A few days ago I was talking to an old friend of mine who was concerned for the future of her son’s business. A single client is providing 60 or 70 percent of the total income. This is good and potentially bad, really bad. Should the son’s business lose that client, he could lost the business because it takes time, effort, and money to build a clientele.
Worse, the son uses his cell phone as the company phone number. So, should a new client call, it gets answered from somewhere on a construction site, or from the driver’s seat of heavy equipment. Not a good first impression.
I suggested three things. The first is easy.
- Use a telephone answering service, Google Phone, (or similar service) to route calls to a central location where they will be professionally answered. This works best with a separate phone number specifically for that purpose.
- Approach the client who is providing so much business and explore the possibility of them actually buying the son’s business. In this case, the son becomes the president of a division in his current client’s corporation.
- Hire a competent manager and give the manager that client. This allows the son, to prospect for additional work while keeping the major client satisfied.
There are tools out there that will provide you with services that are unimaginable to the person who is not Web business savvy. It is not in your best interest to remain ignorant of what the Web can do for you business because your ignorance places your business at a competitive disadvantage.
