Your target customer and when to turn away business

We estimate that here at Co- we point around half of the people who come to us looking for an accountant in the direction of another accountant. I sometimes think we should ask for a commission. But more importantly we believe that is a really important part of making our business work.

First off, I need to underline that we welcome anyone coming to find out about our services, that we want more business and that we respect the other accounting services out there. In other words this is not an ego trip.

The reason we feel it is so important is that we know that trying to be all things to all people is not a game we can win. We need to know what kind of clients will get the most value from our service so that our fees literally are value for money.

And in our role as business advisers we recommend that our clients do the same work of identifying the kind of clients or customers that can get the most value from their product or service. Said another way, it is important not to try and get everyone to be a customer. It won't work because you can only do some things better than the competition, so you have to focus on where your strengths lie and then find the people who are really looking for that.

Good business is always a win-win for both sides. It is sustainable, profitable and appreciated.

So if you haven't done it yet, we highly recommend to work out who are the people most likely to get value from your offering? What are their characteristics? What is it about what you doing that they will value so you can enhance that.

Then when you meet people you can ask the right questions to see whether this likely to be the right customer for your business.It's also really useful to know what the characteristics are of someone you don't want to be doing business with. Knowing that can save huge amounts of time and energy trying to make something work that will never work.

Armed with these distinctions, we have the best chance of delivering value to our customers and making money in the process.