Episode 051 - When To Fire A Client

As a marketing company, we're in a creative world. And, you know, if you're a musician, if you're an artist, if you're anyone that has to kind of get into that headspace of something and work, when you get a call that interrupts you or, you know, you have to switch focus, there's a cost to that, right? You're now having to come out of like client A's kind of world and then think about this, and then you have to get back into that, right? And it doesn't instantly happen. Okay, this week we're going to be talking about a topic that is extremely important. You know, I'm, I'm going to admit this is something I've struggled with for years. And this week, the experience of what we had in our agency led into this topic. We're going to be talking about those clients where you need to fire them. Terminate them, let them go. And we don't mean this in a malicious, mean, hurtful way. It's just that it's not a fit. And we talked in previous episodes, I don't know what the episode number was, about understanding who your ideal client is. And as much as you probably can, you know, self-identify or try to identify, you know, once you start to work with them, there may be things that come up that are like, this isn't a good relationship, right? Just like any, anything. Right, so that's what we're gonna talk about today. And you, you know, we're not gonna obviously name names, but you were on the receiving end who kind of brought this red flag up, you know, and I 100% trusted your intuition what was happening, and we let this client go. From your perspective, how does that feel to know that that has happened?

Well, obviously initially, you know, since the relationship started, it was rocky, you know, from the start. And, you know, I'm very new into my career, you know, I'm young professional. And so, you know, even for somebody like you who's been in this business for years and years, it's, it's really like, it's anxiety-inducing and it's really, really challenging because, you know, on one end there's that really compassionate side where you're like, oh well, I don't want to hurt their feelings, and you know, maybe it's my fault, maybe it's something I'm doing wrong, how can I make this easier? But then at the other end, you know, when I, when I brought it up to you and you're like, yes, like, this is absolutely not okay, you know, this is time-consuming, it's causing more challenges than it is good, and also I expressed to you that I wasn't able to do my best work. And, you know, at the end of the day when we have a client and, you know, they're saying to somebody, oh yeah, Blue Cow does my marketing, we want to be able to say like, yeah, like, we're proud of that, you know, that's an awesome example of our work, and I just didn't feel that. And so to be able to communicate that to you and have you, you know, 100% have my back and, you know, go along and actually say like, you know, this isn't the type of client that we want and, you know, I'm drawing a line here. This is, you know, this isn't worth it. Honestly, it felt really good. It was, it was really awesome to have that support and I already feel like there's a stress off my, off my shoulders, which, you know, stress is the number one killer of productivity, so, and creativity especially. So, and you know, when it comes to marketing, it's, it really is all about that.

So absolutely. So for, you know, like I said in the opening, for, for 10+ years, you know, I would, would stick with clients that I just were, you know, every day was a struggle, you know, they were causing stress. And some of them didn't mean to, it just was, you know, their inability to, to do certain things. And it might have been my fault of not putting those expectations on what is needed there. But in this case, the service that we are providing, we have a process, and the process that you have developed is very tight, concrete. It's done on purpose and intent, and it's to get content created by the client for us to work with, to get it polished and get it put out by deadline so that things happen. And in your business, if you're trying to grow a business that has, you know, scale and systems and everything like that, which every business should if you want to grow, it's important to have these deadlines and these processes. So, you know, there was a couple things that stood out to us in this one. Communication was a huge one. So, you know, if you are sending messages to your clients and they're not getting back to you, or, you know, you've set out that like, here's how we are going to communicate, is that how, you know, are you okay with that? And they say yes, and then they don't communicate that way. Right, that should be a big red flag because you're going to spend more time, as we call it, babysitting, right? And, and, uh, you know, just chasing people over and over again. Um, and the reality behind that is that time that you are spending outside of the allotted time for that client, that's time being stolen from other revenue-generating, um, tasks that are there. You can't get that back, right? So it's kind of like a disrespect towards you of your time isn't valuable, right? And I'm sure you felt that.

Oh, absolutely, 100%. You know, there were times where we had scheduled meetings weeks in advance and, you know, just no-show. And, you know, I'm waiting and waiting and waiting.

