Evaluating Potential Clients

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We Become the Clients With Whom We Surround Ourselves
The composition of your client base is significant. It communicates a lot of information about your organization, and it shapes your enterprise. Clients dictate the employees you need to hire, the partners you need to engage, and the work that will be performed. Clients largely contribute to your organizational culture. I’ve always believed that we become the people that surround us.

I also believe that we all have choices in selecting those that are closest to us – our circle of influence. This applies to the business environment as well. We are extensions of our clients, and they are extensions of us. So selecting the right clients for our organization is essential to building the organization that the leadership envisions.

There are many questions to consider when evaluating new client and existing clients:

Does the client’s mission align with your values?
This is a very important consideration. Quite a few times, we have had the opportunity to perform work for organizations that I fundamentally couldn’t support. One example is the tobacco lobbyists. Several years ago, a pro-tobacco lobbyist wanted to hire us to do marketing and outreach. There was just no way I could accept this work.

As a mother, I work hard to educate our kids about the costa rica telegram data dangers of smoking. I fundamentally oppose everything that this group is trying to accomplish.

Do you believe they can accomplish what they are trying to do?
We’ve had potential clients contact us to design and develop training programs to achieve objectives that we did not think were realistic. In one particular instance, the money was very good, and I’m sure they found a company to perform the work. But we did not see the link between the client’s vision/objectives, and the training they wanted. It was just too much of a stretch. So we declined the work, not only because we couldn’t buy into it, but also because we believed it would have set us up for failure.

Does the client’s needs align with your competitive differentiators? (price, quality, speed, etc.)
No company can be all things to all people. Some customers are looking for the lowest price or quickest turnaround. In cases like that, we are not a match. So we decline this type of work.

Will the client infuse chaos into your organization?
Some client organizations are very chaotic. While “managed chaos” can be productive, “unmanaged chaos” can be detrimental. Clients that don’t respect our processes, our people, or our culture won’t be happy with our service.