Edmonton Business Coach | All Customers Are Not Good Customers

Edmonton Business Coach | Where do you start with a CPA?

168 hours in the week. And how you use those hundred and 68 hours on a, on a, uh, ongoing and repeatable, repeatable basis is generally going to determine your success.

Yeah, I can see why with these two I can be [inaudible] cause it’s not.

Hi, thanks for joining us for another episode of ask Sperl CPA. Today as the Edmonton business coach, we’re talking about how all customers are not good customers. So again, as you have as a business coach, we’re talking about how all customers are not good customers. I have Michael here with me today. So Michael, have you encountered any not so good customers in previous jobs that you’ve had? A Lot, actually, a lot. A lot. Some people are scared to say it. It’s supposed to be, you know, the customer is always right new and we always want to do what we can to help the customers. Sometimes it’s just the wrong fit. It’s just not the right customer. So, uh, the court that I have here, it’s Jim Calls Cole, you know, author of six business books, including one of my favorite could be. Great. And it says the good degree companies did not focus principally on what to do to become great.

They focus equally on what not to do and what to stop doing entirely. Uh, and sometimes what you have to stop doing are focusing on bad customers. Uh, Industry Canada will tell us that only 54% of all businesses, or sorry, 54% of all business that will never grow beyond for employees. So there’s somewhere between one and four. You know, a solo preneur are husband and wife team, maybe one assistant. They never crack that code of getting over the top. Um, it’s my experience that business owners, they’re wasting a significant amount of time on customers and projects that are simply not scalable that they’re going to really interfere with the growth. So Michael, what are the questions that these business owners should be asking? Why is 100 168 the most important number in business? So we keep coming back to it. I, I always come back to it, 168, you only have 168 hours in the week and this is what has gotten me to be the top Edmonton Business Coach.

Whether you have no money to start your business or $1 million to start your business, you still only have 168 hours in the week. And how you use those hundred and 68 hours on a, on a ongoing and repeatable, repeatable basis is generally going to determine your success in your business. Will entrepreneurs normally have marketable skills outside of their core services? Yeah, so a lot of times, most entrepreneurs, they’re, you know, highly intelligent, highly driven, you know, they like researching things. They like learning, they’re lifelong learners and a lot of times they’ll have, their skillset will be bigger than their product offering. So they’ll be able to do more services. Um, then they, then they’re actually offering as their core products and services with their teams. Should you try to mind or not wanted ice kills and you can train other people to help you with. I don’t believe you should know.

And especially if you’re going to do so, you should do so with extreme caution when it comes to Edmonton Business Coach. So if you have skills and the only way to monetize those skills is to do it yourself. And you can’t leverage a team, you know, to deliver those skills. Now you’re verging on your, you’re just working. You have a job, you don’t have a business that’s not something that you can actually ever build. So most entrepreneurs, and it’s, it’s challenging because they really do have skills and often those skills are, you know, the clients need them. But if you can’t figure out how to leverage them with a team and do it at a bigger scale, uh, chances are you, you should be either not do it or be extremely cautious of doing it cause it’ll take away significant amounts of time from your core business. Will you have to tell customers no, if day request is not, your chorus hurts.

Yeah. So, you know, we talked about, you know, not all good customers are good customers and we’re immediately insinuating that, uh, sometimes it’s just about bad customers, you know, difficult people. But sometimes it’s really good people and they just need something that’s not in your wheelhouse, that can completely grind your business to a halt. And even though you could do it, and maybe even you can do it at a high level, if you can’t do it at any sort of scale, um, you know, again, you’re, you’re, you’re going towards just having a job, whether you’re operating it through a business or not as a relevant, if you’re the only one on the team who can do it or do any part of that project, um, you know, that that might not be the, the best customer. Even a third. They’re good person. You know, they, they get along with them.

Well, they pay their bills. Uh, they’re easy to deal with if they want something that’s outside of your core service, even if you know how to do it, but your team doesn’t, you have to proceed with extreme caution. Should you be okay with labeling some customers as a bad customers? Yeah. Here it is. And people say, customer’s always right. The customer’s always right. And you know, we want to do what we can. We have to, you know, be real honest with ourselves. We have to take those hard discussions at business owners and realize, you know, we’re not perfect. We can always improve from an Edmonton Business Coach viewpoint, but at the same time, some people will never be satisfied with your product or service. Some of them who will just never be as hard as we try. They will never be satisfied or they will never be satisfied. If you know, for a, a reasonable value, um, they’re not gonna pay a reasonable fee for what they’re asking. And that’s a, that’s a realistic thing that you have to face as business owners. You want, you had that conversation with yourself. Assume it’s yourself first. You do. You have to assume it’s yourself first. You know, what can we do better? What can we do better next time? What can I do better next time? Uh, but once you’ve had that, sometimes you’re going to arrive at the conclusion that, you know, this works for eight out of 10 people. It just doesn’t work for this guy.

