Send Your Clients to Competitors
Are you serving every client or customer you can get?
Most business-to-business companies do. According to Reed Holden and Mark Burton — authors of Pricing with Confidence — 79 percent of B2B companies serve any customers they can get.
No matter if you are a company, a service professional, or a web publisher, if you don’t make a choice about who you do business with, very likely frustration will be part of your daily luncheon.
Doesn’t that sound a bit insecure too?
Now please don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean this in an arrogant way. I also understand that most people struggle to attract businesses, let alone rejecting them.
You may have heard numerous times about the Pareto principle. In essence, it says that 80 percent of what you do account for only 20 percent of the result, but on the other hand, 20 percent of the rest account for 80 percent of the result.
In real life, the number sometimes is more like 90:10 or even 99:1.
With limited time we have, it just makes sense that we should be picky, in certain ways.
Niche marketing is the fundamental principle to nail down your target market. Within that market, there will always be people who are not your ideal customers / clients.
The definition of an ideal client is subjective. It has to be subjective, but in a good way.
If you are blogging, most likely you have ever met (or will meet) people who:
- Negatively critique everything that you post.
- Depreciate your effort.
- Ask you to release your e-book or other product for free.
- Demand a free hours long consultation — as if you are obliged to.
- Behave as if they are your only customers, demanding sole attention.
- Threaten to unsubscribe because of a few typos or grammatical mistakes.
- If you sell digital products, request a refund minutes after purchase.
You are better off if you send those people to your competitions. Fire them. Return their money. Block them from doing any further transactions.
As a business owner, I can distinguish between constructive criticism and negativity. Sometimes it is just jealousy, but either way it is not your problem.
By sending those people to your competitions, you keep yourself sane. That also means having more time for your best customers. More time for delivering solid content. More time for your family…
Consider that.
Here’s good news. As you develop a profile for your ideal client, you will notice that you will attract more of them to your business.
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