Recently re tweeted, Greg’s views on his blog ‘Kill off the bikers. Fire unprofitable clients now! ‘ posted earlier this year on The Savage Truth, put me in mind of my own experiences working with customers that made me no money and worse still actually harmed my business.
Leap of faith
Building a business of choice is the name given to one of my business development programmes. But this was more a statement of intent than a snappy course title. Many years ago, when I first took that leap of faith to start my own business along with my small team of trainers, I was excited, full of enthusiasm and believed that what we had to offer was the best thing since sliced bread - if only I could get people to see that too! As a young (er!) entrepreneur I had every confidence that we would be successful – but paradoxically lacked confidence in the very same! When our first few customers took their leap of faith in us and put their managers on our (then, as we believed,) cutting edge leadership programme and sent their recruitment consultants to develop their key skills with us, I was thrilled but more than that grateful! Appreciative of the belief these early customers showed in our abilities, thankful that they were actually giving us money to do what we loved to do anyway! To be truthful, our first few clients were people we knew really well and those who were already advocates of our work, so it was the second wave of customers we were actively seeking, in other words the nirvana that is new business!
Ignorance seemed like bliss
We were impatient! We marketed (in the old fashioned ways, no social media strategy back then!), we made sales calls, we went on many meetings, we networked (in person!) we advertised (yes, on paper!), we made more sales calls, we held PR events and made more sales calls and yes… clients soon began to arrive. We were so happy! We didn’t care who they were, where they came from, what sector they were in, who their clients were – all that mattered was; they chose us as their supplier. We were on our way! We were even more grateful than before!
Recognising our bikers!
Then it started…. the demands, the bad behaviour, the poor practice, the abuse of the trainers and then the late payments - then no payments! Not only did these high maintenance, unprofessional companies cause us financial calamity but the reputation they held in the market place damaged our brand. These were my bikers! It became so bad that those early loyal advocates that got us started, began fleeing in droves.
It then dawned… Not all business is good business! You might wonder how we let this happen but its easy to get blinded by that euphoria of early and speedy success and to be brutally honest I didn’t want to see the reality that was presenting itself. This would mean walking away from potential business which is never easy.
Learning the hard way
Service standards were being compromised and team morale was low. I had to do something! We were spreading ourselves too thinly and not spending the right amount of time and effort on our long term, loyal partner clients. We had spent under a year building up the business and now we needed to spend some time getting rid of the bikers; the high maintenance, difficult, non-profitable clients we had so rapidly won. As Greg says “The best business is often the hardest to win but the most profitable once you have it.” It took a hard, painful year to lose those bad clients and start the slower process of winning the right type of customer.
Actively seeking…
I started by identifying exactly what the ‘right’ type of customer looked like and felt like to work with and I did this by going back to my advocates – the ones who had thankfully stood by us anyway! – and really examined what made them great companies to do business with and have on the top of our client portfolio.
I looked out into my client universe and went to actively seek more of the same. I learnt how to build meaningful relationships with targeted, new clients and provide value-added elements to our services that they wanted and needed.
They didn’t all come in a hurry and we had to spend time and energy using innovative ways to earn their business and trust and eventually their loyalty. One client who went on to be my top client for the following 5 years, took 2½ years to win! But I knew it was worth the wait, that we would get a great customer on board because we’d taken the time and trouble to identify their potential as partner clients and we chose them.
Because you’re worth it!
As I worked with more recruiters over the years, I started to recognise that I wasn’t alone in falling into this trap. Many recruitment firms were continuing to do superficial, short term business at the cost of developing relationships with long term, sustainable, profitable organisations. This was especially apparent at desk level where consultants were under pressure from their managers to bring in jobs and to meet those activity targets quality was often conceded for the sake quantity. Inspired to share the lesson leant I developed a programme to help consultants recognise their ‘bikers’, build meaningful relationships and spend the right proportion of time and effort with the right people and build stronger, bigger, more sustainable desks, divisions and companies.
This experience happened to me a long time ago but as we emerge from the worst of recessions into what is still a fragile environment the lesson couldn’t be more current or applicable in 2011. That’s why we have re-vamped the original training programme time and time again to help new generations of recruiters gain the skills and knowledge to enable them to have the confidence to choose to do business with the right customers!
As Greg says “Business is like dating – you do have a choice who you go with!”
Building a Business of Choice is more than just a course title, its a unilateral decision to choose do business with the right customers in the right way - because you’re worth it!
Posted by Fiona Lander
Our current Building a business of choice 2 day programme is running in Sydney on Thursday 28th October & Thursday 4th November and in Melbourne on Tuesday 9th & Wednesday 10th November.
For a full definition of ‘bikers’ see The Savage Truth
07/10/2010 at 6:34 pm
Fi – a great post and I wholeheartedly agree. One of my best clients ( apart from you of course) is a multi sector recruiter whom I spent over two years talking to – they were very hard to win but there’s a real mutual respect becuase of that. They are very transparent, they see me as a trusted advisor – they invite me to their board meetings – they even give me a desk if I’m in the city. The recession was a real leveller for me – we retained very good business but we took on some very bad business – people with big ideas and no real idea of how to monetise them – a decision that left us £5.5k out of pocket as far as one client was concerned. We now choose our clients just as much as they choose us – and yes – we have said no to quite a few – and yes we are all worth it!!
20/10/2010 at 10:35 pm
Excellent post, thank you. This has happened in my business also – it’s hard to turn down clients but definitely worth being selective in the long run.