Bad Advice

Welcome back. In part three of our discussion about insights that can build a Quadrant Five business, we’ll be taking a look at the people who can provide valuable perceptions…and those whose opinions you should ignore entirely.

Specifically, we’ll be looking at the A-List of customers and refining that list to yield optimal results. As Quadrant Five fanatics know, A-List customers are those who are, could or should be buying the product/service that offers the greatest returns for your company. Matching the company’s strengths with customer perceptions of value is key to effective marketing, sales and sustainable growth.

Where, though, do we begin? How do we identify the customers who will lead us to sustainable, profitable growth? For starters, let’s think about the kind of customers we’d like to have and those we’d be happy to lose. With few exceptions, most of us would want customers who:

1. Pay their bills on time.
2. Buy multiple items from us.
3. Rely on us for a large share of purchases a large number of their product/service requirements.
4. Share their plans so that we can anticipate their needs
5. Tell us what they like or don’t like, giving us a chance to do better.
6. Treat our staff members with respect.
7. Provide referrals for new customers.

Any customer who fits all the descriptions above will be a strong candidate for the A-List. Conversely, customers who match few or none of these points are unlikely to be our best partners—or targets. If we’re going to learn how to attract and keep customers, we want to focus on the winners.

Now comes the hard part. When we assemble our list of customers, prioritized according to the list above, do we find a match with our greatest strengths? In the first post of this series, we noted the importance of identifying the core strengths and competitive edge of each business. Having focused on what should be the company’s advantage, do we find that our A-List is aligned with that strength?

In other words, are our best customers buying the products that we make most profitably, the products where we have a real edge over our competitors, the products that we can, in fact, differentiate in our market?

Most likely, the answer will be affirmative. It would be rare for a company to have an edge in product quality, technology or profitability without attracting the kind of customers it wants for those products. If the opposite proves to be true, though, it’s time to find the source of the mismatch and fix it. Otherwise, the company’s growth will be built on a very shaky foundation.