Salespeople typically rate their customers by at least four crucial factors: profitability, stability, vulnerability and potential for future business. Let’s look more closely at how you rate clients on each of those factors:
- Profitability. This is by far the most critical factor because it ultimately determines the profitability of your business. To be really useful, this criterion needs to give you feedback on exactly how profitable a particular client is on a monthly, weekly or even a daily basis. You need to be able to determine if any project you are working on for any of your clients is profitable. That’s why it’s so vital to know your overhead costs.
You need to know which clients are most profitable, which clients are least profitable and which clients you are losing money on. For example, an A-rated client would be very profitable; a B-rated client would be about average, a C client would be below average, and a D client is currently unprofitable.
The challenge would be to upgrade the Cs and Ds to become Bs and As. That can be done by either improving your efficiency in serving them, or by charging them more money or a combination of those factors. If you can’t do one of those three things, it’s best to try to cultivate new clients to replace them. But don’t be too hasty...
