No matter how good it looks, no matter how profitable it is, you can’t be dependent upon any customer for a significant part of your business. This is the case no matter what that customer is: one hospital, one referral source, one customer of any kind.
What’s a significant part? Well, it all depends on your business, but certainly 15 to 25% begins to push the limit.
The customer terminates the relationship. The customer actually loves you (your uncle is its CEO) and would never terminate the relationship — but the customer goes broke.
What appears to be a stable system is the often the least stable. What appears to be safe is often the most risky.
No, bigger is not always better and it’s certainly not always more profitable. Spreading risk among multiple channels of business, as difficult as you might imagine it to be, provides more stability, reserves more options, and provides more opportunity for long term success.
