A new article on Inc. details six tips for keeping up with a fast-moving company. Here's an excerpt from their entry called "Drop Dead Customer Weight."
If your company is growing, it provides your businesss with a unique advantage: you can finally say goodbye to your worst customers. Every business has them; they're the ones who needle and cajole you into a cheaper product or getting more for their money. More often than not, these are the types of customers you can afford to lose, especially if your company is growing.
Janine Popick, founder and CEO of Vertical-Response, a San Francisco company that provides e-mail marketing services, did just that. In Vertical-Response's early days, Popick rarely turned down a customer's request. After devoting nearly all of her company's manpower to one client, Popick had enough, and cut the customer loose to let the business move on. "It was a tough pill to swallow, because they were one of our top five customers," she says. "But I approached them and said, 'Look, guys, we can't keep maintaining this and ignoring our other customers.'"