Business Education

What to Do When You Lose Your Biggest Client

Losing any client is a blow to any business owner. But, it’s particularly troubling when it’s the largest paying customer your company has a working relationship with (or had at one time). While it’s disturbing for any size client to stop doing business, it’s an absolute crisis when it’s the single largest one. Or is it? The answer really depends on how you handle the situation. So, read on to learn more about how to deal with losing your largest client.

Seize the Opportunity

Entrepreneurs are usually able to identify opportunity when it presents itself. But, in cases where there’s a tentative failure or bad fortune, it can be very difficult to see it and act upon the moment. Sure, it’s a setback and this makes it quite hard to get past the shock. However, the sooner you spring into action, the better. (Though don’t mistake this for making rash, uninformed decisions.)

Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company or a small mom-and-pop business, losing a massive client is always shocking, uneasy and frustrating. Unfortunately, it’s something that almost every entrepreneur experiences at some point in time. —Forbes.com

Instead, take a step back and give yourself time to form a generalized overview, one that’s not out of panic and fear. After all, it’s far better to take an honest assessment and determine precisely where you stand in order to determine exactly what actions are necessary in the short-term. This way, you’ll make informed decisions that are based on reality and not trepidation, anxiety, and alarm.

3 Ways to Deal with Losing Your Biggest Client

Losing a big-time client is a real reason for concern. However, it’s also not an excuse to give up and close your doors for good. There are more than a few things you can do to prevent significant damage and/or start building new streams of revenue. Here are three of the most effective strategies you can use after losing your biggest client:

Expand existing business relationships. The easiest way to make up for the difference is to leverage your existing business relationships. After all, current customers are the easiest ones to deal with and the most obvious place to double down. Since you have an existing relationship, you can offer more products and/or services to them and that will get you through in the short term.
Take the opportunity to expand offerings. This is also a prime time for expanding what you offer to the public. This is a great opportunity to expand your business by focusing on your most popular selling items, whatever these are now and in the near future.
Prevent the same situation from happening again. Of course, you probably don’t want to go through the same ugliness again at any time in the future. So, make sure to develop strategies that prevent this type of loss from happening again and you’ll gain a better sense of security.

What other suggestions do you have that might be of help? Please share your thoughts and experiences by commenting so others can benefit from your perspective! Interested in learning more about business? Then just visit Waters Business Consulting Group.

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Key Ways To Make Your Business More Transparent

April 17, 2018 No Comments

No matter what business you’re in, you want customers to have faith in your ability to meet their needs every time. That’s at the very core of being successful. The key to creating and fostering trust in customers often comes down to transparency. You want your customers to feel as though your business is an open book, and that they’ll always know what to expect from you. Transparency is something that’s both simple and complicated for businesses to achieve. It’s simple because it’s a matter of living up to the expectations customers have for your business. Yet it’s also complicated because it involves helping to set those expectations that customers have in the first place. Building a more transparent organization involves creating an internal culture that encourages honesty and transparency as well as building stronger relationships with customers. Transparency begins inside your organization, which means leadership must embrace the concept. You can’t expect your employees to embody transparency with your customers if there isn’t a strong culture to promote transparency internally. An effective way to create that culture of transparency is to encourage your employees to communicate with management as well as with one another. You can do this by establishing an open-door policy and giving employees a platform for expressing their thoughts during meetings. When you communicate with your employees, it can be extremely helpful to be clear with your messaging, avoiding corporate jargon and speaking plainly to your employees. Even if the news is bad, your employees likely will appreciate your honesty and internalize the spirit of transparency in their interactions with customers. Key Ways to Make Your Business More Transparent created by Track Your Truck.

