Who are your most and least profitable customers? - Celia Powell

Celia Powell - "By the Numbers"

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Introduction

Clients, customers, purchasers, buyers, anyone who exchanges cash, coin, debit or credit cards,checks, ACH, Paypal,Cashapp, Applepay, vimeo, Zelle for your products or services is what today’s topic of discussion is all about! Here at IBGR.network, we do not want JUST any client or customer, WE WANT, those that want us. Similar to a romantic relationship, connecting to the right clients by  attracting, engaging and getting the commitment(the ring) by using your accounting system is what we are chatting about today. Today we’ll lean into how to leverage the current resources your business probably already have implemented. By applying accounting principles and creating reports that tell us a story about who our profitable clients/customers are will support good business decisions about which clients/customers to target with our financial investments, in the form of marketing and advertising. Not all clients are good ones and the sooner we weed out the bad ones(like in dating) the better the  impact to the bottom line.    

Question, is what you’ve been doing to attract your most profitable clients or customers  working?  Hopefully the answer is yes!!! We need to take the yes another step further by measuring the details to find out why our client/customer attraction strategies are working. Since, I am a glass half full type of lady, I’d focused my energy on what's working and build upon that, taking this approach will get us to the finish line quicker! When we apply or implement a business strategy, we need to be consistent, this  yields repeated successes and produces profitability on the level that we plan and anticipate. 

Most Stage III and IV businesses have exhausted a great amount of energy and money into multiple forms of marketing, with physical and digital marketing through emails, social media and my favorite networking. 
With the main goal and objective of connecting, attracting, engaging and ultimately getting the client commitment by making the sale.  

Show Objectives

How to create strategies around using your accounting system to help you connect, attract, engage and get clients to commit by making purchases and adding to your bottom line.  What reports and information you should review on an ongoing basis.  How to consistently drive profits by positioning your products and services to be seen by your most profitable customers by using what you already have available in your financial toolbox. 

Key Issues

1. The Problem- not enough profitable clients/customers and not maximizing profit margins.
2. Limited financial and human resources to support marketing and advertising, money seeping out of the business but we don’t know where?
3. Operating in the dark and difficult to move forward with new strategies.

What You Need to Do

1. Establish benchmarks for client performance

​Apply Pareto’s rule 20/80 rule to:

1. 1. Customer Base
   2. # of Products Purchased
      1. What are they buying
   3. Demographics
      1. Who are they?
   4. Lifetime Value of Customers
      1. Client retention strategies
   5. Channels
      1. Finding your clients/customers and letting them know what you are selling that they want to buy.
2. Create and run reports by customer or client reports 

• Trend Analysis

• Profit from ratio analysis

1. Maintain an ongoing schedule for review of reports and client sales.
2. Act on what you discover quickly, timing is key. 

Helpful articles:

1. https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/accounting/customer-profitability-analysis/
2. https://strategiccfo.com/identifying-profitable-customers/
3. https://www.waveapps.com/blog/accounting-and-taxes/5-ways-accounting-helps-your-small-business-generate-profit

Shows
Previous: Episode A3.006 What Should You Sell?  Finding your most profitable products.

Next: Episode A3.008 Building the total financial picture of the business

Written by Celia L. Powell, CPA “By the Numbers”

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