In Internet marketing, attracting customers is one of the things that keeps folks like me and you awake at night. Trying to figure out how to pitch some sales and get some business going is essential to the success of any enterprise, big or small. Therefore it’s strange how some companies with seemingly large customer bases can go belly up despite doing a good job with promotion.
Why does this happen? Trust me, there’s more to it than nasty harassment lawsuits that put sleazy corporate execs in hot water. You see, it isn’t just about getting the customers – business is about getting paid right, too.
I came across a nice post in the SEOMoz blog called 6 Reasons You Need to Charge More. Essentially, the article explains why you shouldn’t lowball yourself just for the sake of attracting customers. A lot of times, being paid by a bad customer is worse than not getting paid at all.
My favorite part is reason number 6. It goes:
Some people may take offense at this, but experience has taught me over and over (and by “taught” I mean “beat with a bat and left me for dead in the alley”) that the people who fight you over price will never stop fighting you. It’s easy to think that, since you gave them a discount and gave into all their demands, they’ll appreciate you more and manage their own expectations, but that’s never happened to me in almost 15 years of working with clients.
It’s almost never about the money – there are some people who just think vendors are meant to be beaten. If you win, they lose. Unfortunately, that means they’ll never see your relationship as win-win. Learn to recognize those clients during negotiation, and get out while you can.
That’s actually true. Part of every businessman’s customer selection process should be setting up behavioral and spending power qualifiers. You should know what kind of people can afford your products or services and you should have a few early warning signs that go off if a customer looks like he’s going to drag your business down in the long run. Remember, a customer that gives you more unreasonable trouble is one that’s worth letting go of and sending to your competitors. J
Click the link above and read the rest of the post.
Have you ever had experiences in dealing with nasty clients? Leave me a note on the comments section and we’ll talk about it.
Cheers,
Andy Don’t Bring Me Down, Baby” Jenkins
