Why Client Fit is So Important for Any Business
When I first started both my companies (first one being Anis Collections), I felt like I had to do anything to bring in revenue, which meant taking in clients who I knew were hard to work with, or just not a right fit for my company. Ultimately as I grew both companies, I realized that it was better to wait for clients who were the right fit instead of just take any client. "The customer is always right mentality" was not the mentality I wanted to follow any longer, because half the time, the customer was not right. When it comes to working with clients here are some steps to follow to ensure that you are satisfied and so is the client.
Go with your gut
Almost after every sales call or email interaction -- within the first few touch points from a new lead, I can tell what kind of client they will be. In the past I would ignore any "red flags" or tell myself that there was reasoning behind those, but now I have learned to listen to my initial read on a client. I am not saying that this cannot be wrong in some instances, but in most this has been right.
Make sure you lay down your/ your teams boundaries immediately and do not waiver on policies and procedures. It will bite you later on if you don't do this from the beginning
Some people will not want to work with you strictly because of your policies and that is okay. For example, I had a client tell us they do not want to work with us because they want a team who works outside of business hours. For me it was really important to build this company valuing my employees work life balance so unless its an emergency (which Is not common among social media), my team follows our office hours and we do not work on weekends. I was not willing to waiver on this policy so hence I lost a client.
This anecdote is to say, if a client wants you to change the core ways you do business, or policies that have worked for most people, make sure to strongly evaluate and consider how valuable that project or client really is and if you're willing to give up this certain policy. For me, nothing was more important than the way our workplace culture ran, and all of our clients are well aware of this policy. I was not willing to sacrifice this for one client.
Being firm about your boundaries also comes down to your contracts, so make sure your scope of work and terms lay out everything in as much detail as possible. Boundaries for me include my ethical values, the company mission and vision, my employees values and our policies, so define what this is for you and stick with it.
Do not try to be everything or do everything. Working to please everyone will only result in chaos.
Often times I see businesses, especially service based businesses, trying to offer a ton of services all at once to hit multiple demographics. Broadening your sales niche is great but when you are too broad, there is no differentiating factor among your business and others. Plus the "why" gets not only confusing internally but also externally among your consumers.
I recommend defining your target audience and adjacent audiences early on. You can add or take away from this as your business evolves BUT this will help keep you centered and focused on your core. We have an exercise and others like this in our ebook here.
Use customer feedback as a learning experience
I talk about this in my article here, but using customer feedback that is negative or positive as a learning experience can be extremely valuable to growth of your business. Negative feedback is not always 100% wrong or right, there can be nuggets in there to improve your process. Most importantly talk to your internal team when implementing change and do regular reviews of process, performance and overall business.
Know what the value add of this client is
If you have taken up a project that is not necessarily the right client fit but plays into another reason such as - financial benefit, experience, connections etc. remind yourself why you took this on. But also keeping that reason in mind, make sure the ROI lines up with the amount of effort and time it took to complete the project. If you feel like the reason does not outweigh the amount of work, then it may be the wrong project for you.
There is nothing worse than working on a project with a client where you are just trying to get to the finish line, trust me I have been on both ends of this and its not a pleasant experience for anyone. If you find yourself in this situation, here are some ways to alleviate stress on both ends.
Have a conversation directly - this can be scary but go into this with an open mind and mention to the client what is difficult and offer up solutions. This in my experience has worked pretty well. Sometimes in a high stress situation, the client just needs to hear that you are there to help them and then they will want to work with you
Refer to your contract - if you find work really going out of scope, refer to your contract and remind the client of your terms. If things are really going south, offer up an early termination and follow what your contract says about this.
If during a sales call you feel like a client is not for you, but is a great fit for someone else, an easy thing to do is to craft a message saying something along the lines of "we do not think we'd be a great fit for this project but it was so nice to meet you and here are referrals to people who think may be a better fit. Please let us know if you'd like us to connect you." This may feel backwards but ultimately the client will appreciate it. I have a list of my fellow agency owners who I refer clients to all the time if they are not the right fit for me.