When you are in business it doesn’t take long to realise that 20 percent of your customers provide around about 80 percent of your profit. The difficulty lies with the other 80 percent of your customers that only provide 20 percent of your profit. What can you do with them?
The figures in the first paragraph are very approximate. However, they do give you the opportunity to carry out the following exercise. Rate your customers as A, B or C. Your A customers are your best. They pay on time, they don’t quibble, nitpick and are perfectly reasonable. Best of all, they are not high maintenance. In other words, they don’t waste your time asking frivolous questions or demanding services that they haven’t paid for.
Your B customers are your most prolific. There are more of them in this category than anywhere else. They are not always on time with their payments, they are reasonable most of the time, they sometimes have difficulty in accepting things they don’t like, but overall they are not too bad. You actually don’t mind dealing with these people because you can probably relate to them quite easily.
Your C customers are ones that you would rather not have. They are a pain in the butt but you cannot afford to sack them. When you have identified them, you will notice that they have similar characteristics. Everything is too expensive, nothing is good enough, they treat you like a low paid worker, they are late with information and payment. They are the typical high maintenance customer.
These are the sort of customer that is never satisfied, no matter what you do. They complain and whinge about everything. It’s these people that make being in business miserable. When you have had to deal with these sorts of customers all day long you question your sanity about being in business.
The secret of being a happy businessperson is to constantly identify your C customers and replace them with A customers. So set up a classification of all your customers and start working on getting rid of the C customers and recruiting A customers. One of the ways of getting rid of your C customers is to let them know that you are no longer operating in their area or you are not going to be supplying their particular goods or services. However, you are quite prepared to recommend them to go and build a relationship with your competition.
Peter L Mitchell is a business consultant who has helped many diverse businesses to increase their profits. He has a wealth of practical experience which he is willing to share freely. Download your free booklet showing 45 practical ways to increase your business profits. It is full of ideas, tips, tactics and strategies for you to apply in your business. Click here http://www.45ways.com.
