#Define client base how to

Your best clients give you and your team the confidence that you’ll have work every month, and that you’ll be able to effectively allocate your resources to existing and new projects. Having employees on staff who are underutilized is stressful for them and for you. Reliable clients are crucial for time management. Smaller clients and one-off projects that fluctuate month-to-month can help boost certain months, as well as ensuring different and interesting work. Having large, anchor clients helps to ground cash flow so that you meet a certain baseline each month. A diverse portfolio of clients and project types helps protect you if one or two go away. Another risk? Working in just one industry or sector: An economic downturn in the industry might leave multiple clients with limited budgets. Reliance on a few big accounts could put you at risk. … can benefit your company in a number of ways: 1.

Nonprofits or publicly traded companies.

Having a diverse mix of clients, including: How Time Tracking Can Kickstart Your Business Growthġ1 Ways to Increase Productivity and Reclaim Time with Cloud Accounting

#Define client base how to

Learn more about saying no to the wrong clients in our blog post, “ Honest and Direct: How to Say No Politely to a Client.” What a Diverse Customer Base Does for Your BusinessĦ Smart Steps to Future-Proof Your Business But if a client or project isn’t the right fit-the budget is not right, the project has too many red flags or potential pitfalls-it’s OK to say no. Turning down business rarely feels comfortable. Not every client that comes in the door is the right client for you. Understand Not Every Client Is Right For You Small accounts can balloon quickly when you aren’t looking. They’re also a great fail-safe in case a bigger client falls through. These accounts stick with your business because you have a good relationship, or the work is fun or easy. Many businesses have a number of smaller accounts that don’t fit their ideal, next-best or opportunistic client definition. The portion of your client mix dedicated to opportunistic accounts can fluctuate depending on the types of projects that come in, and your capacity alongside seasonal clients. These clients will come and go more often than your anchor clients. You might not have pursued them on your own because they don’t fit your ideal customer definition, but are a surprising fit because they have the right budget, they present future opportunities, or it’s just a cool project. These clients are the ones that come to you with a specific need. When possible for your business type, these clients should be a smaller portion of your overall client mix. These clients are reliable in their own way, but require extra attention to ensure you stay top of mind during their off-seasons. Many service-based businesses have clients with seasonal needs or needs on a specific schedule. These clients provide the bulk of your revenue, and should be the client type you spend most of your marketing and advertising budgets on trying to acquire.

They have long-term contracts or retainers, and you expect the relationship to continue unless something unexpected happens. Your anchor clients deliver consistent business. Consider them when building out your client mix. But here are a few of the high-level types of clients you should look for. How do you know what a diverse customer base looks like for you? Every business will have a different breakdown. Establish the Client Mix that Works for You Always look at your current client base and your analytics for more specific answers. You can brainstorm the answers to the above questions, but make sure to marry that information with what you actually know. Identify who’s buying from you, especially if it’s different from the person using your services.Collect demographic information on the core users of your services.Find the clients that need what you offer, based on: industry, business size, location and budget.Pinpoint the needs or problems that your services solve.

As a refresher, here are some tips on identifying ideal clients: That exercise is one you should go back to every couple of years. As part of your initial business plan, you likely completed an exercise that helped determine who your ideal and next-best client types are.