Marcia Yudkin gets it right – again!
When someone contacts me about my voiceover services and immediately focusses on price, I've learned to take a step back. It has been my experience that there’s an inverse correlation between the price they want to pay and the degree to which they will turn out to be a pain in the neck. So when I received Marcia Yudkin’s weekly Marketing Minute this morning that addressed this very issue, I was amazed at how well she nailed the problem and was very interested to read that there are actually statistics available about it. If you’re a voice actor or a business person of any kind, you owe it to yourself to walk away from this kind of client. With permission, I’m reprinting Marcia’s words verbatim – and I will be checking out Holden & Burton’s book!
If you'd like to sign up for Marcia's free newsletter, Marketing Minute, go here.
According to Reed Holden and Mark Burton, authors of Pricing With Confidence, 79% of business-to-business companies serve any customer they can get.
What's wrong with that? Typically, they explain, 20 percent of the customers account for 225 percent of the profit, with 80 percent causing the firm to lose money. And that statistic doesn't take into account the extent to which the unprofitable customers increase your worry wrinkles and gray hairs.
Being choosy about customers benefits both the bottom line and your sanity. Consider sending away those who:
* Always press you for discounts
* Need or demand an exorbitant amount of handholding
* Previously requested refunds
* Are unpleasant to deal with, nitpicky, abusive, frenzied, uncooperative or irrational
* Threaten to go to the competition
* Never pay on time
* Represent where your company used to be rather than where it is going
"It's simply better for you that unprofitable customers are served by your competition," say Holden and Burton.
After shedding the undesirables, develop a clear picture of who you want as clients and pursue those. You'll then have the positive energy needed to land them!
From The Marketing Minute, 18 February 2009, by Marcia Yudkin. Reprinted with permission.
If you'd like to sign up for Marcia's free newsletter, Marketing Minute, go here.
According to Reed Holden and Mark Burton, authors of Pricing With Confidence, 79% of business-to-business companies serve any customer they can get.
What's wrong with that? Typically, they explain, 20 percent of the customers account for 225 percent of the profit, with 80 percent causing the firm to lose money. And that statistic doesn't take into account the extent to which the unprofitable customers increase your worry wrinkles and gray hairs.
Being choosy about customers benefits both the bottom line and your sanity. Consider sending away those who:
* Always press you for discounts
* Need or demand an exorbitant amount of handholding
* Previously requested refunds
* Are unpleasant to deal with, nitpicky, abusive, frenzied, uncooperative or irrational
* Threaten to go to the competition
* Never pay on time
* Represent where your company used to be rather than where it is going
"It's simply better for you that unprofitable customers are served by your competition," say Holden and Burton.
After shedding the undesirables, develop a clear picture of who you want as clients and pursue those. You'll then have the positive energy needed to land them!
From The Marketing Minute, 18 February 2009, by Marcia Yudkin. Reprinted with permission.
Labels: Marcia Yudkin, voice-over business, voice-over rates
posted by MCM Voices at
2/18/2009
1 Comments:
This sounds like the old 80/20 rule.
It's the same in VO as in any other business. While it's a royal pain at times, the best thing (if you don't have the time and access to the data which the book and blog post relate) is probably to keep a log of your work. First off, it'll help you to become more efficient at it (especially if you start to get into the production side of things). More importantly though, it'll allow you to keep historical metrics of previous work. As crazy as it sounds, historical metrics can show you where you've improved (and by what level), but also help you to more accurately predict future behavior.
Have a customer who pays well, but needs a lot of hand holding? A quick reference during your quarterly review of your business (you ought to do that at least 2-3 times a year regardless) should identify the trend and allow you to determine whether or not all the extra work is actually making the job unprofitable. From there it becomes a business decision whether or not to retain the client.
While my VO clientele is in a rather niche group, this seems to have worked for me in the past. Why others don't try it is beyond me... I'm can't be the only one to have picked up on the practice.
Cheers!
-Greg
www.gregoryhouser.com
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