Beyond the Ideal Client Avatar: 5 Questions That Reveal What Your Client Really Needs
I have seen too many “ideal client avatars” that read like dating profiles. Claudia, 42, lives in Zurich, practices yoga, shops at Hermès. Interesting, but not that helpful on its own.
The ideal client avatar has its place. It helps a founder picture the kind of customer they want to attract. It can guide aesthetic choices like colour palettes, typography, and brand tone. That is step one.
Step two is different. When a founder hires me, my focus is not on their client’s demographics but on the founder herself. What progress is she trying to make in her business? What job is she hiring me, and her website, to do?
Why Questions Do Not Always Work
Surveys are polite. Reality is not.
When I worked on Indigo’s digital experience during the holiday season at the height of COVID, we asked shoppers how much they planned to spend. The answer was a resounding “not much.” We braced for a quiet season.
Instead, sales shattered records. Pajamas flew off the shelves. Customers bought in multiples, hedging their bets on sizing because fitting rooms were closed. Returns shattered records too.
The survey said no. The behaviour screamed yes.
That gap mattered more than any chart. People misjudge themselves all the time. They tell you one story and act out another. Which is why relying on what clients say is never enough.
In design, it plays out the same way. What clients say is often vague. “I want something modern and simple.” “I just need a refresh.” Those words do not tell you the job.
To find the job, you have to look at the situation. A founder says “modern and simple” after losing confidence when a potential client laughed at her outdated site. Another asks for a “refresh” right after a competitor launches a polished rebrand that makes her look second-rate.
The real signal is in the struggling moment, not the surface request. Founders are not buying “modern” or “fresh.” They are hiring a website to create very specific progress: to feel credible in high-stakes conversations, to stop losing opportunities to competitors, and to finally own a digital presence that matches the quality of their work.
The Limits of Ideal Client Profiles
This is why I am skeptical of traditional “ideal client” exercises. They create a neat sketch of who someone imagines their customer to be: age, hobbies, favourite brands. This helps with aesthetics. It does not tell me what my client actually needs her website to accomplish.
Even more detailed intake forms often fall short. Founders struggle to articulate why their current site is not working or what would finally make things click. They answer based on perception rather than behaviour. That gap matters.
Observing the Job My Clients Hire Me For
Jobs to Be Done thinking taught me to look beyond what people say and focus on what they do. For me, this means observing the client directly. Their frustrations, their workarounds, their triggers. That is where the job shows up most clearly.
Triggers: What pushed them to act now. Often it is the sting of a lost opportunity or the embarrassment of sending someone to a site that does not reflect their work.
Workarounds: What they invent to cope. Using Instagram as a portfolio. Sending PDFs because their website does not explain their offer. Apologising during calls for a site they no longer stand behind.
Past Attempts: What they tried before me. A generic template. A freelancer. A low-cost agency. Each attempt leaves clues about what the site failed to do.
The founder is not shopping for pixels. She is making a hire to move her business forward. The website is her tool for progress: to close the credibility gap, to anchor premium pricing, or to finally replace the duct tape holding her systems together.
What Clients Are Really Hiring Me To Do
Each founder’s job is specific to her situation. For one, it is to send a site link without embarrassment. For another, it is to step into a premium market and be taken seriously. For a third, it is to stop patching systems together and finally have a site that can carry the weight of growth.
The jobs are not identical. What unites them is the decision to leave behind what no longer works and invest in a site that creates progress on their terms. When I design with that understanding, a website stops being ornamental. It becomes an instrument of change, built for the exact job my client needs it to do.
The Gumptious Way: The SPOT Method
To make this practical, I use a process inspired by Jobs to Be Done. I call it the SPOT Method. It is not about studying their clients. It is about understanding my client (the founder), and the job they are hiring me to do.
S – Struggles: The frustrations or embarrassments they voice right now. For example, apologising for sending their link or losing confidence when asked to share their site.
P – Past Attempts: The solutions that have already failed them, like hiring a low-cost agency or trying a generic template that never converted.
O – Observed Workarounds: The duct tape they are using to get by, such as treating Instagram as a portfolio or sending PDFs because the site cannot tell their story.
T – Triggers: The event that finally pushed them to invest. A lost opportunity, a competitor’s rebrand, or a high-value lead who walked away.
SPOT keeps me focused on the founder’s progress. It strips away avatars and psychographics and zeroes in on what really matters: the moment of struggle, the failed solutions, and the breakthrough they are ready to hire me for.
From Aesthetic to Asset
Most web designers stop at questionnaires and avatars. These tools are fine for building moodboards. They help capture a visual direction such as colour palettes, typography, or brand tone. What they do not uncover is what the site needs to do.
Observation fills that gap. What clients say is one layer, but what they do reveals more. At Gumptious, I look for the struggling moments beneath the surface. A founder who explains pricing verbally on every sales call is telling me their website is not anchoring their value. A client who leans on LinkedIn or a Notion page to tell their story shows me their site is not carrying their narrative. Someone who builds separate landing pages on Mailchimp or ConvertKit signals that their site is not equipped to capture leads.
Each workaround reveals the job their website is failing to do. My role is to design a site that takes on that work so the founder no longer has to.
When you uncover the job, you stop producing websites that are only attractive. You create websites that function as true business assets. Tools that give clients confidence, authority, and momentum.
