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Have you ever had a customer that you wished that you didn’t have? Someone that is rude, or hard to reach, or impossible to please? Of course, we all have (if you’re in Sales or Service that is). The crew at The Future of Work have put together a little quiz for us to use to analyze our customers, in order to determine if it’s worth doing business with them:

So how is it that you sort out the people who are wasting your time because they don’t have anything better to do from those who are seriously overcommitted and can’t be much help even if they wanted to?

How indeed? Well, there is a method of sorting the wheat from the chaff. Email this questionaire to each potential client, for them to complete (which is of course the first test):

“Due to our recent increase in business opportunities we have now found it necessary to pre-screen potential clients and partners. Our research has shown conclusively that one Professor George Acme (don’t write in, for God’s sake; we don’t know who thunk this up. Maybe Buford?) has developed a highly reliable tool for assessing the potential for a successful business relationship. Please take a few minutes and complete this brief questionnaire and answer as honestly as possible. Please bring a copy of this to our first meeting -if there is one.

Thank you.”

I want to talk to you because:

(5)____ I hope to establish a mutually beneficial business relationship
(4)____ I’m curious about what you do
(3)____ I sense you have business for me
(2)____ I’m out to make your day miserable because mine is
(1)____ I’d like to steal your ideas

People often tell me:

(5)____ I’m a caring, thoughtful person
(4)____ I’m usually a lot of fun to be around
(3)____ Sometimes I can be difficult when I don’t get my way
(2)____ I’m a deceitful, hateful person
(1)____ Nothing, because people don’t talk to me

I usually return phone calls:

(5)____ As soon as practical
(4)____ When I can make the time
(3)____ When I get the time
(2)____ When the mood strikes me
(1)____ Only if I think I can get something from you

Score your potential customer according to the points next to each answer. Then what? What is the point? The point is that not every customer is worth your investment of time and energy. In fact, there is only so much time and energy to be utilized so you need to use it in the best possible way. Charlie Grantham and Jim Ware have come up with The Rule of 2:

First, clean up your calendar, and then get to work making yourself more effective. How do you do that? First, you’ve got to realize you can’t do everything (no, not even you). And if something starts taking longer than some reasonable time, let loose of it.

Here’s our guidelines:

• You’ve got 2 minutes to take action on immediate requests for your attention. If you can’t handle it that quickly, then it needs to go to someone, or someplace else!
• You’ve got 2 hours (or less) to hold a face-to-face meeting. If it takes longer than that, you’re not planning!
• You’ve got 2 days to respond to an electronic request. If you can’t get to it by then, you’re wasting your time and everyone else’s.
• You’ve got 2 weeks to assemble a work team and commit to a plan. If you can’t find the right people and the right plan by then, the project will fail - and it must not have been very important anyway.

Check out The Future of Work for the rest of the Rule of 2. Because the next two months and two years are so very important.