by Cindy Waxer. Today’s business marketers are under extreme pressure to identify top customers and make smarter business decisions in record time. However, pinpointing a business’s most valuable customers is harder than it sounds. For starters, there’s more than one way to determine a customer’s worth. According to Mac McIntosh, a B2B marketing consultant and speaker from North Kingstown, Rhode Island, there are three main measures of a top-notch customer: The amount of revenue a...

by Iris Dorbian. When the economy nosedived in 2008, Jeff Weiner, president of Uniondale, New York-based HKM Insurance, felt an immediate effect. Because many of his clients were laying off employees, his 30-year-old firm snagged fewer premiums, leading to fewer commissions for his full-time staff of four. As the recession dragged on and customers cut back or left altogether, Weiner’s business experienced two straight years of tough times financially. “Learning how to manage that sinking...

What makes your small business valuable to your customers? by Max Berry. These may not be economic boom times, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still attract new customers to your small business. The trick is in knowing which customers to go after. Here are some tips for identifying—and attracting—the right customers for your small business. Socialize For Success If you want to attract the right customers, you must first be explicit about who you are. “Our personality is reflected in...

Here are some tips on how to deal with unhappy customers and where to draw the line in resolving their problems By Christopher Freeburn Small business owners understand the necessity of attracting customers to their business. But keeping those customers happy and coming back means more than just offering good products and services at reasonable prices. It means properly dealing with the inevitable complaints from customers who have a problem with your company's products or services, or with...

The customer is always right, right? Wrong. By Reed Richardson Ordinarily, a statement like this might seem like heresy in the business world, considering all the time and effort spent pursuing and landing customers in the first place. But to Larry Selden, business professor emeritus at Columbia University, this is exactly the kind of radical approach more businesses should be adopting. "This doesn't fit the way most managers run and measure-and thus think about-their businesses," he...