But no notification that they weren't able to—

Well, and I was just gonna say, without any notice. You know, and, you know, the best I get is a response a day later. You know, and it's, it's really frustrating because, you know, I try my very best to be as accessible as possible to clients. You know, this particular client, I had multiple phone calls just, you know, randomly throughout the month, like I'd say 5 at least that were up to 30 minutes, you know, and I was happy to do that because I felt that I had provided benefit and value to her, to them during this, this time. And so it was really frustrating because You know, it's always going to be a two-way street and, you know, as much as a client has hired us, we've also hired them, you know, and I think that sometimes people don't understand that. It has to be a good fit and if it's not, then there's just, you know, you have to let it go. It doesn't have to be a really negative thing. In fact, you know, in this case sometimes it can be really positive. And, you know, just try to be professional about it and say, you know, have your facts, you know, this is why, you know. You know, a big thing too is you actually have to have a reason. You know, it can't just be, you know—

We don't like you.

Yeah, we don't— I don't really like you. You know, it can't be as surface level as that. There has to— it has to be impacting you in a negative way. It has to be taking your time. Communication again, like anything that is causing more harm than good, then, you know, there's a valid reason.

And you hit on something there that I want to kind of go down a little deeper was receiving these multiple calls, right, outside of the scheduled time. And as a marketing company, we're in a creative world. And if you're a musician, if you're an artist, if you're anyone that has to kind of get into that headspace of something and work, when you get a call that interrupts you or you have to switch focus, there's a cost to that. Right? You're now having to come out of like client A's kind of world and then think about this and then you have to get back into that. Right? And it doesn't instantly happen. Right? So, you know, when agencies or any business that you're working with says, okay, here's how we are communicating or these are the times when we're going to meet, it's not because we're like, we want to control you. It's the fact that we allocate time to work for this client because it takes focus to be creative and get into that world.

Absolutely. Yeah, no, 100%. And what you said about getting into that like client A's world, like that's 100% how it feels. You just, you know, you hit that perfectly. And, you know, I've never been able to communicate that. That's just, you know, the feeling that it is, is being in that world and being able to stay there for the time allotted. Like that's when good things happen. That's when it's productive. That's when you get to be creative. And, you know, those time suckers, they impact that. And then it's not only just taking your time, but it's taking Client A's time and it's impacting them. And that's when it really starts to, to go downhill. And, you know, on top of that, me putting in that extra effort and that extra time for them and then not having the return even for a scheduled time that's, you know, like required on both ends was probably the point where I sent a message to you and I was like, hey, just so you know, this is not going well, right?

Yeah. And I, I receive that, and I, you know, I want your experience and I want your creativity to be, you know, what you want it to be and what you feel you can deliver. So immediately, okay, this is not working, we need to, to terminate, right? So, you know, so if you're experiencing this, you have those, those, those red flags that are coming up— we talked about communication, we talked about, you know, a disregard for your time and your value and things like that. Some other things would be, you know, maybe you discover that you know, their business operations are not that legit, or they're a little shady, or there's some, some bad things happening, you want to disconnect yourself from that. So there's another reason to potentially terminate a contract or a service agreement with them. So how do we do that? Now I'm going to walk you through what we did. So I immediately drafted up an email saying that, you know, we are terminating the agreement at the end of, you know, the set period, which was only a couple days away, um, and, and this was the reason why. And it was, you know, the communication and the, you know, not showing up to meetings and all that kind of stuff. So you have to have that reason, like you mentioned, that was there. Um, and I guarantee when you send that, that will be a shock to them, right? And they will come— in most cases, they will respond back, and they may get very defensive, right? Which in this case, they did. Um, um, and it was like, how could you do this to me? That kind of thing.

Yeah.

And pulled out— and then what I would say is you need to address that one. Right, you need to then, you know, not get defensive back but still stick to, um, you know, the, the policies that you have. So, you know, another thing is also have a term in your terms of agreements or your policy, your privacy policy, that states, you know, termination of service, right? And it doesn't have to be a huge legal document, just explain, you know, this is how we, you know, we have the right to, to stop working if this is the case that's there. And that's what we did. And, you know, as a business owner, that process prior to this would have been stressful as anything to me. But knowing that I trusted your feeling in it, I trusted that what you said was true, and it was. And I just made that decision, was able to go on it, and now it's like, here we are the next day recording this episode, and, you know, things are, things are moving forward, and it didn't really derail everything else.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, from my perspective, obviously this was a huge learning experience, um, for me. Um, so seeing that, you know, you made sure to have everything that you needed to back up, you know, so when the client came back with, you know, that defensive mode on with, um, you know, things being said or insinuated that, um, you knew weren't true, you had, um, you know, proof. I know that sounds kind of petty in a sense, but really you need that. You need that to be able to back up what you're saying, as well as that— those terms. And, you know, being able to actually say, "Here is what you agreed to," you know, and like the contract and the agreement. That kind of made me realize, "Okay, so being able to—" You know, we have these records for a reason, because otherwise up to this point, you know, I wouldn't have really thought anything about it. Like, "Oh, it's just, you know, one of those things we do, liability, whatever." But They're important.

