Balancing Act: Customer Care vs. Customer Development Washington DC

In my seminars, I often ask salespeople how they view their priorities. "Of all the things you'll do on any given day," I ask, "which category of activities represents your highest priority?" The typical answer I get is: "Taking care of my customers" with "Prospecting for new business" a distant second.

I'd like to see prospecting as a close rather than distant second, but I do agree that taking good care of current important customers should be a printing salesperson's top priority. As I note in the seminars, though, there are two tricky words in that last statement: good care and current important customers. The sad fact of the matter is that a lot of sales time gets spent on not-really-very-important customers, and on a level of care that represents what I call "customer care overkill."

Important Customers

How should you define an important customer? First of all, let's remember that whenever I use the term customer, I'm talking about someone who's actually buying from you. Someone who's not actually buying from you is either a suspect or a prospect.

Beyond that distinction, I think the important category should be reserved for the 20 percent of a typical salesperson's customers who provide 80 percent of his/her sales volume, and the companies within the other 80 percent of the customer list who have significantly greater potential. As the owner, you should sit down with your salespeople and make sure that everyone is in agreement about who's important and who's not. (This, by the way, is an exercise that should be completed at least every quarter, and it should also include evaluation of the salesperson's current suspects and prospects, to make sure that he/she is working at developing people who will become new important customers.)

Now, am I suggesting that you offer no service to any customers who don't meet the important standard? No, but I am suggesting that a salesperson has to recognize immediately when doing something for a not-really-very-important customer is going to take up a lot of time. I heard a story recently where a salesperson spent a whole day running back and forth between the printshop, the customer's office and a trade sullpier with samples and then artwork for a $300 outsourced job for a $600 per year customer. If the customer had $6000 per year potential, that time might have been justified. As it was, I think everyone should agree that the salesperson would have been better of not making a $300 sale, and spending that time prospecting for new business instead.

David M. Fellman is the president of David Fellman & Associates, Cary, NC, a sales and marketing consulting firm serving numerous segments of the graphic arts industry. Contact him at 919/363-4068 or visit his website at www.davefellman.com.