Do bad customers have common traits they do. Some of these bad customers will have very common traits. And you’ll start to see them over and over again. You’ll, you’ll never be able to at least I’ve never been able to 100% of the time recognize bad customers. But I started to realize that there are some common traits that uh, when I see them, it’s probably indicative of that person is going to be a bad customer. Especially if you see the behavior over and over again. Will back customers send aggressive emails and often be unavailable to discuss. Yeah. Yeah. Bad customers will do that. A lot of times. Here’s what it is. They’ll send that really aggressive email, email or text message and all of a sudden it’s, it’s super aggressive. The world is ending. Um, you’re responsible for their world ending, uh, or someone else’s responsible for the world.

Any but all, they’re always in a state of crisis. And then when you try to call them to have a discussion, they have a back and forth discussion efficiently on how to problem solve that and work through the issue. Um, you know, they’re not available or they’re too busy to have that discussion. They can’t wait to get off the phone because they are scared of the top Edmonton Business Coach. You know, they took the time to write up a two page email, but the minute you call them up, um, you know, all of a sudden they have zero time anymore. So they had the, you know, the three hours that they took together to write the dissertation of the world ending. But the minute, you know, someone wants to actually help them solve the problem, they’re either not available to answer their phone or they’re so terse on the phone that you can’t even really, you know, work through the issue with them.

Um, you know that, that’s one of them for sure. We’ll back customers always be looking for ways to not pay you or pay you less that that will happen. Um, believe it or not there, that’s who they are. Um, you, they will always come to you and they’re always trying to grind that price lower. Uh, they’re always trying to grind that price lower or when it comes time to pay the bill, there’s always a reason why they want either can’t pay or they want to delay the payment. Um, you know, people who do that, they’re not diligent doers. Um, so a lot of times they’re struggling in their own business or their own life because they’re just not hitting a objectives that other people have with them in their life and they’re not hitting goals there. Unfortunately, those two things are tied. These people will always be in a state of, of, of chaos.

I mean, that’s really what it is. They’re always in that state of emergency, um, that we find, um, you know, they’re always in a paddock, they’re always in an emergency. Um, when it comes time pay, you know, there’s a one time crisis that happen. They can’t, you know, they’re delaying payment this month or next month. There’s a new crisis all over again. It’s a, it’s always, you know, that that same cycle, uh, that death spiral, if you will. Uh, usually, you know, when you talk to them, it’s always someone else’s fault, not their own. Is it okay to put up with bad customers while you are looking for veterans? That can be okay. Yeah. So sometimes you’re starting, especially when you’re starting out a business and you don’t have anyone else and you’ve got that customer on the line and you, you start to see these traits that they’re a bad customer, but you can work with them, you know, um, the payment top one can be one where if they stopped paying you, I mean stop working. Make it a point to work with the best Edmonton Business Coach as soon as you can!

Uh, but let’s say they’re, they’re aggressive with that state of emergency. It’s okay. I mean, you can use your professional judgment and sometimes the answers to stick with them, uh, you don’t have to fire them on principle. You can fire them as a customer when it’s good for you as the business owner, not necessarily because you know of a, a, a principle. Maybe your goal is to, is to get a, is to get better customers, but at the same time you can fire them as it’s good for you. Should you let bad customers interfere? Return Marketing and growth initiatives. There’s the, the kicker. So it’s okay to keep these bad customers on, but you cannot keep these customers on if they’re interfering with your marketing growth initiatives. Let’s ask, let’s put this, let’s make this really real for somebody. So let’s say you have it blocked out in your calendar that you’re doing your marketing initiative, you’re doing the content for your website, you’re doing your outbound call strategy on Mondays in this customer, you know, continually tells you, you know, that you had an agreement at that time and all of a sudden they need you to be there Monday or the sky is going to fall on them.

That’s when you have to fire that customer and you have to fire them now because those difficult customers, they will never pay your mortgage next month. They will never feed your kids next month. Um, if you need it, they’re only gonna do what’s right for them. So it’s okay to stick with those bad customers in all when you’re looking for business at the beginning, as long as it’s not doing so with sacrificing your growth initiatives and all the things that are going to bring new and better customers into the business. Because if not, you’re just going to spend all your days working for these bad customers. And those bad customers are effectively not going to be customers. They’re going to be your boss then and you’re going to have multiple, you won’t just have one of these bad bosses, you’ll have multiple of these customers. Um, that’s just the way it is. Please contact Spurrell and Associates for the best Edmonton Business Coach.

And the only way to truly eradicate it is to actually work on these marketing and growth initiatives. So you have options. Uh, so you can choose not to do business, but if you, if you sacrifices marketing growth initiatives, that tends to be the death spiral for sure. So that’s what the one that we want you to avoid. Uh, so you can work towards, you know, better customers and more, more profitable relationships, more woodwinds solutions, uh, with better people. Um, so that’s what we have here today. Thanks so much for joining us. As always, please hit the light and subscribe button so we can continue to deliver you tips on how to beat the odds at business. And as always, you know, please feel free to leave any, any comments below so we can respond back and use your input for future videos. Thanks very much.