You Don’t Need a Time Machine
“I don’t have enough time in the day to prospect. I’m too busy keeping my current customers happy,” Lori told me when we first met in January.
I told her that sounded like a good problem to have.
“Hell no it’s not,” she said, sounding a little raw.
When I asked her why, she explained that she needed to make more money, but in order to do that she would have to bring on more customers, but she has no idea where she would find the time to service those.
I told her the story about squirrels, deer, and elephants and when I finished she looked like she was gonna throw up.
“Ugh! I have a book full of squirrels,” she said.
I asked her to tell me more about that.
“I called on smaller general contractors when I started. Those folks love our service because the rest of the market ignores them. I closed way more accounts than I expected to in my first year. I was shocked at how easy it was,” she said as a smile came across her face.
She continued: “At first, it was great. I loved the money and it was fun being needed by my customers. Now it’s killing me. I’ve created a monster. I’ve been doing this for three years now and until you told me that story, it had never occurred to me that my choice of customers was what was holding me back.”
I asked her to define a “deer” customer to me. She said it was a contractor that had 20-50 employees, about double the size of most of her customers now. She had 3 deer customers and about 25 squirrel accounts. She added that she was working 50-60 hours most weeks and her income was stuck around $50k.
I asked her how many hours she hoped to work and she said no more than 40. She said her income goal was $100k, but her husband has been complaining that when he gets to see her she is always tired and grouchy. She’s frustrated because in order for them to reach their family goals, (redoing their kitchen, adding a bathroom to their house) she needs to make at least $100k but doesn't know where she’ll find the energy or time to do it...
She said she needed my help to fix the problem and gave me her credit card.
“Raise your prices,” I said after running her credit card.
“What?” she responded, looking confused.
“Raise your prices by 100% on your squirrels and yes, half of them will leave.”
“I know this sounds stupid, but I don’t want to run off half my customers. They’ll be devastated.” she said, looking confused.
I explained that while maybe that was true, look at who was being devastated now… She was choosing her customer’s happiness over her own.
You’re doing the same thing when you take on needy, low paying, difficult customers. You’re choosing busy over successful.
Busy is a drug. It’s addictive and will burn you out eventually.
Lori, with a little more coaxing, did raise her prices 50% and about one-third of her customers went away. She’s back to working 40 hours a week and has closed two new deer this month.
Are you struggling because, like Lori, your business is in chaos and you don’t have enough time to get it all done?
Worried that even if you did close another deer account (because you need the money) you wouldn’t have the bandwidth to handle it?
Concerned because you seem to have hit an income ceiling and you don’t know what to do?
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