Quitting small clients for a big ones? - What will you do

Hi,

I run a company which serves small ticket clients (Who have a budget of about $100-$400 per service). Though my team takes care of the manual work (Submissions, Approvals, CReating links etc.,), my job as the owner is just to collect payments and make sure the client is satisfied.

I'm also working with an International client who also happens to serve some Hollywood names & some big ticket clients, probably this list of his will grow with time.

I happen to be his right arm, working on creating websites etc., for his clients, this client has always paid me on time & pays well [Unlike someone who'll pay $2 an hour, and nag about the work quality etc.,], its a real pleasure to work with him.

I am not sure if I shall sell off my company and move upwards, work with just 1 client or try to manage both of the jobs (Company as well as the big client)?

As those are Hollywood & some big ticket clients [Who pay $xxx-$x,xxx monthly for pretty basic tasks], there's no room for mistakes...1 mistake and your bum is fired, and of course no room for excuses.

What would you do?

 

Well, if I were you, I'd keep them both.

 

I agree it is best to keep all your options open. Dont count on any specific work lasting forever. It can, but it could also dry up for alot of different reasons, especially in this economy. But of course main focus should be on what makes you the most money, that is business.

 

You are clueless about business. You won't be doing this at all a few years from now. So it doesn't matter what you do.

 

Jettison ALL of your small clients. When your one and only big client goes bankrupt in a few years, you can move on to a more fulfilling job - flipping burgers at your local burger joint.

 

you need to ask yourself this question, what happens when that 1 client decides to stop using your service.

 

I never said serving 1 big client.
What I meant is I serve my big client who in turn serves BIG TICKET people.

 

Hey, I currently run an online marketing agency who deal with several blue chip companies and endless amount of local small businesses and we look at it this way, if the relationship turned bad with your large client, you have lost 100% of your business however if you maintain a small amount of local businesses along with the larger one, if you loose either/or you are still in a position to trade, you will of heard the saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket" and it's very much true in this case than any other.

Good luck

 

My experience over the last 40 years has been that if the net profits generated by any single customer of a business exceed 5% of the net profits of the business, that business will probably go bankrupt if that customer leaves for any reason.

Another observation is that 20% of the customers always provide 80% of the profits, which means a business cannot avoid subsidizing smaller customers. A business needs those smaller customers because one never knows when one of those smaller customers will become the next big customer.

 

If you have a good, reliable team working for you and they are happy and satisfied, then I would go for both. One of the hardest business lessons I've ever learned has been to never put all your eggs in one basket, even if you hold one "golden" egg, anything can happen. And, I agree with mmerlinn in that you can never know when one of your small business clients could turn out to be your next biggest client.

 

Well then, if you have more than one big client, then go for the big clients since obviously they pay more. Or you can hire a small team (extra team) to take care of the small clients

 

As a business owner why not expand to cope with both
Training is key, it does cost in the short term, but this will free you up in the future to oversee both (or even more) operations

You can then expand this larger client company to work with other such clients
Both operations then become specialised in their own markets

Finally, watch the profitability and don't get carried away with one single client that pays large amounts on time
This client in effect can be service cost intensive, and in turn the smaller clients may be more profitable
If you lose one small client it is not such a loss, but lose the large client and it may require a company restructuring

 

Unless you're something special you're missing the point, and like another member rightly so pointed out you seem to be totally misinformed about how to run a business successfully. That said, good luck I guess.