The myth most business owners believe: Any customer is a good customer.
Why this myth causes a problem: When I was first starting my CPA firm, I took every job that I could get. Heck, I had three little kids and had no money, no work, and very few customers, so I felt that I really had no choice. While selling QuickBooks training, I quickly learned that not all customers are created equally!
Good clients were easy to train, appreciated my work, understood how what I was teaching them helped their business, and, most importantly, paid my bill in full and on time.
Bad clients fought any change to their procedures (even though they hired me to help them make changes), took no responsibility for learning the program, withheld information or provided incomplete information, and worst of all, always tried to negotiate the bill down and then still refused to pay or slow paid the bill.
The truth successful business owners learn the hard way! The customer is always right – just not always right for you! Successful business owners learn that when they are meeting a prospect they should be interviewing the prospect in order to decide if they are a good customer for them.
Since our smart business owner knows that 80 percent of their revenue comes from 20 percent of their customers they also know that the smart thing to do is to concentrate their sales efforts on prospects who are similar to their best customers. They also learn what “bad for them” customers look like and make a conscious effort to avoid them.
Lesson learned: Being picky about who you take as a customer both increases your profits and reduces your stress.