How to Focus on the “Good” Customers
Seth Godin writes about how some customers are better than others. The way he says it in the title is that “some PEOPLE are better than others.” His point is that some customers are worth a lot more to you. They spend more, they value what you offer. I call this your “flock” and your job as a marketer is to feed your flock.
Seth uses 2 examples: Kindle owners and people who buy new hardback books at Walmart.
As a Kindle owner I buy a lot of books (finding the time to read them is another matter). I worked out the kinks and figured out how to use it now but I still need to study up on the features I don’t use well. So back to the point, marketing the Kindle version of books of the type I like to buy is smart (I buy social media and business books - last week I bought Chris Brogan’s book and Gary Vaynerchuk’s and David Meerman Scott’s books. Next week I’ll buy Greg Jarboe’s book).
My question is, what do you do with the customers who are bad? The ones who take your time, pay late, complain often and complicate your life? How do you graciously get out of the relationship? In every business there are clients or customers that are tough to work with. It’s not worth whatever they are willing to pay and if they are cheap then it’s even worse. I’ve dealt with this for years and I admit not always well.
Of course we’d all like to find and work with the “good” customers or clients. I’d love some tips from Seth (or anyone) about how to find and cultivate relationships with them.
One Response to “How to Focus on the “Good” Customers”
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October 27th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Very interesting topic, Janet, I must say. And actually very close to my heart at this current moment in time, as I am in the process of ‘firing’ a client as I write this, for the exact reasons you mention in your post.
I guess the real issue here is how do you end the relationship without being unprofessional and burning the bridge down to the ground completely (you never know what might come around in the future - you might want, or even NEED to work with the customer again).
Its tough, that’s for sure, and I would LOVE to see what other people have got to say about this, might even help me out a little bit!