Effective Ways to Deal with a Setback

May 7, 2019 No Comments

Setbacks are inevitable. They come in many shapes and sizes and some appear from out of the blue. When you encounter a setback, it triggers different emotions. You feel shocked, unprepared, perhaps angry or down. It’s only natural to feel bad after a setback but it’s how you handle it that really matters most. How to Overcome a Setback Everyone experiences setbacks, large and small. During these times it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and maybe even unappreciated. (This is especially true when it involves an interpersonal relationship.) Minor setbacks throw us off for a few hours but others are much more significant and really throw us in a tailspin. While we will all experience roadblocks, we will differ in how we handle them. Some of us have the resilience to just pick up the pieces and move on. Others find it difficult to let go. Either way, how do we learn from the tough times? —Entrepreneur.com Whatever the cause and no matter the size, it’s important to understand you aren’t out of options. Sure, you feel helpless to one degree or another. And, it does bring into question what’s all that time and effort for, anyway? But, if you put things into perspective, you’ll begin to realize it’s not the end-all, be-all. Effective Ways to Deal with a Setback We all know adversary helps to build character. Although, no one welcomes tough times, whether in the form of a setback or something else. So, here are some effective ways to deal with a setback you can put to use: It’s only temporary. Very few setbacks are insurmountable. And, most are only temporary. Realize it is just a temporary situation that will pass. It will only linger and bother you the longer you allow it. If you put it into perspective, it’s merely one of many temporary obstacles. Your goals remain. Sure, it does bring into question what all your hard work is for in the first place. And, it undermines your sense of accomplishment and success. While these are certainly true, it doesn’t change your goals. Refocus on your goals to help you overcome. Reset the timetable. Any setback will throw off the timeline, there’s little way around this fact. But, that doesn’t mean you can adapt and readjust your timetable to make it workable again. Take action, right away. Of course, the worst response is to do nothing at all. It will not get you past the situation and will only serve to make it haunt you even more. Take action straight away and you’ll start to feel better immediately. What other methods would you suggest to get past a setback? Please share your thoughts and experiences by commenting! Interested in learning more about business? Then just visit Waters Business Consulting Group.

Reasons Why Your Business Stays Cash Poor

May 16, 2017 No Comments

Business owners and management professionals alike know the importance of maintaining positive cash-flow. It serves as the bloodline of a company, no matter its size, or even its asset position. In fact, some businesses learn the hard lesson that too much tied-up in assets is a liability. Having to sell such leverage just to meet obligations isn’t exactly a sign of good management. Another irony is found in two of the biggest reasons business fail: too little business or too much business. It is certainly strange the latter exists, but it’s nonetheless a reality. In fact, a proprietary study conducted by U.S. Bank provides proof — 82 percent of business failures result directly from poor cash management. Even though these entities earn more than enough business to keep their doors open — a lack of proper management is far too destructive. Reasons Why Your Business Stays Cash Poor The fundamentals of cash flow aren’t complicated to understand, but rather, to execute. The movement of funds in and out of a company is what constitutes cash flow — it can be positive or negative. When money is left over after all expenses are paid, that is positive cash flow. Conversely, when outflow exceeds inflow it constitutes negative cash flow — often a death knell of businesses experiencing the same. Cash flow is one of the most critical components of success for a small or mid-sized business. Without cash profits are meaningless. Many a profitable business on paper has ended up in bankruptcy because the amount of cash coming in doesn’t compare with the amount of cash going out. Firms that don’t exercise good cash management may not be able to make the investments needed to compete, or they may have to pay more to borrow money to function. —Inc.com Many businesses struggle with keeping expenses in-check and that’s normal. It’s due to the dynamic ebb-and-flow of a free system in which goods and materials costs can rise or fall as market conditions fluctuate. However, when cash flow is continually poorly managed, it manifests itself in a number of ways. Here are some of the most common reasons why your business stays cash poor: There’s too much tied-up in inventory and materials. Glance back to the first paragraph and this demonstrates a trap into which some businesses fall. That is, acquiring assets of value which must be liquidated to meet an obligation. The entire point of acquiring business assets is to retain same, not to liquidate, especially for day-to-day operating expenses. You’re not constantly examining business-to-business expenses. One of the most common bits of consumer advice circulated is going over every one of your monthly bills one line at a time. The reason, of course, is to be vigilant and discover any unauthorized charges or find slight up-charges in normal line items. Businesses ought to do the same because it’s easy to let recurring monthly bills be paid on autopilot without any real scrutiny. Accounts receivables stay sparsely busy. This is perhaps one of the most unpleasant aspects of doing business — collecting money owed. For some companies debt collecting is left to a single person or small team. For many others it’s the responsibility of the owner. Every dollar that’s in the receivables column is one that isn’t working for your business. There’s poor cash-flow forecasting. What the probable future looks like is very important. While you probably won’t be able to forecast to the penny (even a lot more) it’s worthwhile to have a glimpse into the future, especially when cash-flow is anemic. Growth is reducing cash-flow. Here again we see irony. When a business is growing, it surely must have positive cash flow — right? Not necessarily. There are a number of tricks a company can use to ostensibly grow. Even in a healthy environment, growth can still be a drain on cash and slowing growth can actually improve cash flow assuming your margins and overhead are in line. Another dynamic which can wreak havoc on a business is out of sync credit accounts. When vendors expect to be paid but accounts receivables aren’t set to accept payments before those dates, it unnecessarily reduces a business’ cash position. Obviously, not paying vendors on-time is something to be avoided because it can cost your company in terms of creditworthiness and reputation. You might be the heart beat of your business, but cash flow is the “life blood” of a business. Please follow me on: Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram [shareaholic app=”follow_buttons” id=”26833294″]