Attracting the Right Customers

If your take the time to review and analyze your customers, you will find that they are not equally valuable: some will produce strong, continuous, reliable forms of income, whilst others give you small pieces of complex work, argue over what you have done, and then are slow to pay you.

Here we use ‘customer’ as a general term. Purchasers are referred to as customers, though a service organization such as a firm of accountants would probably talk about clients and a hotel would call them guests.

A good strategy aims to identify and target customers with characteristics that are most beneficial to your organization.

In the early stages of a business, it is natural to say “yes” to all potential customers. You may be under financial pressures to earn income, and want to seek reassurances that you are doing good job and that people want to work with you. However, some customers have characteristics that give them the potential to be much more beneficial to your organization than others.

Possible characteristics of good customers:

Financially beneficial. They provide you with regular profitable income; they are willing to pay a higher-than-average price; they give you a large volume of work so it improves your turnover figures; they pay promptly and it improves your cash flow.
Reputation enhancing. Their custom enhances your reputation in the market.
Structure enhancing. They enable you to invest in new resources: for example, if a potential but not well-paying customer would provide work to fill 60 per cent of an expensive new machine`s capacity, that customer`s work would allow you to invest in a key new resource.
Knowledge enhancing. They provide valuable insight into areas that you are not familiar with, such as a new market sector or a new country that would be strategically important for your organization.

Once you have determined the types of customers you want and don`t want, target your marketing to your preferred groups.

"THE PURPOSE OF A BUSINESS IS TO CREATE A CUSTOMER."

PETER DRUCKER

"WE HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH OUR CUSTOMER, AND THAT RELATIONSHIP TRANSLATES INTO SALES."

RICHARD HAYNE

"THE RISK OF RELYING ON A HANDFUL OF CUSTOMERS IS NOT JUST FINANCIAL. YOUR PRODUCT ALSO IS AT RISK WHEN YOU'RE AT THE MERCY OF A FEW BIG SPENDERS. WHEN ANY ONE CUSTOMER PAYS YOU SIGNIFICANTLY MORE THAN THE OTHERS, YOUR PRODUCT INEVITABLY ENDS UP CATERING MOSTLY TO THAT CUSTOMER'S SPECIFIC NEEDS."

JASON FRIED

"A COMPLAINT IS A CHANCE TO TURN A CUSTOMER INTO A LIFELONG FRIEND. I SAY THAT SERIOUSLY, NOT AS SOME PRESS RELEASE BALONEY."

RICHARD BRANSON

Запоминаем:

income - доход

purchaser - покупатель

accountant - бухгалтер

to target - нацеливать, намечать, планировать

beneficial - выгодный

reassurance - заверение, перестраховка

profitable - прибыльный, рентабельный

turnover figures - показатели оборота