A Big Key to Improving Your

Profitability and Quality of Life:

Cut Loose Your Problem Customers and Clients

By Ben Hart

We always hear about the importance of providing great customer service.

And that’s true.  You must do that to be a successful business.  As the Lexus ad tells us, you must engage in “The Relentless Pursuit of Excellence.”

But you also need to cut loose your problem customers and clients – the dead weight who I call the “well poisoners.”

There are some people who just aren’t going to be happy with your product or service no matter what you do.

Maybe they are misanthropes.  Maybe they are unhappy with life.  These are the “well poisoners” who are never happy.

It's very important to cut these people loose as quickly as you can.  In fact, this is an absolutely essential rule of marketing.

You have heard be talk often about the 80/20 rule of marketing.

The 80/20 rule is that 80% of your profit will come from the top 20% of your customers.  You’ll mostly be treading water with the other 80%.

You need to identify your top 20% . . . and then treat them with tender loving care.  Never take your best fans for granted.

Now, you should treat everyone well.  But, we don’t have unlimited time and resources.

So play to your fans.  Go out of your way to make sure your top 20% of your customers are taken care of -- that you treat them not as customers, but as the dear friends that they are.

The tendency of most entrepreneurs is to take your very best customers for granted, and to spend the bulk of your time trying to please those who will never be happy.

Now, you want to be polite and professional with everyone, even the “well poisoners.”

But once you’ve figured out who the “well poisoners” are, try to put distance between yourself and them as quickly as you possibly can, without creating the negative “word-of-mouth” advertising that’s so dangerous to any business.

These “well poisoners” are probably going to bad mouth you anyway. They are complainers and bellyachers.  That’s what they do.

The challenge is to put distance between you and them as quickly as possible without creating bad feeling . . . so that you can devote your time and energy to your real fans, those who love what you do for them --. those champions of you and your business who are out there recommending you to others.

But here’s the other great thing about this top 20% in what I call the 80/20 rule.

I have said that this top 20% generates 80% of the profit of any business.

But really, it’s a lot more than that.

And the reason is that “birds of a feather tend to flock together.”

That is, people tend to hang around and be friends with other people who are a lot like they are. Their friends are likely to have the same tastes and personality traits as your best customers and clients.  So the folks they refer to you are more likely to fit the profile of your top 20%

I have certainly found this to be the case just about 100% of the time.

Winners tend to be friends with winners, losers friends with losers.

Successful people are friends with other successful people.  Unsuccessful people are friends with other unsuccessful people.

Misery loves company.  That’s why you want and need to get the “well poisoners” out of your orbit as quickly as you can.  Be nice about it.  Be polite and professional.  But just get rid of them.  The sphere of influence of the “well poisoner” are other “well poisoners.”

You don’t need them.

You want “life enhancers” as your customers and clients.  You want people as customers who lift the spirits of a room just by walking in. 

You want to work with happy, optimistic, successful people who others like to be around.   That’s where you want to focus your efforts.

And that’s a big part of how you also generate a lot of favorable “word of mouth” advertising about you and your business.

I have noticed that the world is divided into three basic categories of people:

1) There are the “well poisoners”  who I just described.

These are the people who are always unhappy and never have much good to say about anyone.  They are the “misery loves company crowd.”

2) Then there’s that middle group -- the majority -- who I call the “lawnmowers.” 

They mow their lawns and keep their property neat.  They are good citizens.  They go to work.  They pay their taxes.  They are good, decent folks.  But they aren’t going to help your business much.  They’re the big middle group of people.  You don’t lose money on them, but you don’t make much either.

3) Then there’s the third group -- who I call the “life enhancers.”

These are the happy optimistic successful people who everyone wants to be around.  They are the best sales people.  They are the ones doing the most for the community.  They are always helping others. They are enthusiastic, upbeat, energetic.  These are the people you want involved with you -- both as employees and as your customers. 

When “life enhancers” get together, things happen.  There’s action.

This is the group where your champions come from.  This is the group to quickly identify and to focus on.  Every Inner Circle member is probably a life enhancer.

You are an Inner Circle member because you want things to happen with your business.   You want to grow your business.  You want to improve your marketing.   You are among the top 3% of people in America who is making a serious effort to gain the knowledge, skills and expertise you need to make your business successful.

And a big key to this is NOT to spend time trying to win over the “well poisoners” who will bring you down anyway.  But instead focus your energy on winning over those who are more like you -- the happy, optimistic “life enhancers” who really can become the rocket fuel that that takes your business to the next level.

Not only will “life enhancers” be your best customers, but they will be your unpaid sales force who will bring you an avalanche of business by referring their friends to you.

Happy Improved Marketing,

Ben Hart