In the last installment of this column (“When Fewer Clients Are Better; www.SDMmag.com/when-fewer-clients-are-better) I shared some insight about how having more clients doesn’t necessarily mean more of the right type of revenue or higher margins. I made the claim that by classifying your clients in to A, B, C and F you can identify the right clients that are key to growing your business, as well as the ones that you should separate yourself from. Sellers and presale engineers have limited time; the cost of chasing bad business confines them from growing their existing accounts or developing new ones.
Just classifying clients and moving away from the Fs isn’t good enough; you also need to focus on moving the C clients to B, the B to A and the A to A+. This requires strategic focus and solid account planning. The majority of solution providers I talk to say their sales team isn’t investing significant time on this. There is neither a formal process nor management buy-in, and most have never been educated on how to do it — so why would they?