Your Best Customers… Part II

Best Customers

In the spirit of yesterday’s article, I thought I would do a little unscientific test today.

So I spoke with three random people (I said it was unscientific), and asked them to identify the attributes of an ideal client.

Two listed some basic demographics like the annual revenue of the company, industry sector, number of employees, etc.

The other one said something to the effect of “hey whatever… a gig is a gig.”

Yikes.

Now, it is probably obvious that the ‘gig player’ is counting on luck to deliver on corporate objectives.

But if the truth be told, so were the other two. Over time, defining your market on purely demographic terms will most likely yield about the same success rates as rolling the dice.

You see, long term business relationships are about… well, relationships.

************************************************************************************************************

The two young men at the coffee shop yesterday didn’t understand this.

To them, business was about ‘what’s in it for me?’ They were not about providing solutions for their clients. On the contrary, they were about problems… and as their conversation revealed, the client was the problem.

No let me rephrase, all of their clients were a problem.

They didn’t see eye to eye with their clients, they didn’t appreciate their clients… they didn’t really seem to like their clients. But not to worry… they probably won’t have them for long.

The real problem of course was that they viewed business as mere transactions… and adversarial transactions at that. They had no basis for a true relationship, nothing in common… no team to fight with… or for.

It’s too bad… for them.

I suspect that if I had asked them to identify their ideal client, I might have heard something to the effect that “a gig is a gig”.

 

Questions:

Beyond demographics, what are the attributes of your ideal customers?

What are the relational characteristics of the companies that referred the most business to you last year?

What will it take this year, to double the number of referrals you received last year? How about tripling them?

Do you have a written plan to achieve that? Do every single one of your employees know where they fit into that plan, and how to contribute?

 

I look forward to speaking with you.

 

Photo Credit:

kevindooley