Sorting by your consumer checklist to weed out doubtlessly poisonous prospects isn’t a course of which garners the identical consideration as an organization eradicating problematic workers, however it’s each bit as essential — and, in lots of circumstances, twice as difficult to perform. One progressive journalist’s answer to this downside was to arrange a faux web site to behave as a buffer between undesirable purchasers and his inbox.
For those who’re something like Nathan Kontny, your inbox might be brimming with unread emails, product pitches, and pleas from folks with whom you’ve by no means met in particular person or collaborated; sadly, many of those “folks” are merely automated bots geared towards producing extra press for his or her providers.
Nathan’s response to this phenomenon was to create a web site referred to as “Trick a Journalist” as a way to see which potential purchasers would join the service.
Hilariously sufficient, the entice labored precisely as deliberate. Anybody signing up for Trick a Journalist was blacklisted and prevented from signing up for Nathan’s CRM software program, with Nathan’s justification being that the CRM software program in query ought to by no means be used for one thing so egregiously predatory as Trick a Journalist.
By making a product which units aside undesirable purchasers from the remainder of the pack, Nathan succeeded in each attracting and quarantining current and future threats to the integrity of his enterprise.
Whereas this mannequin will not be practicable at face worth, there’s an essential lesson right here: figuring out the lengths to which your purchasers will go to realize the higher hand BEFORE working for them is a vital process, as your purchasers’ actions will mirror upon your product or providers both manner.
Ruthlessness in enterprise isn’t extraordinary, however you have to be conscious of your prospects’ tendencies properly upfront of signing off on their conduct.
After all, one minor challenge with Nathan’s mannequin of operation is that, invariably, somebody will join Trick a Journalist to his model and miss the joke completely.
There are much less dangerous routes to removing doubtlessly problematic purchasers than blacklisting them by way of a satirical web site — although one may argue such routes are much less enjoyable — however the finish result’s primarily the identical: retaining unsavory purchasers out of your inbox and off of your product checklist.