Tami Donaldson for In Gear
When I was brought up in sales I was told that there is a big difference between customers and clients. Customers, regardless of how much the spend, are people who do business with you one or two times. Clients start as customers, but wind up doing business with you on a regular basis ("regular" meaning on their schedule, I have clients who I do business with once a year, and others I do business with virtually every month). Clients are repeat customers.
You have to start with customers, if you do your job properly you will build some of them into clients. Clients are the key to any successful business. Another problem is that once a successful business has a book of good clients they lose track of the importance of acquiring new customers and as a result, reduce their marketing and sales efforts. For what ever reason you will lose clients, they must be replaced and to improve your income you have to continually increase your number of clients.
I often see people discuss a "client", when they are actually discussing a customer. I get it, I do it. For marketing purposes it is useful to mention a high profile customer as it encourages some new people to consider you for new business. But for ourselves, it is more than useful to keep the distinction clear. I repeat, the success of any business is directly related to their success in converting customers into clients or you will spend way to much time selling and not nearly time enough producing a product.
Fish