
We don’t have unprofitable customers, just unhappy accidents - sixtypoundhound
https://jansanity.com/we-dont-have-unprofitable-customers-just-unhappy-accidents/
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gumby
I’m not interested at all in the distributor business but wow, what a valuable
shift in perspective from the company’s to the customer’s!

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tonyarkles
I do embedded consulting (not supply chain/distribution stuff at all), and I
could very readily places my customers into the various boxes. As a technical
person who accidentally found himself running a business, articles like this
are awesome for helping to shape my thinking.

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Joe-Z
I'm not currently running a business, but have been thinking about switching
to self-employment or other more business-centric roles in the future. I also
find the thinking behind the article intriguing. I'm not used to thinking
about business interactions on such an abstract level but it seems to me you
can apply what is being written here to any industry. Very interesting!

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ridaj
TL;DR for folks without sales lingo:

Companies often think their business would be healthier if they got rid of
their "bad customers," but a customer who is difficult with one provider (e.g.
always asks for discounts, doesn't commit over time) can act much more nicely
with providers who they consider critical to their business. This is evidenced
through a merger where two distribution companies compare customer lists and
realize that one's best customer is the other's worst — in other words, a
customer isn't good or bad, they just behave differently with different
suppliers. So the key to business is not to get rid of the bad customers, but
to become your customers' favorite supplier so that they build a long-term
partnership with you.

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hn_throwaway_99
Thank you, I really appreciate your summary as I couldn't get past the first
couple paragraphs.

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teddyh
Maybe it’s just me today, but I just can’t follow this article. It uses many
unfamiliar terms without explaining them, seems to make weird inside
jokes/references, and has graphs with no directions on its axis.

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gumby
They are whadrant charts not graphs. While the article is written for people
in the wholesaling industry it really says “if you just think of a customer in
terms of what they mean to you you may be missing most of the value”

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teddyh
> _They are whadrant charts not graphs._

The labels use the words “Rate” and “Size”, but I have no way of knowing which
box is low/high rate or big/small size. Also, I might guess what “Margin
rate”, means, but I have no idea what “Drop Size” means.

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gumby
Yeah that looks like some domain-specific parameter. I’d assume size of
shipment

In any case the insight applies across industries, especially in enterprise
sales.

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teddyh
I don’t know what this supposed insight is, _because I literally cannot
understand the article_.

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SmokeGS
i love the quadrants. I can definitely name some in my own experience.

