When losing a client, feelings associated with fear, shame, giving up, and impending doom may come up. Even though you know this is “business, not personal”, it very much feels personal.
What this saying means is it isn’t necessarily a direct attack on your personality. Business-to-business partnerships are so complex they, unlike our personal relationships, don’t consider loyalty as a top value. It may be one of them, no client wants you to give the same treatment to their competitor, but it’s not as important as financial growth, which they’ll get by any means necessary. If some other marketing agency knocks on their door and has all the bells and whistles, they’d be fools to not invite them in for a conversation.
Now that is business. It’s not personal. The bottom-line matters.
Still, you’re now left with a loss. You may have already accommodated the funds to take a hit or you may need to lay someone off or cut your own pay. This officially feels personal – your livelihood and how well you can perform in your career (the means of how fulfilling your livelihood is) has changed, somewhat or drastically. It’s a negative hit and you’ll now need to adjust the plans toward your business goals.
First of all, take an immediate moment to pause any tasks you were about to work on, just 15 minutes. There is nothing more important than processing the grief from this loss. Whatever emotions you’re feeling, release in private. Don’t get anyone involved until you’ve gained your composure. Your team isn’t here to be your therapeutic soundboard and venting right away risks you all making “plans” for your next moves from a place of panic. Likewise, it is not up to you to change your team’s emotions. Our advice is to allow the space necessary to process what just happened on your own first, then announce it to your team and let it rest for a day or two. You can schedule a meeting in the next 24-48 hours to hear everyone out and begin to make plans.
If you’ve lost enough clients then you’re probably accustomed to the thoughts that come directly after, yet we are still at risk for believing them. You may have thought:
- My business is failing.
- We’re about to go under, I’ll need to let everyone go now or later.
- I should’ve done this more. How stupid!
- Everything comes in three’s. Who’s next?
- I’ve failed my team, my family, and myself.
- I’m not doing a good enough job.
Think of it this way… When we lose a client, yes, it happens to us all, two reasons may be the cause:
- One of you simply changed direction and found a new and better opportunity, or desire to switch things up to see if more growth can occur. (All marketing strategies are a gamble and have many contingencies! When they hired you they turned down someone else and took a risk on you.)
- You just weren’t checking off all of their boxes as much as they initially thought. If this is the case then you already know it. Chances are you are and were fully aware you haven’t been able to fulfill all of your client’s needs. And it isn’t an attack on you personally. Some clients are franchises and under tight standards with a lot of corporate red tape who have their own marketing agency. Good on you for even landing a client within a corporation in the first place. And good on that client choosing you despite the restraints.
The second point is what we really want to discuss, but we will briefly touch on the first point. If this is the case for you, relax. Refrain from being angry. Do not listen to the thoughts that all is doomed, rather, let it all out in the 15 minute time-out. Remember the professional you want to be and the success you want to achieve. Again, we all lose clients like these. You, too, have the right to end a partnership with a client when your direction changes. Even if this does cause a financial setback, don’t let it define how your future will pan out. Take this as fuel to keep working (if you’ve found the strategy to get more clients), to refine your current approach to business (if you know there’s a way to get more clients, but lack the resources), or completely change things up (if you know there’s more you can do).
Which brings us to point two. If you expected losing a client, then the reality of losing one should not have come as a shock. Life has a hard-knock way of ripping the bandaid off when we’ve ignored the pain for too long. It’s time to tend to the wound, in other words, it’s time to officially address the problems and send aid to cleanse, heal, and improve. You may still lose more clients from your list, but you can equally change gears to allow your agency to work better.
Can you see your situation more clearly now? Do you identify with any of these points? We understand what it’s like to not be the chosen one. Sometimes there’s a silver lining and even if you do hit rock bottom, there’s only one way to go from there – up. This loss may have been a blessing in disguise.