Cut out the middle man
- Buy your computers and accessories directly – abandon resellers. It’s cheaper and a whole lot faster.
- Stop external catering for meetings – buy the ingredients at the supermarket and arrange on plates.
- Put your prices up to lousy customers that eat your time and resources – you’ll either make more money from them, or you’ll fire them and free up your time.
Lance Wiggs 
I think all are excellent points.
For point 3 though, determining the quality of your customers may not be that simple, in that some companies may not track the relevant data or if they do, have not collated it in a analysis-friendly format.
What key figures could businesses look at when valuing their customers?
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I’m loving #3. Especially in Asia.
I find I spend at least 70% of my time dealing with clients who in truth only make us around 10% of our income in the vain hope of better referrals.
Those referrals in my experience have never come.
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I would argue that buying your computers directly is risky if you aren’t sure what you need. Yes, there are lots of dodgy resellers but if you have a good relationship with an IT vendor or consultant then they won’t mind telling you what mark-up they are putting on their sales. I’ve seen lots of customers get burned by picking up a cheap computer deal only to find out that it has the wrong version of Windows, or the wrong hardware spec for their needs. With sites like Pricespy, you can safely get quotes from IT resellers/vendors and then compare the prices to see how much mark-up they are making.
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