Looking at the data from one of our research surveys, when asked how companies prioritize focus across their customer base, nearly 50% report that their first priority is on customers that generate the most revenue.
On one hand, that just seems logical. You certainly don’t want to risk a decline in revenue from those big customers…it could spell disaster. And you want to keep them happy so they don’t shift all that business to a competitor.
But there are also 3 very good reasons your largest customers should not receive all of your attention:
- They often aren’t your most profitable customers.
All the attention spent on your largest customers adds to their cost-to-serve. Plus those big customers tend to demand the biggest discounts. - They often have little growth potential.
As this SellingBrew Playbook tutorial pointed out, your big customers are big because you’ve likely already captured most of the opportunity that exists. - They often end up concentrating your risk.
Every company wants to minimize revenue concentration. But more time focused on your big customers means less time diversifying your customer base.
Where should you focus instead? 36% of companies in our study reported that their first priority is on customers that have the most growth potential.
And that doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Not only does that focus help drive profitable growth, but our data shows that those companies are twice as likely to be very confident that they’ll hit quota this year.
That makes sense. Companies looking for potential growth should be much more confident about their numbers than ones who are focused on customers they’ve already tapped out.
Developing Prescriptive Account Plans
Learn a powerful 7-step process for growing sales from your existing customers. See how to identify exactly where growth opportunities are and create the account plans that will capture them.
How to Use Sales Analysis to Drive More Growth
Sales analysis often has much more potential than it is given credit for. This on-demand webinar explains how to using the analytical processes and underlying data to reveal powerful insights and opportunities for growth.
Targeting Your Most Profitable Prospects
In this tutorial, learn a six-step strategic process for increasing your odds of success in the marketplace by understanding which prospects you should target...and which ones you should avoid.
