Issue #61 -- December 3 2002
A weekly journal about building stronger relationships in business.
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This week's lesson, ?Are Your Customers Making You Successful? provides the critical questions to clean up your customer portfolio to improve profits, targeting efforts, and your overall business stability. You will learn more about reasons all customers are not valued customers. In a business to business marketplace, each relationship must be considered in regards to your business objectives.
Have you gained any results from last week's lesson? I hope you are not looking at your customer value measures before putting together next years marketing campaigns. Do not shoot at targets that even if you did hit, would not bring you the prize you seek.
The next series of business relationship lessons will focus on both customer and employee relations with considerations for tough economic conditions. If you have not noticed, shareholders persecute those executives they praise when the economy is bringing stock values to new levels. Little may change about the executive, but it seems they are always put on trial for the ebb and flow of business economics.
Warmly and sincerely,
Justin Hitt
Strategic Relations Consultant, Author & Speaker
http://www.iunctura.com/
By Justin Hitt, Strategic Relations Consultant, https://iunctura.com/
While employees and products contribute to your company�s success, without customers you would have a little to show for your efforts. Customers provide the influx of real capital your business needs to survive. They do not come without a price, if the wrong customers buy, you could be doing more harm than good.
When the wrong customers buy from you they do not contribute to your business objectives, they do not generate profits, and they do not support your long-term growth. While most companies consider any paying customer valuable, only the right customers can help make your company successful. Imagine, if you did not have the bad customers, you could spend more time generating income with the good ones. What do you think that would do for your business?
Ask these questions of each of your customers to determine which ones are right for you.
Through regular asking of these questions of your customer, you can tune your customer targeting strategies to make every account more valuable each year. When you make a conscious effort to serve your better customers more, they reciprocate the efforts with loyalty and more revenue for your company. Increase your value to those customers who are most likely to improve your business.
Another benefit you will gain from these questions is a better understanding of the traits that identify your key customers. This information is useful to improve sales qualifications, lead generation, and marketing results. Improving the quality of the customers you pursue generates greater long-term stability for your organization, while acquiring new business to grow your customer base. Use what you learn from customers to go full-circle in improving the acquisition of those customers you do not yet have.
Now is the time to sit down with your marketing and sales people to make sure they are focusing their efforts on those few customers in the industry that would bring the most reward for efforts expended. Let junior staff pursue the average easy to close account, focus your sales leaders on closing key accounts that bring stability to your company.
After all, if you are able to serve the leaders in your target industry, while improving your knowledge about customers who really help you grow -- what do you think your chances of success will be?
© Justin Hitt, All rights reserved.
/ profitable-customers | cultivate-topten /
Justin Hitt is a Washington-based Strategic Relations Consultant who helps business to business executives build stronger relationships in business that lead to more sales, increased profits, and greater satisfaction in business. Visit his website for more information, http://www.iunctura.com/
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© 2002 JWH Consolidated LLC dba Center for Strategic Relations, All rights reserved. Rights granted to forward, via electronic medium, this document in whole as long as the subscription and copyright portions remain intact. Dept HIP,PO Box 3123, Martinsville, VA 24115. http://www.iunctura.com/
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