I had a great conversation with a friend of mine. He was bemoaning the fact that his company was almost completely dependent on one huge customer. He saw the inherent risks in that relationship but confessed that his organization had a bad habit it couldn’t kick. It had succumbed to the addiction of predictability and comfort.

Is your business overly reliant on one key customer? Is your organization tied closely to one key client or partner or supplier? If that customer went away, would your world come to a crashing, screeching halt? The rule of thumb I’ve always heard is no customer should be more than 25% of your business (and the same holds true for your suppliers or partners).

We always hear about diversification, but usually it’s in the context of our stock portfolios. If your 401k became a 200.5k in the past few years, you know what I’m talking about. It’s easy to do the diversification thing in a portfolio: Sell a few stocks, buy a few stocks, and presto! you’re done. Diversifying your customer base is much harder to do.

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