Yeah, and then as a business, what, what we're going to do is we're going to look at this and say, what could we have done different? What will we do moving forward to either get those expectations across even more or get actual, like, real verbal consent and understanding back? So, you know, we're not going to say it was all their fault. There could have been some issues that we had, but we want to use everything as a learning experience. And I think one thing that you'll also potentially have from certain people when you terminate them is be aware there may become a negative review coming out about you online, and don't freak out about it. I mean, there's no business that you'll look at that doesn't have a, you know, a subpar review, but there's an experience behind that. Absolutely. Case in point about that is I've been researching, you know, certain products now from service providers, and I look at the reviews and like, you know, 80-90% of them are like, this is a great company, this, and then there's like a 1-star review in the person's just like going off on a rant, right? So you don't know the mindset they were in at the time when they did that or whatever, but the company responds to that, you know, we're sorry you had that experience and that kind of thing, but it's real, right? Anyone that says they have a 5-star review with like 1,000 reviews, it's impossible. Nobody can actually do that.

Yeah, for sure. And I mean, when it comes down to it, there really is the facts versus feelings. And so as the agency, to remain professional and maintain your reputation as best you can, you got to look at the facts. Try and avoid the feelings as much as you can. And, you know, and that's definitely something I learned because, you know, receiving that defensive email back was a shock to me because a lot of it I was like, well, what? Like, what? Where is this coming from? You know? And again, as a young professional, it was really shocking that, you know, people can have that reaction. But luckily I was at the point where I was archiving emails and keeping those records and stuff. And that was just out of habit. I've always just kind of kept those records, not thinking that they ever necessarily were useful. It was more so to make sure I know what date the content is coming out and I have all this information saved if I ever need to go back to it. But I'm very grateful that I did that. And now I will do that consciously to be able to know this is the timeline. This is what happened. This is how I communicated. And also being able to look back at that, I can see the gaps where I'm like, okay, with other clients, maybe I can fill that in there. And, you know, not to say that, you know, maybe, you know, this would be completely avoidable if I'd have done better. I don't know. But next time, I'm definitely gonna do every single thing that I can to be able to avoid this, right?

And that's You know, we talked about CRMs all the time, and that's important too, is, you know, when we're utilizing like Keep or anything like that, the fact that we have, you know, a system that will track her emails that are sent out as well as text messages, um, you know, logging phone calls, all that kind of stuff, and notes, you know, that's important if you're, if you're finding that this is going to be something that's going to happen or potentially happen. Having that record on file is important. And I want to just finish with a story. When, you know, when we started, you talked about doing your best work, and your best work is a reflection of the agency. So if you're not able to do that, then that's a big red flag. And this story is not around marketing, but several years ago there was a huge tree behind our office here, and I hired a company to come and cut it down, right? Because it potentially could have fell and crushed the office. So, you know, these 4 guys showed up, like lumberjack kind of thing, woolly bully kind of guys, and It went up, took a whole day, they cut it down. And then they cut a couple of tree branches on the other part of my property. And I said, okay, well, just leave it there, I'll clean it up. And they said to me, like, no, we'll clean it up, we'll cut it, we'll stack it properly. And the reason is, if somebody drives by and they see all this stuff there, and they ask you, hey, who cut your trees down, you tell them our name, they're gonna think that we leave the property looking like that, right? So they make sure that everything's cleaned up, everything's chipped, and any wood that's cut is stacked properly there on property because they want their visual representation of how they leave somebody's property to be clean and tidy. Absolutely.

And, you know, hearing that was probably like, okay, they know what they're doing. You know, like they, they've been through situations before, they've had their learning experiences, and they took that and used it and implemented it because they know that it's important.

So yeah, and I've told that story many times, and anytime anybody asks, you know, anyone that can you know, cut down a tree, I refer them because I was over like the moon with their professionalism and what they're able to do. Absolutely.

So yeah, and just lastly, I think something for me that I struggled with too is, um, with the whole situation was those things that like, you know, they happened, or you know they did it, or you know they didn't open the email or didn't respect this, but you don't have proof. You got to let that go. If you don't have anything that, you know, recorded that or is documentation of that, let it go because it's— you can't, you can't bring anything. There's no accusations, there's only, this is what happened.

If you can't track it, it never happened. Exactly.