Like most highly effective strategies, OPERATION GODFATHER is remarkably simple, even obvious, once you understand how it works. There are seven basic principles to consider:

1. 80% of your sales and profitability comes from 20 % of your customers. Of course, the ratio is not always 80/20. Sometimes it’s 75/25, 70/30 or even 90/10. However, the situation the ratio describes is always the same: a few Core Customers buy a great deal while a great number of small customers buy very little.
   
   
2. Core Customers are the lifeblood of your business and servicing them should be a company-wide obsession. Indeed, the real measure of a healthy business lies in the strength, depth, and length of its relationship with its Core Customers.
   
   
3. Regardless of the extraordinary measures you may take to delight your Core Customers, attrition is inevitable. When a company gets acquired or closes its doors, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. And you certainly can’t assume that those customers currently giving you the lion’s share of their business will continue doing so in the future; even your best and most loyal customers can and will break your heart. Every time you lose a Core Customer, your profitability takes a hit-- sometimes a big hit. That’s why the long-term expansion of your business is critically dependent on continually cultivating new Core Customers.
   
   
4. Most of your small customers are low impact customers with no potential for significant growth,. Many of them , however, have the buying power to become Core Customers and significantly impact your bottom line. These high-potential, under-penetrated customers are referred to as “Sleeping Giants.”
   
   
5. Although the majority of your sales reps provide excellent service to your Core Customers, they don’t devote much attention to Sleeping Giants. This is unfortunate, since converting a Sleeping Giant into a Core Customer almost always provides the highest payoff use of a sale rep’s time.
   
   
6. Like most of your Core Customers, Sleeping Giants are savvy business people who practice economic calculation in every choice they make and who are only loyal to one thing—best value. In those selling situations where all things are equal, including the price, the buying decision almost invariably comes down to the personal relationship between the customer and the sales rep. Essentially, the relationship becomes the tiebreaker. However, personal relationships always have limitations. If customers can find better value in another supplier, they will take their business there without looking back.
   
   
7. In the eyes of many Sleeping Giants, there aren’t any sharp differences between you and your most formidable competitors. These are the customers that can be motivated to change their buying behavior with only a small improvement in value such as the opportunity to earn insanely desirable Big Splurge Awards. Granted, not all of the targeted customers will take advantage of this opportunity; however, for many of the targeted customers, it will be “an offer they can’t refuse.”

The Bottom Line
It’s self-serving to say this, but it’s bedrock true: OPERATION GODFATHER is a repeatable, time-tested methodology that in many cases will provide your company with a clear competitive advantage. The question is not, “Will OPERATION GODFATHER pay for itself?” That has long since been settled. The only question is “How many times over will OPERATION GODFATHER pay for itself?”