{"id":828,"date":"2013-05-04T17:32:58","date_gmt":"2013-05-04T17:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.success-academy.org\/home\/?p=828"},"modified":"2013-05-04T17:32:58","modified_gmt":"2013-05-04T17:32:58","slug":"the-clients-you-may-not-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.success-academy.org\/home\/the-clients-you-may-not-want\/","title":{"rendered":"The Clients You May Not Want"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you are starting up in business you may think that any customer is a good customer.\u00a0<\/strong>
\nHowever, as time goes by and you start to grow you will find that some customers are better to work with\u00a0than others.<\/p>\n

Following are examples of types of customers I would advise my Clients to consider if they should continue\u00a0to do business with, and on what terms:<\/p>\n

1. The Wheeler-Dealer<\/strong>
\nThey want to negotiate everything, expecting discounts, special delivery, different packaging, extended\u00a0payment terms. Getting the order can be exhausting and then they will look for the slightest reason to delay\u00a0or not pay.
\nEither you need to push back hard or they will drain you of profit and enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

2. The Hollywood Star<\/strong>
\nThey talk an amazing game plan and may even have an impressive track record.
\nYou will be invited to shine with them and participate in their great project which offers incredible riches.
\nUnfortunately small things like paying you on time may not be part of the plan. Stars that rise quickly can just\u00a0as easily crash and burn.
\nKeep in touch with reality, get everything in writing.<\/p>\n

3. The Big Dog<\/strong>
\nEveryone wants to do business with them and say a Fortune 500 company, or XYZ, is a client.
\nThey have shown the world what a great company they are and have wonderful data for customer and\u00a0employee satisfaction. However, supplier satisfaction data is not so readily available. They set the rules and\u00a0if you don’t like them there are lots of others willing to cut their margins and bend to their demands. You may\u00a0find most of your time and capacity is used on ‘The Big Dog’ and not much is left for your other customers.
\nMake sure you don’t try to bite off more than you can chew.<\/p>\n

4. The Little Fish<\/strong>
\nThey may have been your ‘bread and butter’ but there comes a time when the bread is cut very thin and\u00a0there is only a smear of margarine.
\nIf you look at the cost of servicing small orders it can be frightening since there are both fixed and variable\u00a0costs. An example of fixed cost for a non-automated warehouse is it usually costs the same to go and stock\u00a0pick one item or ten – starting the fork lift, going to the location, picking the items, taking them to the packing\u00a0area, etc, etc. The variable cost might be the actual shipping which is based on weight or size. Because of\u00a0the fixed element small orders can be ‘below zero’, meaning you make a loss on them.
\nOverall if you have a mixture of order sizes these \u2018below zero\u2019 sales can be tolerated, however if margins\u00a0start to decline minimum order levels may have to be introduced. This has to be done intelligently so\u00a0that you don’t lose these loyal customers.<\/p>\n

\"clients\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you want healthy growth you need good customers who are also achieving healthy growth.<\/strong>
\nYou have to look at not just how good a customer has been in the past and is in the present, but also their\u00a0future potential and adjust your business model as needed.
\nRemember that a Client has to be profitable on paper and on the emotional scale because no business can\u00a0survive if the leader is burned out and can\u2019t think strategically about the future!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you are starting up in business you may think that any customer is a good customer.\u00a0 However, as time goes by and you start to grow you will find that some customers are better to work with\u00a0than others. Following are examples of types of customers I would advise my Clients to consider if they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.success-academy.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.success-academy.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.success-academy.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.success-academy.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.success-academy.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.success-academy.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":830,"href":"https:\/\/www.success-academy.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828\/revisions\/830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.success-academy.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.success-academy.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.success-academy.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}