EVER BEEN KICKED BY AN ELEPHANT

I get several e mails and messages a day about the Training Buffet, Help Yourself, and yet very few of you have signed up to follow the blog. Please take a second and sign up to follow me. Click on the “FOLLOW” button just to the right to sign up. ------------> -----------> ------------> ------------> ---------------------------------------------> ----------------------------------------------------->

Let me ask you a few questions.  Is it possible to have too many big customers? Can a customer get too big?

NO and YES would be my answers, how about you?

I don’t think you can have too many big customers, the reason is that if all your customers are big, you will have the biggest, medium, and smallest of the big! In this case it would be like finding the shortest giant. If all your customers are big you are writing great business and I hope making good commissions or salary.

If this describes your customer base you really only have one thing that can be a problem, if all your customers are big are you forced to give them pricing so low that it is hurting you? If not than you should keep doing what you are doing and continue to build your customer base on big accounts.

I DO think a customer can get too big. I have a friend who is a rep and she has one customer that is over 50% of her total business. 50% think of that! The obvious question is what is going to happen when you lose the customer? You can’t just run out and replace 50% of your business overnight. In this reps case this one customer doesn’t only hold her success or failure in their hands, the customer basically hold her entire future in their hands. I have never seen a rep that has lost 50% of their business and doesn’t leave that job and seek another.

For arguments sake, let’s say that this rep doesn’t lose this account anytime soon. (And I hope she doesn’t ever lose it) The next question is can she affectively manage this account? Will she be able to grow this account? Can she maintain her profits? What leverage does she have if they start paying their invoices slow?

All of the positive things about big accounts can start to work against you when the account becomes too big. You can lose the leverage you have with smaller accounts. The big accounts usually have departments that pay the bills and these departments very rarely interface with reps if ever. The buyer sometimes doesn’t know who is in the accounts payable department because the buyer is in a different city, state, or sometimes country. What I am talking about is “control”. Who is controlling who?

Ask yourself, how hard would I push a customer that was 50% or more of my business? I bet the answer is not very hard. When one customer gets to be this important to your survival you have lost the objectivity and ability to make good business decisions concerning this customer.

So what should you do if a customer starts to grow so fast that you know it will soon be in this position? Should you tell them you can’t sell them more? Should you tell them that you are going to need to give half the business to another rep so they don’t have control over you? Should you tell them that the company doesn’t want their business any longer and walk away from them? HECK NO! Don’t get stupid on me! If you have been following my blog from the first day or if this is first day reading my blog, think like a sales rep and what should you do?

OPEN MORE ACCOUNTS, work to help keep this one customer from becoming that large a percent of your business. In other words, work harder, work smarter, just work! You may not keep the customer from growing (I hope you don’t at least) but you can keep it manageable within your customer base.

You don’t want to get kicked by an elephant. The best way I know to avoid this is to make sure your elephants never get a chance to kick you!

Before I end today please join me in extending our prayers and wishes to all the victims of the earthquake and tsunami’s. If any of my readers were directly affected or have friends or family directly affected we pray that everything turns out well. My family and I wish you all our best during this time of great tragedy.

Lorin