My pool guy sacked me.

Yeah, I know, it’s up there with other major first world problems like:

‘OMG, my favourite hipster Barista just left to travel through Europe’

‘This avocado is blended, not smashed’

‘They didn’t use freshly brewed espresso in my Espresso Martini’

My pool guy was in the audience at a franchisor sales conference. I was the keynote speaker and mentioned an anecdote swimming with the kids.

He took the initiative to say hello afterwards and gave me his card.

A beautiful algae-free relationship was born and has thrived in perfect pH balance since then, through the ebbs and flows of urgent pool maintenance and equipment breakdown.

However, this week he sacked me despite spending more money with him last year than ever.

He has decided to choose clients closer to home who stick to his schedule of regular winter service calls, rather than my flaky, fairweather friend behaviour.

Rightly or wrongly, it’s his call and that’s the critical point here.

How often do you sack your clients or choose only the clients or target markets that deliver on your goals?

There are way too many people in sales and sales strategy who sit in meetings saying:

‘The Mining Sector is still talking to us, they’re just not spending at the moment – we just need a new sales approach/person/pitch’

‘Our current clients are a bit small but we still need to focus on them – Let’s revisit all of our existing clients – there has got to be more we’re not getting’

‘Our push into SMB/Enterprise/Retail/Channel as new markets is not working yet but, we just need more time and investment’

Your strategy is your choice, but at least let it be based on facts, real revenue and data rather than hope, previous history, perceived relationships and status quo, treadmill behaviour.

Maybe a new vertical market or a different type of client is ideal for your solutions right now, but if you don’t have the time or focus because you keep visiting old ground, you won’t grow.

Most likely, there is a subset of your existing clients that do represent more opportunity.

Be clinical with the rest.

If the pool guy can do it, so can you.

Your competitors will be green with envy…just like my pool.

Elliot Epstein is a leading Pitch Consultant, Keynote Speaker, Corporate Sales, Negotiation and Presentation trainer who gets sales results rapidly. He has coached and trained high profile corporates globally in presenting, selling, negotiating and pitching. He has spoken at over 1500 conferences and workshops for leading companies such as HP, SEEK, Avaya, Hitachi , Asciano, Samsung and Lend Lease.

Elliot’s #1 International Best Seller ‘ Confessions of a Pitch Consultant’ available on Amazon here

Elliot is based in Melbourne where he lives with his wife and two children who are hoping to be able to swim at some point.