Business owners, sales people and business professionals sometimes find themselves worried or confused about being able to say ‘no’ to business. Do you find yourself in this situation too? Does your team think saying ‘yes’ to all business is good business? We find more and more of our clients are asking this question of us so we thought it would be a great topic to discuss at @ETIQhour, “Can saying ‘no’ be good for business?”

Customers come to us and ask us to quote on business. The mindset of many people is – this is easy business. This may well be the case, but this isn’t always true and right.

To help you, here’s a list of questions to ask and realise that maybe not all business is good business:

1. Do you have a customer who has negotiated a price where you may not make much money?
2. Do you have a customer that may be making many changes and these changes aren’t profitable, nor chargeable?
3. Do you have a customer that threatens you to take their business elsewhere?
4. Do you have a customer who pays their invoices late and you have to spend many man hours chasing up the money?

All these examples, and many many more, are all not profitable for business.

Have you realised now that not all business is profitable? Yes, it’s true. Not all business is good business, just because it’s business.

The best thing you can do is look at the history of this customer, talk to other suppliers that they have worked with in the past, properly understand their business and needs, then make a good judgement call on accepting or rejecting the business and write a tight contract if you feel this customer may become unprofitable. Don’t forget, we are all in business to make money. When you have good customers, who pay well and easy to work etc, they make a great environment and are very profitable to you. These profitable customers help you to reach your goals and targets earlier through the year.

Keep a history on all your customers, categorise them and choose to work with your ‘A TEAM’!