Blog 10 - Perfect Client
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The blog this week is from Jeremy:
Perfect Client
Understanding what the profile of your ideal or perfect client looks like is imperative to steering your business effectively towards success.
First of all, watch out - clients and customers are not the same thing. We have published some posts about that a customer is one person. A client is made up of a multi-faceted group of people who have their own scorecards for their own appraisals at the end of the year. They have their own hopes and dreams and fears and concerns. Every bid you submit will be read in total or in part by five people on average. So, we need to understand all our client stakeholders.
I had a bit of a wakeup call last week. I lost a deal. I normally win almost everything I go for against my competition, although my footprint is smaller. I'm generally engaged by people who get it and people who like my style and understand that I'm about real outcomes over the long term. I like to have fun doing it. Sometimes, I'm too informal for some people, and that's fine, and that was the case here. Perhaps I was a little bit too provocative in an engagement meeting, going too far too soon - I said that I could double their profits. In truth, they were so immature and ineffective I could have easily done so (lots of content coming on how). But there are ways and means to articulate that to people and take them with me. Lesson learned.
They didn't like something I'd said on LinkedIn criticising a government department. Well, I'm afraid that's who I am. I call out poor behaviour. Somebody needs to. I’ve had enough of my bidding colleagues being blown to bits working on rubbish tenders from poor clients, and worse - those procurements being very wide of the mark in delivering value for the public purse. We, as a country, do not have the funds for poor value procurements anymore. I’d have thought that there is great value in hiring someone who is passionate and understands the subject well enough to challenge poor behaviour. We’d have an NDA anyway, so no one would know. If you’re insecure enough in your client relationships that you’d worry about it, you’ve got far bigger problems to be fair. So, not a lot I could do about that one.
I understand it. I'm not for everyone, and that's absolutely fine. But coming back to the concept of perfect client - equally, I’m recognising that not all clients are for me. It’s a two-way street.
Talking about it with my non-exec afterwards, getting a bit of coaching, she pointed out to me they weren't on my dream 100 list of addressable audience we had defined late last year. I shouldn't have been talking to them. They aren’t my perfect client. I know who my perfect clients are. I understand that they need to have good sponsorship at board level. To understand that we're talking about real transformation. I will absolutely come and train some people. I will design your sales processes for you. But it needs to be the start of a journey that drives adoption and performance. I need to work with people who get my approach, and the same will be the same for your business. You can't win them all. You don't have to be everybody's flavour. I love creating loads of value. I love working with people I want to help be successful. And generally, we're really good at it. I generally end up being quite good friends with most of my clients, because we go on a really good journey together, and we have a good time doing it.
So, I've realised I need to refocus on my dream list of clients that I should work with, that fit my perfect client portfolio. Good sponsorship. Enlighten, recognise there's a problem. Understand that it's about transformation and taking people on the journey and how we create real value for the long term with adoption. It's not just about coming in and drawing some processes and training some people. We can start that journey by training some people, but I need to work with people who fit my perfect client portfolio.
So, some lessons learned. Think about what that means for you. 80% of your margins probably coming from 20% of your clients. Who are they? And why is that? They're probably the clients that you enjoy working with, that the work is in your sweet spot, that are good to work with, and your people like working with them. Your people will have better well-being state and staff feedback stats, etc, etc. Whereas the clients in the tail, where you break even or lose money, are the one-hit wonders. The ones that are more difficult to work with. The tenders you won on price rather than quality, etc etc.
So take what you like from that. Have a look at your client portfolio and figure out who are good to work with, and have pipelines of work, and then try and find more clients like that. You'll have a much better time.
Other Free Resources
We’re on a mission to help companies like yours win more work.
Here are some other free resources that should help you too. Feel also free to share them with friends and colleagues:
Free Bid Writing Basics Training Video - Our free exclusive bid writing basics training video will help you understand how to deliver your desired business growth and beat your business plan by winning more tenders. Watch the video here.
Bid Writing Masterclass - Our next full Bid Writing Masterclass Training online interactive webinar series kicks off on the 25th of April. Info and tickets found here.
Our free work winning Podcast, the Red Review, can be found here.
You can also follow Jeremy on LinkedIn for hints, tips and insights here.
100% Typo Guarantee—Our blog posts are free-range. It was hand-crafted with love and sent out unfiltered. There was no review queue, no editorial process, no post-post revisions. Therefore, I can pretty much guarantee that there is some sort of typo or grammatical error or literary snafu. Got a business to run and a three year old to Dad. Sorry.