Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce
  • About Us
    • BOARD OF DIRECTORS >
      • MEET OUR LEADERSHIP
      • Chairman's Welcome
    • STAFF >
      • Your Chamber Team
      • President's Welcome
    • COMMITTEES & GROUPS >
      • ABOUT
      • COMMITTEES >
        • Communications Committee
        • Community and Government Relations Committee
        • Membership Committee
        • SCC Young Business Leaders
        • Ambassadors Committee
      • Referral Groups >
        • SCCCC G.R.O.W.
        • SCCCC BizNet
        • SCCCC CONNECTIONS
    • History
    • Contact
  • Business Directory
  • MEMBERSHIP
    • Why Not Join?
    • Member Benefits >
      • Offers
      • Coupons
      • JOB BOARD
      • Affinity Programs
      • SCC Young Business Leaders
    • Membership Application
  • Events & Programs
    • Annual Chairman's Gala
    • Inspirational Breakfast
    • Scholarship Golf Tournament
    • Annual Fall Luncheon
    • NETWORK AT NOON! LUNCHEON
    • Professional Development & Education
    • Chamber Calendar
    • Community Calendar
  • IN THE NEWS
    • SCCCC IN THE NEWS
    • Member News
    • Press Releases
    • Southern Chester County CONNECTIONS
    • The Reporter
  • Your Chamber At Work
    • ADVOCACY >
      • ABOUT
      • Mushroom/AG Labor Crisis Task Force
    • Education & Scholarship Foundation >
      • Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week
    • Route 1 Economic Development Initiative >
      • About Us
      • Why Here?
      • Steering Committee & Members
      • Site Selection Opportunities
      • Contact
    • Southern Chester County Digital Equity Coalition
    • Workforce Development & Training
  • CIRCLE OF CHAMPIONS
    • ABOUT
    • Diamond Circle Partner >
      • Constellation Energy
    • Platinum Circle Partner >
      • Longwood Gardens
    • Gold Circle Partners >
      • Ironlinx
      • Kendal-Crosslands
      • Qnectus
      • The Tri-M Group
      • WSFS Bank
    • SILVER CIRCLE PARTNERS
    • Bronze Circle Partners
  • Business Views Blog
  • Member Portal
  • JOB BOARD

Business ​VIEWS Blog

Learn about our valued Membership. SCCCC is your source for relevant and timely industry insights and news - at your fingertips!
SCCCC Members: Submit your business blog via email to ckuhn@scccc.com

Brenda Allen - President of Lincoln University: Showing Up and Advocating in Higher Education

9/23/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Your input matters beyond your expertise. Lincoln University President Brenda Allen transitioned from a professor to an administrative role and quickly learned the importance of showing up to the executive table when invited. This week Laura and Brenda discuss the importance of higher education for critical thinking, problem-solving, and career preparedness. Brenda also explores how to navigate the complicated relationships between young adults and their parents, communicating progress with donors, and teaching students how to advocate for themselves.

​Listen on Apple podcasts: https://apple.co/3DCVhP6

0 Comments

Sometimes businesses need to show customers tough love

9/14/2022

2 Comments

 
by Sheri Hart | Sep 14, 2022 | Uncategorized
Picture

​“We love our customers!” Many businesses proclaim this at the bottom of their invoices, in their marketing materials and even on the very walls of their physical locations.
Obviously, every company needs a solid customer or client base to survive. But, to truly thrive, you need to evaluate which customers are reliably contributing to the bottom line and which ones are thinning it out. For those that fall into the latter group, it might be time to show them some tough love.

Tracking the data
Your first step in evaluating customers is calculating, as precisely as possible, how much each one contributes to profitability.

This process will be simple if your sales system tracks individual customer purchases, and your accounting system has good cost accounting or decision support capabilities. Perhaps you have cost data for individual products, but not at the customer level. In this case, you might be able to manually “marry” product-specific purchase history with cost data to determine individual customer value.

