Bread and Butter - Part 2

The company I spoke of in my last post is still in business. They have lost many of their employees along with the bread and butter customers. I was one of those employees.

Last I heard, that formerly $14,000,000/yr company is now worth only about $6,000,000/yr, and still sinking. All of my old co-workers who I'd built friendships with are no longer there, so I will not know for sure how that company is doing from now on. I only have one small clue... I visit their website about twice a year to see if there have been any changes. So far, there are 3 pages that come up with a 404 error, the starting flash page has some glitches, and there has been nothing added or updated in about 3 years. It's only a small clue, but it's a revealing one.

My current company will stop working on large jobs to take care of the little guys. The little guys are the easiest to take care of and negotiate with (not to mention they're fun, the big dogs seem to have lost their sense of humor somewhere along the way). They are usually honest about when they need their work done and whether we really need to stop working on our current job. They are aware of our scheduling issues and aren't terribly demanding of our time unless it's a true emergency.

Our big customers came to us because of the referrals from the little guys. We have never gotten a new customer from a big dog.

Who do you concentrate on in your business? Who are you more willing to bend over backwards for?

Be very careful who you choose to romance in business. Those $50/month customers may be giving you enough referrals to amount to $50,000/mo. That $50,000/mo single customer will go to the cheaper guy in a heartbeat, leaving you hanging and twisting in the wind.