Aesoph Group

By Christopher Aesoph, MA

     If you accept every customer that comes your way, it won’t be long before you are doing average work in your industry. Associate with the best and sell to the best, if you want to be the best.

Imagine a superb athlete who made a living playing basketball for five minutes with anyone who signed up to challenge him or her. Most people signing up would be quite average in their play, not an obstacle at all. How long would it take that athlete to lose their edge, to falter in the quality of play, facing this level of competition? Not long, right?

On the other hand, if instead that athlete sought out the best players in the world, those five minute scrimmages could become rungs on a ladder to even greater success. In the same way, your company needs to seek the best customers. This form we’ve developed for our clients will help you think clearly about which customers you need to invest in, in order to grow your skills and reputation.

As you rate your customers, don’t fall prey to thinking your biggest customer is always your best. Often, your biggest client demands discounts, or stresses your staff with bad habits. You may find after doing the exercise below that some of your smaller accounts actually deserve more of your attention and appreciation.

From there, begin to look at your clients as a community of people, rather than separate buyers. Place them together in the same room, by phone if not in person, whenever you can, to offer advice and reassurance to one another. If you pull them together and bring out the best in them, you become important to them as a resource, not just a vendor.

We use the following form for all our clients, to help them improve vision for their company direction, and performance of their sales teams. I suggest you review this form about twice per year. You will be surprised what it will reveal about your company.

Score the form like this: each category is rated on a scale of 0-5, with zero being “poor” and five being “excellent.” Each customer you work with is rated on each category, and then the totals are added together. From this exercise you will see who your best customers are, who may be dragging you down, and why. If most of your scores are 25 or above, you are very happy in your work, and so is your staff. Scores under 25 indicate you are “making do” with customers who are hard on you and your company. For customers who rate under 20, you should consider focusing your work on the higher scores and respectfully leaving the low scoring companies behind.

Top Customer Rating Chart