Has anyone every used a type of Key Account Management with their business?

What I am refering to is the belief that 75 percent of your business comes from your top 25 percent of your customers. The thought is then that you are getting very little business from your bottom 25 percent, and you really need to balance your time properly, and spend a proper amount of time on the top 25 percent.

I am wondering... has anyone ever done the calculations as to just what the breakdown is in their business? I have. I was actually quite surprised at the breakdown. I found that the top 25 percent of my customers accounted for 70 percent of my business. When I figured the next 25 percent (meaning the top fifty percent), they actually accounted for 92 percent of my business.

Now, maybe everyone else knows this already, but this was quite a revelation for me. It also seemed that some of those folks in that bottom 50 percent that only gave me 8 percent of the dollars could be some of the most demanding of your time, if you let them.

So, I am going to make it a point to employ a Strategic Key Account Management technique. This means that once a quarter, I am going to evaluate my customers by rank. I am also going to evaluate how much time I am spending with each. Now, some of those lower ranked customers may be good targets for increase, so you don't want to arbitrarily get rid of them, but if they are a real drain on time (remember - Time is the only constant... you can't make any more of it!), you might be better off looking for other customers. I am fortunate... I have a large area to draw from, so this is not a real problem.

It would also seem that as you continue to refine this list, and target those with the largest potential for business, you can't help but grow your business, in the same amount of time.

So, has anyone else done this type of analysis?