Will Bigger Clients Actually Make Your Business Easier?
Do you ever think your business would be so much easier if you just had a handful of really big clients?
You’re not alone!
If you’re currently juggling loads of customers, handling a million different requests, chasing a stack of overdue payments and generally trying your best to keep on top of everything, the idea of having fewer clients paying more can sound very appealing.
Less high-maintenance diva clients to deal with, fewer invoices to send (or chase!) and juicier projects. Surely that must mean less pressure?
But there’s an assumption hiding in there that I think is worth challenging: and it’s the idea that fewer, bigger clients automatically make a business easier.
Because yes, bigger clients can be fantastic. They can bring bigger projects, better fees, longer-term opportunities and exactly the kind of work you want to be doing.
But they can also take months to win, involve multiple decision-makers, have complicated procurement processes and tell you what your payment terms are going to be. And then once you’ve done the work, you can find yourself trying to negotiate with Barbara from accounts to get a payment made before their next payment run which is scheduled for 47 weeks on Tuesday!
There’s also the dependency risk. If one client represents a big chunk of your turnover, losing them will have a much bigger impact from losing one of your current tiddlers!
And if the real problem with your current clients is that they’re needy, unreliable, poor communicators or constantly making last-minute demands, making them bigger doesn’t necessarily make the problem go away. If anything it will only amplify it! You might just end up with fewer, much bigger versions of the same problem.
So perhaps the more useful question isn’t how to find bigger clients, it’s something more like … “What does a better client look like for my business?”
Is that clients who communicate well, pay on time, respect your boundaries, stick to deadlines, value your expertise and are profitable and enjoyable to work with?
Sometimes those clients will be bigger. Sometimes they won’t. The point is to know what “better” actually means for your business, rather than assuming bigger will fix everything. That’s the thinking behind this week’s business tips video – the second in my Bigger Versus Better series.
