Here let me read it to you. Or listen direct on Spotify.

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What if you just waved some types of client goodbye?

 

Most of us are in business to be of service doing something we generally enjoy. And to turn all that work into a horde of satisfied, profitable long-term customers.

You know it takes a positive mindset. You do your best to bring that every day. And yet, you know deep in your heart that a certain percentage of those customers are not your people.

They’re a soul-destroying, high-maintenance burden on you and your whole organisation. They do not appreciate all your efforts in the slightest. Working with them does not spark joy. You’re just doing it for the money.

How would it be if you just waved those clients goodbye?

Not just annoying individual ones, but entire segments of the market, entire distribution channels that share these annoyances in common.

I can’t do that, you say. There are budgets to meet. Wages to pay. Times are tough. It’s hard enough getting money through the door without saying no to some of it.

Calm down. You can do this and it will make your business and your whole life better.

I know because we’ve tested this theory for you. Because we are privately-owned and can do these things without pressure from head offices or VC creeps.

We’ve made decisions to avoid segments of our market because they weren’t a good fit with what our staff like working on. Most of them aren’t bad clients. They just don’t suit us and we don’t suit them.

I can report it’s great, both in commercial and karmic terms.

If you keep pursuing every customer in the world, it will make your business a lot worse long-term.

 

A depressing, fatalistic approach to work

 

A thing I find depressing is fatalistic statements about work like “oh well, same shit, different day.”

You hear it in organisations where management will not say no to a single incoming dollar.

They’re prepared to throw their staff under the bus because the customer is always right. Margins plunge because those unsuitable clients also demand rock-bottom pricing. So the only strategy left is endless cost-cutting and subservience.

Good staff leave. Those that remain are trapped in a grim, work-hating environment.  Clients can sense it in the form of low enthusiasm, bureaucratic delays and powerless frontline staff.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Get the right customers and your staff will be in a much happier place. Their work will reflect that. Good customers will respond to that, and it creates a virtuous cycle. You get more good customers and staff. Your business will be happier, more focused and more profitable.

 

Clarifying what you are

 

The basic approach to business, particularly when you’re new, is to go after all the business you can.

You see it on the SME websites.  And on the fridge magnets I still get two or three of each week in the letterbox. While free-to-air TV and newspapers wither to a shadow of their former selves, fridge magnets are the analog medium that will never die.

“The perfect solution for everyone!”.  “One-stop shop!”. “From small things to big things and everything in between, we’re the one!”

After a while you realise you can’t be everything to everyone. You read some marketing books. You sharpen up your target market.

You work out which segments of the market get what you’re about, who are prepared to pay a bit more for that. It’s an essential process to go through.

 

Clarifying what you aren’t

 

It’s much more fun though, in a villainous kind of way, to think of which customers you don’t want to work with.

Analysing who are the wrong customers for you paints a more vivid picture. It connects with deep survival and trust instincts.

Making those decisions makes you feel like you’re in control of your own destiny. For me it’s the single best part of having your own business. There are no external overlords demanding you hit monthly revenue growth targets by any desperate means.

It’s your choice to avoid the customers that always delegate the decision to procurement. The ones who expect you to match the dirtiest price from another supplier they’re always complaining about. The chronic product-returners. The people who always change their mind at the last minute with no consideration for the havoc it wreaks on your team, who now have to work through the weekend.

Those people are sponging off a structure that’s paid for by your good clients.

We have customers I’m happy to work through the weekend for. Because their normal behaviour is honourable and if they have a crisis, they deserve the help. Our staff pull out regular above-and-beyond efforts because we have clients who can be firm on occasions, but have an overall respect for what we do.

Some customers will always regard you as a commodity product, no matter how much you go above and beyond. They’re not intrinsically evil. Their priorities just don’t match your priorities. Your job is to find customers that do match.

It is a wonderful feeling to talk to customers and think: these are my people. To feel motivated to help them get where they want to go. Our relationship isn’t transactional. It’s a long-term thing that will have highs and lows, but each values the other.

 

The red flag: how your own staff feel

 

When you analyse which are your wrong clients, it’s usually the ones that make your staff unhappy on a regular basis.

Saying no to those clients is the single best way to show staff that you’re not a regular shitty boss. It tells your people that you understand their frustrations and you’re prepared to back them.

I’m not saying you just tell those clients where they can stick their business. Just move your price up until they move on.

Those wrong clients usually turn out to be a statistically small part of your revenue base. They seem larger, because they take up so much of your time and attention.

The more you clarify what your business really is, the more you’ll attract the clients you deserve. And you’ll make them happy.

Number of Same Shit Different Day coffee mugs in your office: zero. Now there’s a KPI.

 

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Zoë Foster Blake said: “Ian is a cheeky, funny, disruptive (and proven: important) business rascal and thank goodness for that.”

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