Finding Your Ideal Client

The Ideal Client

- Lessons Learned, Episode 44

One of the biggest lessons I learned in my consulting business was to create an "Ideal Client." I didn't start out calling it that. It started out trying to figure out how to get the next client.

Last time, we talked about moving from no minimum up to five users and then ten. Then I came up with a better approach. 

Since I'd been filtering clients, and weeding some, I started thinking about what I really wanted in the next client if I could have anything I wanted. I started with what I wanted, and then asked the staff.

For me, it was not too difficult. My favorite clients were nice people, good to work with. They paid their bills on time and didn't argue about every detail. They took their technology seriously, and were happy to have regular monthly maintenance. I could name my top ten favorite clients easily, so I made a list and then starting thinking about all the things they have in common.

Next, I asked the staff. Technicians had no idea who argues about quotes or insisted on paying late. They wanted interesting work, people who treated them with respect, and people who clearly liked working with us as a team.

The office manager was very focused on who just paid their bills and who always argued or paid late. But she also preferred clients who were nice to work with. This is more than, "Doesn't yell on phone." It was people who actually talked to her as a human being, working for a key vendor.

We made a big list of all the things we could think of. Then we narrowed it down as a team. Some things, everyone wanted. Some were of secondary importance but clearly very important. Ultimately, we came up with about ten criteria of what is important to us. (Your mileage may vary.)

Then I asked every member of my staff (I think it was about ten at time) to rate every client on each of the criteria - anonymously. The top scores were no surprise. And the bottom scores were no surprise. In a big meeting, we talked about these criteria and I made an announcement.

From now on, we are going to try to only get new clients who look like our favorite clients. If someone yelled at us or their employees, they were out. People who were rude or pushy were out. People who wanted to argue about money before they even sign a contract were out.

Many people think they have to spend their entire career chasing after large clients and then running their business just to please a few elephants. Since I came from a world of large (huge) clients, I didn't want that. I wanted to have a place where I enjoyed coming to work every day.

We discovered something interesting, but not necessarily surprising, in this exercise. Our favorite clients to work with were also the most profitable. You can already guess why. They paid on time. They didn't argue about upgrades. They required less rework because they saw us as a valuable part of their team, so we weren't rushed or hassled during service calls.

And because they let us do our job, their systems were always in great shape. They had good, business-class equipment, and all the hardware and software was patched and updated. As a result, their systems were very trouble-free. That meant less labor (and more profit) for us.

If you think about it, the clients at the bottom were known to have all these bad traits by their other vendors: Their lawyer, their accountant, the people who cleaned their office, and so forth. They probably had un-fun, difficult relationships with everyone. As a result, they lived in a world with people who tolerated late payments and abusive behavior. The difficult relationships affected their profit.

Nothing's Perfect, and This Was Difficult

Of course, you never know how great a client is going to be until they've been with you for a while. During the courting period, they're on their best behavior (and so are you). But we could see the red flags, if we looked, and eliminated a number of prospective clients.

Not every new client was an amazing top-ten favorite. But we never hired objectionable, argumentative, cheap clients after that. Even if a new client was solidly in the middle, they were in the middle of a group of people we wanted to do business with.

Slowly, we asked folks at the bottom to find alternative IT service providers. And with each new, more-ideal client, we got ride of one we'd rather not work with.

This strategy worked as well as we could have hoped for. It showed our employees that they were important to us, and that we valued an environment where they would be treated well and work on fun projects. And, of course, we were more profitable as we went after larger "ideal" clients, shedding all of those who were a negative force in our company.

-----

Since that time, I have developed a very mature process and understanding for developing your business around your ideal clients. In fact, when I teach customer service and several other classes, I start with an "Identify your ideal client" exercise. 

Eventually, I got the opportunity to build an IT business 100% out of truly ideal clients. Oh, that was a great business, very profitable, and a wonderful place to work.

But that's another story.

All comments welcome.

-----

Episode 44

This Episode is part of the ongoing Lessons Learned series. For all the information, and an index of Lessons Learned episodes, go to the Lessons Learned Page. 

Leave comments and questions below. And join me next week, right here.

Subscribe to the blog so you don't miss a thing.

:-)