In my last blog entry, I talked about buyer personas that are bad for our business. Often we can see them coming from miles away, but we still choose to do business with them. I was curious about this, so I asked some of my clients about this phenomena. Their responses fell into two categories.
Reason #1: We need to work with bad customers
The idea here is that bad customers bring with them some pretty hefty revenues. In some cases, bad customers were responsible for repeat business that was very lucrative to the company. In other cases, the bad customers were important filler. They took up the business slack. Most clients felt that it was better to do business with a bad customer than not to have that business at all.
This last statement points to the underlying fear that there aren't enough good customers to keep our business fat and happy. If there was ample supply of good customers, why would anyone ever deal with a bad customer?
Reason #2: The projects look interesting and challenging
I can personally relate to this idea. For those who like a good challenge, a bad customer is an open invitation to a stimulating engagement. We go in with eyes wide open and hopes high. Perhaps, this will be the situation we can turn around. We don't mind the hard work, the difficult interpersonal communications, or the daily inconveniences.
Yet, when the sale is done and the project completed, we realize that along the way it sucked the energy right out of us. We may have had little triumphs along the way, but we never realized our hopes.
If we objectively evaluate these sales, we realize that we would have better spent our efforts on customers who appreciate us, value our work, and have a big stake in a successful outcome.
Rethinking Bad Customers
I believe that doing business with bad customers makes bad sense. In our Googled, viral marketed, word-of-mouth, Internet age, there is no reason why we shouldn't have a steady stream of good customers knocking at our door. (If there truly is a dearth of available good customers, then perhaps we should be rethinking our business.)
If we see a bad customer coming, we should just say no. For every bad customer we take on, there is an opportunity cost. By taking on a bad customer, we lose an opportunity to take on a good customer. We burn out valuable resources which lowers the energy, creativity and value we can offer to our good customers. We take on additional business risk in an age where bad word-of-mouth spreads like wildfire on the Internet.
Why would we do this?
There is one reason. It is because we currently aren't being inundated with good customers. And why aren't we being inundated with good customers? Because we don't know how to effectively reach them, attract them, meet their needs, and persuade them to buy from us. It is because we haven't created the persuasive momentum that rewards the good customers and weeds out the bad ones.
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