If you’ve been in business for a while I’m sure you’ll have clients you love to work with and those you wish you’d never taken on.
So what makes the difference?
It always comes down to sharing a set of values and beliefs.
If you are someone who prides themselves on providing high quality service and charging for it, you need to work with clients who appreciate what you have to offer.
There’s no point in attracting clients who are only interested in the lowest price and the quickest delivery.
And of course, the converse is true too.
In our experience most professional services consultants choose clients based on demographics like industry, size, location and revenue.
But demographics won’t tell you how the buyers think.
That’s the realm of psychographics. What they value in a solution. What they’re willing to pay for or not.
And all too often there’s a clash of values which leads to tears.
I’ll give you a couple of examples.
One of our clients in the fire protection is a stickler for doing the job right. He won’t cut corners. Client safety is paramount – as you should expect.
So he’s far from the cheapest supplier in town and only wants to work with people who vibe with his standards and are willing to pay.
Another works in industrial refrigeration. He wants the difficult jobs which have been mucked up by others.
Clients he wants to attract understand the value of getting the job done right, the first time. That it will take longer and be more expensive, but they’ll get a far better result and ROI.
So when deciding whom to work with consider the demographics which give you a framework of industry, size etc. But more important, decide on the psychographics. How they think so that their values and beliefs align with yours.
That is the only thing which will lead to happy, longer term engagements where you get repeat business and referrals.
That’s it for now.
If you’d like our help to determine exactly who your best clients are, improve your sales effectiveness and close more business in less time, give me a hoy. We have a 90 day marketing, prospecting and sales program which is guaranteed to make you more effective.
