Focus is Hard

We have a potential customer who is not clearly a good fit for us. They already have a facility in China that exclusively produces their products. They don't own this factory, but it works only for them. They do have an office in Hong Kong with their own employees.

So, why did I even spend any effort on them? Well, they are large and had a need we could fill. Also, I had contacts in the company. We went into the deal thinking we would never be a strategic partner, but even the scraps of this customer would be good business.

However, as OPSA grows we are having to focus more on our target customers in order to manage our growth. We've quoted about six projects with this potential customer totalling a significant amount of time and effort. We still have one project in progress that we will finish. If that project doesn't work-out and lead to more that fit us, we'll walk away. In the meantime we've decided we will not take on any new projects for this company.

Personally this is a really tough call. It takes a great deal of effort to cultivate a new potential customer. I know I should focus my efforts on finding companies that fit us well, but frankly, most of our new customers come from referrals from existing customers or other contacts. We haven't had to do any prospecting, although I still do some at times and it has resulted in a few opportunities. When you work exclusively from referrals you end-up working on whatever comes your way. It's great that this has been enough to fuel our growth, but I want to work on clients that will really get value from our model. Those companies are best found by looking for them specifically, not by hoping the companies referred to us are a fit.

It's time for focus more clearly for me. Although we will always follow-up on referrals, I am going to put more effort into prospecting this summer and fall. If the referral doesn't look like a good fit, I'll move on much more quickly. I'll keep you updated on how it goes.