Rounding out the top ten … Which clients make the finals?
Posted by Troy Forrest on September 4th, 2009 at 10:29am
We love lists that rank like things. Fortune’s 500. The AFL ladder. Take 40 Australia.
Some are objective (largest employers in your field, highest reported profits). You make the Olympic finals based on milliseconds, not how loud the crowd cheers for you. Other lists are subjective (like 20 to 1′s greatest movie villains). Anthill magazine just listed its top 10 Aussie TV commercials of all time (atop, VB’s original “Matter of fact, I’ve got it now…”).  Not based on how much money the ads made, but which were, according to editors, ’most memorable’.
If I asked you for an objective list this morning – your top 10 revenue generating clients over the past 12 months – would it roll off your tongue? What about a subjective list – the 10 clients most likely to grow in 2010, or to need your help… do you know?
Consider building two lists this week.
The first, objective. Your top 10 best clients by volume, revenue or profit over the past 12 months. What will you do to keep them there? To leverage more business from them (or referrals or word-of-mouth?) Are they getting a time and effort investment from you proportionate to their spend?
The second list, subjective. Your top 10 rising stars / special cases / invest-for-the-future accounts. Why are they on the list? How will you test and measure their progress? If it’s not for immediate coin, what do you want to see from them over the coming months (and how will you inspire it?)
Anthill’s list made mention of some also-ran’s – ads that were great (like Yellow Pages “Not happy, Jan!”), but missed the cut. Subjective choices are the fodder of front bar debates the world over – over a Coopers Pale Ale, could you justify why a client hasn’t made your top ten get-my-best-efforts list?
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