The customer is always right. Correct? Wrong!
The RIGHT customer is always right for your business. Unfortunately most of us don’t know who the right customers are for our business. So we take on board anyone who has a heart beat, without ever identifying the right customer profile for our business.
But who is the right customer for your business and how do you identify the ones to avoid, or actively send elsewhere? Master this and you will build a much stronger business in the long term, have happier staff and more money in the bank.
FIRSTLY, IDENTIFY YOUR PERFECT CUSTOMER.
One of the best ways to identify your niche is to paint a picture of the perfect customer for your business. Which customers do you love to deal with? Which customers are the most profitable and professional? Which customers pay on time and never complain about the price? Which customers do you want to get referrals from?
An easy way to do this is to look at your top 20% of customers, and identify what they all have in common. It could be a common need or amount of money they spend with you…or how often they buy from you…. or where they live…. or why they came to use your products or services in the first place. Are they ’30 something”, with 2 or more children who live on the North Shore and drive a Toyota Camry?
THE MORE CLEARLY YOU CAN IDENTIFY YOUR PERFECT CUSTOMER THE MORE PROFITABLE YOUR BUSINESS WILL BECOME.
Once you have done this, then you can start to develop a strategy on how you are going to get more customers like these. It will make a HUGE difference in how you market to these people and how cost effective your advertising and marketing will be. History is 20/20 vision and a great information source for your future, only if you use it to your advantage. Every advert that doesn’t work or campaign that doesn’t get you results is a learning opportunity… but only if you learn from it.
DON’T GET DISTRACTED BY THE “D” CLASS CUSTOMERS
The idea of actively sending a customer away from your business, possibly to a competitor, is contrary to what many business owners this is logical practice. But pick your customer (or prospective customer) and it can be one of the most empowering feelings that you can achieve in business and will set you on a path to better profitability and better customer service.
The customers to chase away are the ones who seldom buy from you, often complain about minor things, are often the slowest payers and generally a pain in the butt. While you were building your business you put up with this type of buyer, because you felt that any business was better that no business. In reality this type of customer is unprofitable and you would have probably been better off without them to start with. If a business has too many ‘D’ class clients then it surely will go slowly bust, life will be hard and the business will be too susceptible to all sorts of troubles from employees not wanting to work there, to deliveries going missing, to dirty workspaces etc.
Now you know better, so go out there and target more “A class” customers to build you business on and while you are at it, save you and your staff a lot of grief by firing a “D class” customer or two.
For help in defining what sort of customer is right for you an d how to attract more of them, email me at andy@tradescoach.co.nz
Andy Burrows – The Trades Coach