Even if you don’t maintain cost data, you can sort the good from the bad by reviewing customer purchase volume and average sale price. Often, such data can be supplemented by general knowledge of the relative profitability of various products. Be sure that sales are net of any returns.

Companies that don’t track individual customers can still analyze customer segments or products. For instance, if the same distributor serves one group of customers, estimate the resources used to support that channel and their associated costs. Or ask individual departments to track employees’ time by customer or product for a specific period.
​
Be sure to include indirect costs. High marketing, handling, service or billing costs for individual customers or segments of customers can significantly affect their profitability even when they buy high-margin products or services. If you use activity-based costing, your company should already have this information.

Sorting them out
After you’ve assigned profitability levels to each customer or segment of customers, sort them into three groups:
  1. An A group that consists of highly profitable customers whose business you’d like to expand,
  2. A B group made up of customers who aren’t extremely profitable but still positively contribute to the bottom line, and
  3. A C group of customers who are undercutting your profitability.
Members of the C group are customers you likely can’t afford to keep. They’re often overly demanding or even abusive to employees. Some expect special treatment that costs you labor hours or actual dollars. Still others are consistently late paying invoices, which slows your cash flow. Whatever the case may be, they’re firmly in the “no longer profitable” category.

Freeing yourself
It might seem counterintuitive to intentionally let go of customers. However, by showing “C-listers” some tough love — and the door — you’ll free up staff time and resources to better serve groups A and B, as well as to win over promising prospects. Contact us for help evaluating your customers from a cost vs. benefit perspective.
© 2022
Picture
2 Comments
<<Previous

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Copyright Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce.
All Rights Reserved.
 2021

8 Federal Road  | Suite 1,  West Grove, PA 19390
Phone: (610) 444-0774 | info@scccc.com  | sitemap
MemberClicks
  • About Us
    • BOARD OF DIRECTORS >
      • MEET OUR LEADERSHIP
      • Chairman's Welcome
    • STAFF >
      • Your Chamber Team
      • President's Welcome
    • COMMITTEES & GROUPS >
      • ABOUT
      • COMMITTEES >
        • Communications Committee
        • Community and Government Relations Committee
        • Membership Committee
        • SCC Young Business Leaders
        • Ambassadors Committee
      • Referral Groups >
        • SCCCC G.R.O.W.
        • SCCCC BizNet
        • SCCCC CONNECTIONS
    • History
    • Contact
  • Business Directory
  • MEMBERSHIP
    • Why Not Join?
    • Member Benefits >
      • Offers
      • Coupons
      • JOB BOARD
      • Affinity Programs
      • SCC Young Business Leaders
    • Membership Application
  • Events & Programs
    • Annual Chairman's Gala
    • Inspirational Breakfast
    • Scholarship Golf Tournament
    • Annual Fall Luncheon
    • NETWORK AT NOON! LUNCHEON
    • Professional Development & Education
    • Chamber Calendar
    • Community Calendar
  • IN THE NEWS
    • SCCCC IN THE NEWS
    • Member News
    • Press Releases
    • Southern Chester County CONNECTIONS
    • The Reporter
  • Your Chamber At Work
    • ADVOCACY >
      • ABOUT
      • Mushroom/AG Labor Crisis Task Force
    • Education & Scholarship Foundation >
      • Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week
    • Route 1 Economic Development Initiative >
      • About Us
      • Why Here?
      • Steering Committee & Members
      • Site Selection Opportunities
      • Contact
    • Southern Chester County Digital Equity Coalition
    • Workforce Development & Training
  • CIRCLE OF CHAMPIONS
    • ABOUT
    • Diamond Circle Partner >
      • Constellation Energy
    • Platinum Circle Partner >
      • Longwood Gardens
    • Gold Circle Partners >
      • Ironlinx
      • Kendal-Crosslands
      • Qnectus
      • The Tri-M Group
      • WSFS Bank
    • SILVER CIRCLE PARTNERS
    • Bronze Circle Partners
  • Business Views Blog
  • Member Portal
  • JOB BOARD