I caught up here in Greece with my client Michaelis this week.
He is a brilliant guy. Founder of a SaaS company with solid tech, great support, loyal team.
He was laughing, joking, and teasing me for putting ice cubes in the village Rose wine we were sharing.
6 months ago though was a much different story.
He was a shadow of himself.
Drained. Exhausted.
Newer Bags forming under the older bags under his eyes.
“We’re stuck,” he sighed.
And the numbers were brutal — they were working harder than ever:
Doing more outreach,
Creating ever increasing number of demos,
Repeatedly delivering proposals.
But conversions and growth had flatlined.
Margins were evaporating.
So I asked him one thing:
“Who’s your ideal client?”
He paused. Then hesitated. Then pulled out a slide deck with six different avatars.
Startups. Mid-size firms. Even government contracts.
Each one was “a potential fit.”
That was the problem.
You can’t scale when you’re running in six different directions hoping one works.
Turns out, 70% of their clients were actually the worst ones to serve — high support, high churn, high drama, low ROI.
So we segmented and ran the numbers
One specific group — a narrow niche — was worth 5x in lifetime value compared to the rest.
And they were only dedicating 15% of their efforts to reaching them.
So Michaelis did what few owners are willing to do.
He cut the others loose.
Pulled ad spend.
Refused bad-fit clients — even the ones waving cash.
Focused only on the segment that valued what they did best.
After 6 months?
Accelerating Growth.
Record Margins
Much fewer support tickets.
“We’re finally in control,” Michaelis smiled at me.
Here’s the kicker:
The product didn’t change.
The pricing didn’t change.
Only the people he chose to serve.
Now I’ll ask you:
Ever fantasised with having the freedom to completely decide who you do business with?
Start by seeing where the dead weight in your business might be forcing you to deal with the client’s you’d rather let go.
Take 60 seconds.
Click here for the Exit Readiness Survey.
Look, just because it says exit readiness doesn’t mean you need to sell your business.
But if it’s not serving the right people, it’s probably not serving you either.
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P.S. I’m not the “systems guy,” “process guy,” or “finance guy.”
I’m the “build a valuable business” guy—so you can regain the freedom to start living your best life now and exit on your own terms later.
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