This article implies that you should fire customers who are bad as in demanding, annoying, toxic, high maintenance. But I don’t think it’s so straightforward. If the customer is faang and they pay a multimillion recurring contract, this guy will most likely swallow his discomforts and keep serving. That customer is not so “bad.”
So the title should really be “get rid of customers who are bad for the business,” which is self evident.
I think a better way to word this would be to assess if you are happy with the deal you are getting from your customers.
If you are willing to work like crazy to keep someone happy for whatever reason go for it but it might be that you are putting out a fire that is not worth putting out. Weigh up the opportunity cost and see what you want to do then.
I think the point is more that it's easy to overestimate the value customers provide to the business. A customer that is paying an average amount but require 5x as much time as an average customer might not be considered "bad for the business" as long as they financially work out.
What's usually missing from that line of reasoning is the opportunity cost of supporting that one customer instead of five others that are more average in demand.
Well, I think this is written from the perspective of people who don’t have FAANG clients. I totally agree that when you do, the situation changes completely.
There is an argument to be made that for a smaller/normal customer, the power balance between corporation and customer is about equal. Both have the right to fire each other and if the customer is toxic or takes more time to support than could be focused on something else, you should fire them.
But the power dynamic changes once you start talking about big money. If you have a client that is responsible for 3/4 of your revenue, toxicity or not, firing them is easier said than done. And the bigger clients (FAANG types) know this too. There, I think the trick is to try to make the statement of work as clear as possible.
The one thing about a FAANG client to remember is that not all accounts are created equal. If it’s not a six figure contract, just because you have a deal with someone from Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net doesn’t mean they can’t be fired.
(It also doesn’t mean they have huge money or that your sales team can extort them. I had a podcast hosting provider try to upsell my zero-budget initiative into an enterprise plan my insanely low-volume podcast didn’t need by half-threatening to cut us off, just because I worked at a large media company. Needless to say, I fired them.)
That’s not a bad customer. They may be a tough and unpleasant one, but as long as they’re bringing in more money for your company than you’re paying out to support them, you’re solid†. The bad ones are the ones who land you in the red for your trouble.
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† Of course, if you can find yourself other customers who’ll generate more revenue for less pain, by all means cut the ballaches loose just as soon as you contractually can. That’s just good business.
So the title should really be “get rid of customers who are bad for the business,” which is self evident.