Vista Equity Partners grows companies by identifying the top 20% of customers with the highest LTV, understanding their common traits, and then focusing all acquisition efforts exclusively on finding more of them while cutting channels that bring in low-value clients.
The same work provides exponentially more value to a larger company. A sales page optimization that adds $40k for a small business could add $4M for a larger one. This allows you to charge a massive premium for identical work by targeting higher-value customers who benefit more.
Counterintuitively, removing qualification steps to boost lead volume consistently resulted in less profit. A higher cost to acquire a much higher-value customer ($5k to acquire $45k) is far more profitable than a low cost for a low-value one ($1k to acquire $5k), challenging the focus on CPL over LTV.
After discovering that 78% of their best customers consumed at least two pieces of long-form content before buying, the company mandated this step in their sales process. This pre-qualification ensures new leads behave like past high-value customers, systemically increasing conversion rates for ideal clients.