16
Feb

A couple of marketing books I’ve been reading have mentioned the importance of choosing your customers wisely.  Marketing tends to advocate niche marketing – targeted so you can concentrate your resources where they are best served.

 

No business’s offering can appeal to all businesses.  “He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away” Raymond Hull.  This is one reason why you target a particular market sector.  Yet it doesn’t stop there.

 

I’ve talked a lot about values in the past few months.  Brand values.  These are at the core of any business and every business has them.  They define the culture of a business – it’s personality if you like.  They are different for every business.

 

These values also define your value in many ways.  Not least how you are valued.  Some customers will match your values and will become valuable customers.  Others won’t.

 

So even within a specific market sector you will have customers who you value and some who you don’t.  Your marketing should be designed to attract the valuable customers. Experience will tell you who the others are.

 

We’ve all had customers we knew in our hearts of hearts were wrong for us.  Somethings we feel needs must.  Inevitably, though, we didn’t enjoy the experience and found ourselves making a loss on the relationship, either monetarily or spiritually (I’m a scientist so I don’t generally have much truck with the touchy feely stuff but recognise it’s important nevertheless).

 

Looking at your customer base and considering the customers who add value is important.  Part company with those that don’t.  It may seem scary but it will ultimately benefit you and your business.

 

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