Do you need more, better, higher paying customers to hit your sales target? In this video I’m going to share with you the 4 types of customers and the only one of them you should be aiming to close.
So you want more customers right?
Well do you… I’d take 3 customers that help me smash my sales target each year over 400 that barely help me hit it.
Many sales people make the mistake of hunting for bottom of the barrel customers. The customers that drive you crazy asking for discounts and then dumping you as soon as a new competitor arrives on the scene.
Well within the next 2 minutes you’ll understand which customers to avoid like a sales manager at the end of a crappy quarter and which ones that you should to fight to do business with.
The Four Types Of B2B Customer
There are only 4 types of customer –
- Investment customers
- Risk/reward customers
- Maintenance customers
- Avoid these bastards customers
Out of these 4 types of potential customer, the only ones you should be intensely prospecting are the investment customers.
Lets quickly run through each type of customer now so you can identify them in the marketplace –
- Investment customers – These are accounts you have good relationships with and there is great potential for new business.
- Risk/reward customers – Here you have low or poor relationships but there is high potential for new business.
- Maintenance customers – Next you have great relationships but there is a low chance of growth within the account.
- Avoid these bastards customers – Finally, you have poor relationships and you have a low chance of new business.
So if I take this and turn it into a diagram –
We have potential future revenue in the vertical axis and current relationships in the horizontal axis.
It should be clear that the low hanging fruit within your market place are the customers on the far right of this diagram.
Improving your already great relationships with your investment customers will lead to the biggest opportunity for growth. So that’s well worth doing.
A little time spent looking after your maintenance customers will lead to the quickest revenue, but the total revenue is often capped at a certain amount. If this capped revenue is enough to hit your sales target then you’ve won the game. Well done. Your sales manager doesn’t know how to set targets and you’ve won the selling lottery.
Finally, we have the risk/reward customers and it’s important to have a few of these in the mix as well. Here it’s likely you’re taking over a competitors account.
If you’re spending time prospecting potential customers in the “avoid these bastards” space who you have no relationship with and where there is little opportunity for you to drive a tonne of revenue… you’re doing it wrong.
That would be like punching a cop in the face and expecting them to fall in love with you. You’re never going to win business from these accounts, they’re just going to mess you up.
The fact that there are four types of potential customer is why I don’t like B2B sales people like you or I blasting out cold, spammy prospecting outreach.
Why Cold Outreach Is Never Effective
When you spam cold emails or cold calls, you’re by default wasting time with these “avoid these bastards” accounts.
You’re doing zero research before you make your outreach and so just by percentage chance you’re going to be wasting your time with these people.
But Will I hear you scream at the screen, as you’re banging your hand on the whatever’s in wrong of you… how do I know if someone has the opportunity to be a high revenue customer before I cold call them and qualify them on the phone?
Great question and I’ve some videos on trigger events and prospect outreach coming up so make sure to subscribe.
But, because I don’t want to leave you hanging… here are 3 questions that you should be asking BEFORE you pick up the phone or take the time to cold email a prospect. These questions will help you uncover whether this potential customer is likely to be an investment, maintenance or risk/reward account –
- Do you know the rules that this account makes purchases by?
- Do you already frequently engage with this account?
- Do you know for a fact that they’re spending lots of money your product or similar products to yours?
If the answers to these questions are yes, then you’re probably on the right track.
