How To Get Better Quality Customers

Mark Hale ‐ January 18, 2016

What is your definition of “quality customers”? To some a quality customer means someone who can afford to pay for their services. To others it means a customer who actually needs what they are selling. To someone else it means working with customers who are not a pain in the ass.

I don’t know if you have noticed in your business, but there are a lot of crazy people. People who demand that you sell them something below cost, or customers who are never happy. The rule is that 20% of your customers will give you 80% of you headaches and 2% of your customers cause you 98% of your stress. How would you get better quality customers?

The first step is to simply define who you want to work with. Who is this person? What services do they buy from you? How often do they need your services? How easy are they to work with? Then you have other criteria like age, income and local.
Don’t be afraid to fire a customer. Most of the time businesses get into a mindset that they do not want to lose any customers. The stress level and overworked feeling is caused by trying to please people that you will never be able to make happy. Why? If you are like me, your attention is spread out over your business and those 2% clients cause most of your stress.

I fired a client the other day who had been buying from us to 7 years. Every time she called there was something she was not happy about. She caused upset with the sales person working with her and other people she came in contact with. She always wanted discounts even thought the price was already quite low. She never paid her bill in a timely manner. She was rude to my employees. I finally fired her as a customer.

Stop servicing break-even customers. You cannot afford to do what you do and not make money. Charge what you are worth and give better than expect service, but stop catering to the bottom feeder customers.
Now you know who you want to work with, it is time to purchase a good direct mail list and send old-fashioned letters or postcards to your ideal prospect list. Getting better quality customers is a question of identifying who you want to reach. Once you know, you can purchase a mailing list with those exact prospects.
Implement a referral program for your business. Get in touch with your regular good quality customers and ask for a referral, or do a note card mailing to your existing customers asking them to referral someone to you. Most people are more than happy to send you a referral if asked.

Getting better quality prospects and customers for your business is simply a matter of identifying who you want and raising your standards of who you will work with.