An entrepreneur shares three client breakups and why misalignment costs more than lost revenue. Gut instinct matters. Some clients drain your team's energy despite paying well, and saying no to them opens space for better work and better clients.
Okay, first time I do stuff like this. Have you ever had to break up with a client? Today I'm breaking up with 3 clients, and breaking up with a client is really interesting because it's played on my mind over the past few days, and the thought process is like any relationship. It wonders, why do I feel this way? What have I done to be here? What have I contributed? And what I'm actually trying to solve for? If you're a young man or a person in business for 1 year, 10 years, 50, if you're an older man, if you're a woman, if you're anyone trying to do anything awesome, this one's for you. Breaking up a business relationship or letting go of a client is equivalent to ending any other type of relationship in life because you have all the same feels and you have all the same fears and frustrations and angers that sometimes you don't even know how to project. I didn't even know what to say. Today, having to break up with 3 of them has taught me a few cool things which I want to share with you. The first is quit as soon as you feel like you have to. And quitting not in the sense of giving up is realize where you're at in life, realize where you're at in business, and don't wait. The thing just gets harder and harder to do. I should have let go of this client ages ago. I knew it in my heart of hearts, in my gut feeling. I knew something was wrong. But we needed something from them at the time. We either needed the money, the project, the skill for somebody in the team to teach it. We needed something from them, which inherently meant we took it. And I remember saying it to them, I'm not sure if this is the right fit, but I didn't really do it with conviction. In hindsight, I should have never taken that job because the money that it gave us ended up becoming the biggest nuisance because it detracted from what we were really going for. And so the power of saying no is so, so powerful. I just learned it too late, and I'm doing this video because I should have listened to myself sooner. And you should listen not to me, but don't make my mistake. It cost me 3 weeks of one of my best team members. This just became an unboxing thing. And so one of the other reasons I couldn't have planned this any better One of the other reasons that we let go of clients is this: time. Time. Some clients will give you the most headache that whatever they give you in terms of money is not worth their time. And not every dollar was created equal, not every client was created equal. It is very, very hard to sit there when you have a vision and a dream and the team is encouraged and inspired and motivated to get to the nth degree into one goal and one goal alone. When people come in as clients and sap from your time, they sap from your energy, not only do you know that you shouldn't have taken the project, the projects start dragging. And if you cannot draw a clear line in the sand, they will drag you under if they're going under. Now I know this because that's the second client that I said to today, "Thank you so much, this relationship has to end." They had money outstanding, they had things that were pending. I was willing to walk from it. And I'm not suggesting you have the ability or the want to do the same. What I am saying to you is it was cheaper and easier and safer to cut it where it was than to continue losing the time and momentum of me and my team. Sometimes you take on jobs with a certain idea in your mind and then things change. If you are on a journey where things keep changing at a very, very fast pace, be very, very mindful. This is something I did not do that I should have done. Will this client of today be serving me in my goal of tomorrow? If the answer is no, and even if you need the money and you need the thing and you need the skill or the repetition, be very, very considerate about what that looks like at the end, because you don't want to be in my position losing sleep at night, feeling like crap, and quite simply just not wanting to have that awkward conversation that says, it's not you, it's me. We kind of probably shouldn't have taken it. If you can see this early on, if you realize where you're headed and you can flag that it's not in alignment, and we all talk about this a lot, alignment word. It simply means know where you are going and stay dedicated to the course. Pick one thing, focus on one thing, fixate, hyperfixate, put on your blinkers, I would say, and nothing outside of that should exist. Focus fiercely because it is there that you will find the reward. You'll have to say no to a lot of things, and as you say no to more and more things, you start getting better opportunities. As I said no to a client today, the client then offered us money to build out a tool for them based on what we were doing. So here I thought I was letting the client down. He was like, I'm so excited. You guys are heading into AI. And it was the most bizarre circumstance because whilst he was upset that we couldn't do his web dev, he's like, well, what about this AI stuff? Like, how do I get in? And so you never truly know what answer is awaiting you unless you ask. This was a video that I should have done a long time ago. This is a video for me that I should have taken my own advice. JP, when you watch this again and you're stuck on what to do, remember, if it doesn't serve the goal that you and the team have set, Do not do it. No amount of money, time, or headache is worth it. As always, until next time, think your hardest— this took a lot of thinking— work your best, and know that God will always take care of the rest.
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