I think most people in business have heard about the 80/20 rule – that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients. And yet the majority of us still continue to focus on getting more money from those who have less affinity with our brand or product than those who are clearly already committed and spending. But there are two sides to every story, and as much as not focusing enough on your loyal customers can be a problem, so can focusing too much on them. If you find that one or two customers are responsible for a disproportionately large percentage of your sales, there is danger in it. If they stop doing business with you, your company could suffer.
From a real estate perspective, this scenario is less likely than it is for many other companies, but the risk of focusing too much or too little on a customer, group of customers, or area of the business is still very real. And for this reason, I thought I'd outline a few tried and true pointers for avoiding what can be a disastrous result.
In any business, it's important to have a handle on the financial health of your customers. If you're not going to get paid, you really don't want the sale, do you?
Have a backup plan. This way even if bad things do happen and you lose an important customer, you'll have a plan in place to deal with it. Don't leave your business success to chance!