Choose Your Clients

Just spent a fabulous week in Singapore … what a great city. Went there for a holiday but ended up accidentally doing some business, which is always nice.

We spent the first three days at a five star hotel, which was … a five star hotel. And it’s weird, but I still feel like it’s too expensive if there isn’t a client paying for it. Even though I didn’t ask it to, my brain started calculating the hourly cost of being in the hotel and then working it out for the waking hours, coming up with a number that didn’t thrill me. I think it’s an illness.

We then found a fabulous home on Air B&B staying with Bianca. Half the price, and twice the experience. But I digress.

Bianca told me something very interesting – she rejects 40% of the people who want to stay with her. 40%!, which means that Trish and I are in the top 60% of her applicants … put that on my resume.

How cool is that … her whole attitude is that if people are staying in her house, she wants to enjoy the experience. If someone sends her an email that just says “We need a room for 2 people” she knows that they are not her sort of people. It isn’t friendly. As she says, it’s the sort of request you make to a hotel, not a homestay. So she trusts her gut and she says no.

In the Sell Your Thoughts book we talk about doing work you love with people you like in the way you want. Bianca is the personification of this … she only wants to do business with people she likes.

I think most of us could learn from this. Part of the sales model I teach is to Choose Your Clients, but rejecting 40% has raised the bar for me. If someone is willing to pay you, often the path of least resistance is to say no. I had a mentoring session last week with a client who listed four reasons why he shouldn’t have taken on the client that he did, and we spent half the session working out how to clean up the mess.

So when you go into a sales meeting, make sure you are choosing your clients. Have part of your sales system be the point where you choose. Have a strategy for rejecting the clients that aren’t a fit.

I promise you two things will happen. Life will get better as you do more work with people you like. And paradoxically you will become more effective at selling as you’ll become more attractive. Notice your reaction when I said that Bianca rejects 40% of requests … didn’t that make her more attractive? Part of you wanted to be in the 60%. The same will happen with you when you choose your clients, and more importantly are willing to say no to the ones you don’t choose.

Love to hear your thoughts and experiences – you can leave your comments below.

6 Responses to Choose Your Clients

1. Donna Tsitsis | The Office Buddy says:

   February 8, 2012 at 1:29 am

   I completely agree Pete! I wish I did this from day 1 with my VA Business, but you live and learn hey. At least now, I have removed those people that I didn’t enjoy working with (one of which brought me A LOT OF WORK, but also an equal amount of stress) from my business. Through your suggestion and encouragement actually! Cheers, Donna
2. Ivan says:

   February 8, 2012 at 5:21 am

   Hi Pete, Your Blogs rock! I’m pleased to be back on email just so I can read “The word from Pete!” … Seth’s got noth’n on you!
3. Patricia says:

   February 8, 2012 at 7:27 am

   So true, in my business I have to be choosey as the offering has to be an experience and cannot be spoilt by the wrong target group, i.e. lots of tasting and getting drunk rather than enjoying the whole offering…..
4. Tammy Hawk-Bridges says:

   February 8, 2012 at 3:26 pm

   Pete,
   Love all your posts! I especially loved this one.

   One of the hardest transitions I made in my business over the past few months was deciding who I didn’t want to do business with. As a still small and struggling business though its hard to make that decision, especially when I can still barely pay the bills.

   But one valuable lesson I have learned is there are clients out there that actually COST me money, and I want no part of that. There are also clients that have treated me like I am some sort of servant instead of a business partner. Which I have told my husband if I wanted that sort of treatment I could go back to corporate america for that.

   Being self employed is hard enough as it is, I certainly dont want to do business with people that make me miserable and do not appreciate my work!

   Thanks for such a great post!
   Cheers!
   Tammy
5. Karen Gately says:

   February 9, 2012 at 12:08 am

   Great blog Pete! The clients we have enjoyed working with the most over the years, are also the clients who have tended to recommend or endorse our services. These enjoyable relationships have also proven to be our most prosperous.
6. Peter Cook says:

   February 12, 2012 at 1:43 pm

   Thanks everyone for your kind words. Great to have you back Ivan. And Cristina, glad to see you followed my suggestion and gave them the axe.

   Can anyone tell me how to get my photo up when I post? i figure I should be able to do that on my own blog!