Not everyone should get the honor of being your customer. Life is short, so why spend your valuable time with customers that are rude, slow to pay, or overly price sensitive?

Recently, I had a new client verbally abuse one of my team members. My teammate was mortified at the experience and was not sure how to handle it. After investigating the situation, it became clear that our client was a bully and would be impossible to satisfy. I terminated the relationship. End of story.

The essence of niche marketing is to create an intimate partnership with a market segment that is under-served or not served at all. The entrepreneur provides a carefully crafted solution to this customer segment, but only after intense research and testing.

Through this special relationship the customer gets what want they have needed and, in return, the entrepreneur gets customer loyalty and higher profits. And little, if any, competition.

But, this niche market success is dependent on the right mix of customers. So, what does the right customer look like? I call this the “preferred customer profile”. Create a list of the criteria that are most important to you and your business. That list might include:

• proximity to your office or shop
• pays bills on time
• easy to do business with
• future need for your product or service
• margin
• fun relationship
• size of customer
• industry

Rank your current customers based on these factors. When my clients have done this ranking, it is frequent that some of their customers score very high, while other customers may score very low. The question then is how can you raise the score of the low ranking customers or how soon can you replace them with customers which better fit you and your business?

Why exhaust your resources trying to serve customers that don’t pay their bills on time, that are difficult to work with, or don’t fit with your future product plans. Focus your energies on your high scoring customers. Direct your marketing efforts and new business development on finding new customers that fit your preferred customer profile.

Life is short.

John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2006 All rights reserved.
Please visit my website at www.firstbestordifferent.com

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