Clients: Too Many Can Mean Trouble
You’re better off with a few eagles than lots of turkeys.
When it comes to clients, quality beats quantity. Having too many clients can cause more financial problems than having too few.
You’re better off spending more time serving your best
clients, than scrambling to serve a bunch of smaller ones who are more trouble than they’re worth.
Working with too many of the wrong clients is a formula for
failure, if there ever was one.
Unfortunately, it’s a formula too many design professionals
follow too often.
Why?
Because they say “yes” when they should say “no.” They accept small jobs with high maintenance customers who are more interested in bargain basement prices than fine design.
If you’re stuck with too many of these bottom feeders, you’re fishing in the wrong waters.
You’re probably underserving your biggest fish while you spend all that time accomodating all those minnows.
Tell me about all your small projects for all of your small clients, and I’ll tell you to aim higher.
I’ll tell you to make more profitable use of your time by focusing, instead, on your best clients.
Ask them about a “Phase II” for the current project. And about upgrades. And about your commercial, as well as residential design services, or vice versa.
At the very least, ask them for referrals.
Put your best clients under a microscope, and analyze their
every need, before searching for new prospects .
The long term value of a client is more than 100 times the
value of a single transaction.
Expanding your relationship with your quality clients beats
having a quantity of tiny–and perhaps troublesome–ones.
Think big.
Think quality, not quantity.
Think eagles, not turkeys
