The truth is, not all customers are equal. It's common knowledge: to succeed, we must concentrate our marketing efforts on the customers who are most profitable.

I believe that the obverse is true, too. At the other side of the profitability bell curve is that pool of customers who drain our time, talent and energy, customers so enervating that they are not only not profitable, they represent real losses in money and momentum.

I call these potential customers the Pain-In-The-Assets or PITA Prospects. Fortunately, you can frequently identify them within the first ten minutes of conversation. While the following observations may be drawn from the field of marketing consulting, I