The 5 Secrets To Business Growth in a Competitive Market - Part 03 of 05
Not all revenue is good revenue—here’s why you should let go of bad customers
This is the 208th consecutive post on MrEmogical Notes. If you’ve been following this series and are finding value from this blog/ newsletter, please consider sharing this post with one person who you feel needs to read this for their betterment.
Quick recap
I was invited to a business networking event where I met a business owner who’s been in the business of sales of computers, laptops, technological peripherals and accessories to corporates and business clients for the last 25 years.
I had a conversation with him to know how he has managed to survive and grow his business among all the competition, rise of e-commerce, etc.
In this 5-part series, I’ll be sharing 5 principles he shared with me that has helped him grow his business.
This is the third part of a 5-part series. The links to the earlier parts are shared below.
Introduction
Would you take a basket of 100 fresh apples and add a slightly decaying apple on the top/ middle/ bottom of the lot?
Do you think 100 fresh apples will help the decaying apple to recover or does one decaying apple hold the capacity to destroy all the healthy apples in the basket?
If your knowledge and mindset about how fruits and nature work is so solid and accurate, why do you fail to implement the same logic in your business with difficult/ bad/ unhappy customers?
Continue reading to understand the most underrated aspects about growing a business that can sustain over the long term
The Third Principle: Letting go of the bad customers.
If your team members are replaceable, if the vendors of your business are replaceable, in many (if not most), if your raw material comes with variations/ alternatives to ensure smooth functioning of business, please explain to me (read: yourself) why are your customers not replaceable?
The maxim “customer is the king” has outlived its welcome by at least 5 decades.
Yes, every customer is important, and every business owner, their team and the business should be grateful to get an opportunity to serve every customer.
However, not every customer is worth being made a lifetime/ repeat customer.
The business owner that I met at the event was so particular about this principle, he shared an incident when his company ended up discontinuing business with the biggest customer.
The entrepreneur was serving on of the biggest design agency of the city.
Design agencies are high ticket customers for every computer/ tech business. They constantly need (and willingly) upgrade their computers with every new semiconductor launch.
The softwares that gets used in the process of video/ photo/ content editing is so heavy that with every computer upgrade, these companies manage to make a significant shift in the revenues of their business.
The business owner was the vendor to one of the biggest design agencies of the city.
However, the admin, procurement, and the finance team of that business was a pure and absolutely unadulterated bunch of unprofessionals (his words, not mine) to work with.
One day, the client's team created such a big confusion, the business owner decided he had had enough and he just terminated the contract with this firm once and for all.
He said that the decision was one of the most difficult and yet the most profitable decisions of his business.
Difficult because the morale of the team, the revenues, profitability of the business took a direct hit for 3 quarters after losing one of the marquee clients, but he said a year after, their business had grown by 120%.
Serving every customer takes effort and energy, and if one customer ends up consuming disproportionate amount of effort and energy, continuing to do business with them is your disservice to your own business/ brand.
Conclusion
9 out of 10 business owners that I meet can;t even imagine firing even a single customer from their business.
What’s even worse is that so many businesses are already struggling to meet costs so firing existing clients is not even an option (even if those clients are a real pain).
If you’d like to master the art of running your business profitably without being dependent on your existing customers, you and I should connect for a 1:1 consulting session. If you’re serious about this , reach out to me and let’s connect NOW.Your Thoughts!
If you’ve reached till this point of the post, I’m sure you must have some thoughts/ feelings/ opinions about what you’ve just read.
I’m done sharing what’s on my mind, and now is your turn to share your POV.
Tell me how you are processing the information that you’ve just read?
Do you agree with my thoughts?
Do you think I missed something important?
Do you disagree with something in particular?
Let’s continue this conversation (or ask your questions about the post) in the comments below.
Keep Going Keep Growing 🚀
Have I earned your share?
Thank you for reading the full post. Since you read this till the end, it’s safe to assume you found value in the content.
Please consider sharing this post with your audience on social media. You may end up helping someone who’s struggling in their career/ business because they don’t understand the importance of building their personal brand.
I’m sure if you think hard, you will easily come with a few names who you know must read this.
Share this with them, help them and earn your blessings.
Join The ProfitClan
If you’d like to get notes like these on the subject of money mindset, the law of attraction, financial literacy, and a lot more, make sure you subscribe to The ProfitClan.
The ProfitClan is an email newsletter by Paycheck To Profit (founded by Manish Ahuja) where you’d access to daily exclusive newsletters, freebies, notifications of new podcasts episodes when they go live, access to The PROFIT Masterclass, and a lot more.
Link to the earlier parts of the series
The 5 Secrets to Business Growth in a Competitive Market - Part 01 of 05
The 5 Secrets to Business Growth in a Competitive Market - Part 02 of 05
Prompt used to create the image for the note
P.S.: Image made on Meta AI using the prompt, “Imagine a business owner who sells computers, computer accessories and peripherals meeting with a client where they're informing the client that they would like to stop doing business with them henceforth”