this paradigm by embedding real-time, contextual intelligence into every stage of the supply chain . Whether monitoring humidity in transit or recording fill-level precision in bottling plants, they remove the guesswork by turning physical conditions into structured, time-stamped data. From Passive Monitoring to Active Optimization Sensors used to be reactive tools, alerting operators to anomalies. But smart sensors now play a proactive role in process control. They measure, and they interpret. For example, temperature sensors embedded in cold chain logistics can dynamically adjust cooling systems or flag threshold breaches before spoilage occurs. These advancements reduce waste and loss at a systemic level. In a production facility, smart sensors integrated with PLCs can enforce recipe compliance, verify clean-in-place processes, and detect micro-stoppages in real-time. This enables operations to pivot faster and isolate inefficiencies before they cascade downstream. Trust is Built on Transparency Consumers are paying more attention to what they eat and drink. They’re looking beyond labels, expecting visibility into how ingredients are sourced, processed, and handled. Smart sensors make this level of transparency achievable —without burdening manufacturers with excessive manual oversight. By capturing metadata throughout production and distribution, these sensors create a digital footprint that’s tamper-resistant and instantly accessible. When this data is integrated with a central platform, brands can respond confidently to audits, recalls, and quality assurance challenges with a level of precision that would be impossible through legacy systems. Intelligence Without Infrastructure Overhaul One common misconception is that adding smart sensors requires a top-down reinvention of supply chain infrastructure. In reality, companies can deploy edge sensors in a modular, scalable way. Many modern solutions offer plug-and-play functionality, allowing for fast integration with existing machinery and MES systems. This is where suppliers like alps-machine.com are reshaping expectations. Rather than pushing proprietary ecosystems, they design sensor-ready equipment with interoperability in mind. This future-proofs investment and keeps businesses nimble in the face of regulatory or market shifts. Designing for Data Longevity Sensors are only as powerful as the context they capture. A smart implementation ensures the data collected can be standardized, stored securely, and accessed meaningfully across departments. This means moving beyond local dashboards toward centralized, queryable datasets that inform everything from supplier contracts to marketing claims. As AI and predictive analytics become more accessible, these data-rich environments will unlock new capabilities—such as predicting demand spikes based on real-time freshness indicators or adjusting production schedules dynamically based on in-transit sensor feedback. Final Thoughts: Smarter Isn’t Optional Traceability isn’t solved by more paperwork—it’s solved by embedded intelligence. Smart sensors don’t just help businesses know what happened; they help prevent the wrong things from happening at all. For companies in the food and beverage sector, adopting smart sensors is less about chasing innovation and more about enabling resilience, speed, and confidence in every decision.

Eco-Friendly Garden Prep: Summer Tips for a Greener Business Space

By Julie Starr • June 5, 2025
If you're lucky enough to have a garden as part of your business, taking some time to set it up for summer is a great investment of your energy. Not only will it be ready for your customers to spend time in, but you can also incorporate some eco-friendly elements into it. Many people just think about the property and what eco-friendly updates they can make , but there are plenty that you can implement in your garden. This gives you the best of both worlds. You own a sacred and beautiful place for your customers to spend their summer, and at the same time, you can do your part for a better planet. If this is the route you want to take, then you also need to consider how to do this with the different seasons. To help you on your journey, here are some top tips for preparing your garden for summer. Plant trees and flowers Planting trees and flowers in your garden is a must. It will make a beautiful scene of nature for everyone to enjoy. Trees will provide people and animals with shade, as well as provide a habitat for wildlife. More trees are needed in the world because they purify the air that we breathe. Flowers, especially if you plant with pollinators in mind, can be an excellent way to attract bees and butterflies, which contribute largely to the earth. Use natural pest control When preparing your garden for summer, you can do this more sustainably and kindly by using natural pest control. Simply by planting trees and flowers, you are likely to attract lots of different wildlife, some of which may destroy your efforts. While all wildlife should be considered, you may need to take measures. Some better and more eco-friendly ways you can do this, as opposed to spraying toxic chemicals onto your plants and into the air, you can implement companion planting, using protective nets over your crops, choosing resilient plants, using natural repellents, and encouraging natural predators so nature can do its thing. Maintain your garden Maintaining your garden in itself can make it more eco-friendly. Composting your garden waste regularly, and kitchen waste can help you to reduce overall waste and create nutrient-rich soil. This is a great cycle of sustainability. You can also keep on top of things that need cleaning and replacing, so you can recycle the materials for other garden structures and projects, and repurpose things around your garden before they become waste. If you have features in your garden like a swimming pool, then a regular pool maintenance service is going to be vital in keeping your water consumption to a minimum, as when it is cleaned and maintained, it will need to be drained and refilled less as well as using less energy. You could also consider how you can use natural purification methods to reduce chemical usage and support biodiversity right in your backyard. Your garden is just an eco-friendly project waiting to be built. Use these top tips to help you get started.