So if you’re new here on the podcast – Hi, my name is Lauren. I am the host of She’s Busy AF. I am a marketing consultant, a brand mentor, a show-it web designer. I do all the things, but what I am most passionate about, I would say, is guiding entrepreneurs and guiding small businesses with strategy, & just taking a strategy-led approach to everything I do with them. 

Because strategies are what moves the needle, strategies are what get you places. (Good strategies, of course.) And my background is that I was a former agency owner of a boutique marketing agency for about five years.

I sold that agency and started, this, the multi-passionate business of my dreams. And so with that led, I have definitely had my fair share of needing to fire clients – most starting with wanting to fire clients and needing to fire clients. I’ve had quite the go with that, having to actually do it, the pains of it, the joys of it – cause there are joys with that too.

So some questions I’ve been getting more recently – actually put up on my Instagram story one day that one of my to-do list items was to fire a client and a couple of people were like, “oh, how do you do that?” Or “I would love to hear more on this.” So this kind of prompted me to open up a conversation about when it’s right and when it’s the time to fire a client and some ways to do that. 

There are good ways to do it and there are wrong ways to do it. There are ways to do it that can probably get you in legal and financial trouble, which is what we want to avoid at all costs! So I will preface this with, I am not a lawyer. I am speaking from the experiences I’ve had. I always advise working with a lawyer when it comes to anything contractual always.

 I will just say I endorse lawyers a hundred percent. You should always have contracts with all of your clients for any work that you are doing for them, or at least some terms and conditions. So that being said, let’s go ahead and dive in.

I’m going to be giving four reasons to fire a client – I feel like in my years of doing business, there have been four big standout things that have told me, “okay, maybe I should fire this client.” Then, I’m going to give you some different ways to go about doing it, because there are definitely nonethical ways to fire a client and stop working with them. 

That being said, there are ethical ways to fire clients and stop working with them. We’re going to focus on the ethical ones today, because we don’t want to get in trouble, but also the last thing we want is to ruin your reputation. 

 

Reason Number One: Blatant Disrespect. 

Now this could look like the client is disrespecting contractual boundaries, or you’re entering into something of what I like to call “scope creep”. This just means the work that you agreed on doing, they are now asking for more things outside of this, and they are doing this routinely.

Another thing is that they’re never happy with the work that you’ve produced. They’re always complaining and they really don’t have a reason to, or it’s starting to get you down a little bit. If any or all of this or any of these are keeping you up at night, what this does is causes resentment. 

When they do ask for work, or when it does come time to do the work, you probably notice that they’re the ones you push to the bottom of the list. This is a telltale sign that this is not working well as a client and service provider relationship. So that is one reason to fire a client.

 

Reason Number Two: Unresponsive or Hard to Reach. 

Another reason is that they’re unresponsive or they’re not taking (on the flip side) full advantage of the scope of work or their responsibilities within the scope. We all know that client relationships are a two-way street. I have yet to see a service-providing business where communication or deliverables of some sort are not necessary for the success of that relationship. 

If they trust you all out and you never have to talk, great. But I personally don’t think that that makes for a good relationship. You want to be able to show the value that you’re providing as a service provider. But tying it all back, typically they have deliverables and things that they owe you. 

If they’re not getting you those things or falling flat on that, but they’re continuing to pay you or when they do get them to you, it’s super late, it puts you behind with other clients. These can be like really unethical situations and can cause some trouble whether that’s with your other clients or in your personal life. 

When you’re feeling like you have to work a little bit more because they come in at the last minute with something, or they’re just not getting anything at all, but they’re paying their invoices, it might be time to rethink the situation.

That is unethical within itself. That’s actually the reason why I had to fire a client –  because they were not giving me the things I needed to be able to help them. Therefore, we’re just collecting a check, waiting on those things, and again, not an ethical way to do business.

 

Reason Number Three: Consistently Late Invoices

No matter how big or small the invoice is, it’s just wrong to be constantly paying them late. I’ve had someone flunk on a $47 a month membership multiple times and then asked to rejoin. I’ve also had clients who consistently pay 30, 45 days late, and at the end of the day, it’s just not worth it, nor is it fair to the clients you have who do pay on time. 

Something I like to do to mitigate this? Not that I really wanted to go here, but I have something in the contract that states no longer than no more than 15 days or like net 15 or net 30. And at that point fees start to accrue if they have not made their payment yet.

This typically works well because then they have an obligation to do so. But then there are times when people fall over that, & the next thing you know, they’re getting a bill for those overcharges. So you really just want to make sure that they’re not late on paying invoices and that they’re on time. If they’re not able to stick to this, it’s not a good client to work with. 

Reason Number Four: Unethical Work Practices. 

This has not necessarily happened to me, but I’ve heard of this happening to some other biz to biz clients of mine ( some of them my besties), or actual clients of mine. But let’s say a client is lying to their customers, cheating their customers and clients, or practicing their work or product in a shady way that maybe doesn’t align with how you do business or how you would want to be associated with them. If it makes you uncomfortable, you should not be working with this person. 

Now I understand sometimes you may not be aware of these things until you are working with the client. I think as time goes on, I’ve been able to see red flags with clients or potential clients that have pushed me away from working with them, to begin with. I have absolutely turned down clients because I have felt like it wasn’t going to be a good ethical fit or that it didn’t align with my values.

I worked at an agency fresh out of college that had refused to work with fast food or soda brands because one of their big core beliefs and missions (they even like paid for gym memberships, which was awesome) was that health was important and they would be endorsing the opposite of that if they decided to work with that type of client.

So that’s just another example of when you’re going into client relationships, not necessarily when you’re ready to fire. But let’s just say, there are some of these unethical work practices happening, and that is absolutely a reason to fire them. It could also save you a lot of legal trouble if it truly is unethical or illegal, immoral, all of those things.

 

The first way to ethically fire a client: Have a Specific Clause in the Contract.

One way to do this is to have a formal written notice, & pay mind to any contractual obligations you might have. So again, this comes back to having a contract. In my agreements, I ask for a 30 day notice written cancellation, and I offer the same thing stating that either party can terminate their contract at any time. 

And I recommend, again, I’ll say this a million times, working with a lawyer. If you don’t have client agreements, make sure that you are protected in this way for if you get out, but also that they could get out. 

It’s just the best way to do business in these situations. While I don’t necessarily believe in manifesting, I’m also a big believer that if something’s not meant to be, it’s not meant to be. If a client’s going to have a “30 day out” clause and they’re going to leave, they’re going to leave. And there’s a bigger reason for that.

 

The second way to ethically fire a client: Make sure that all your work with them is wrapped up entirely, deliverables and all. 

Again, go back to the scope of work that you agreed on. Make sure everything’s been delivered before you fire them. This gives them no reason to come after you in the long run, because if you’ve promised work completed and you promised deliverables, you do need to deliver on that. 

So wait until you are good, and you are at a place where those deliverables have been completed before you decide to fire them. Additionally, make sure you leave them with the tools to not need you again.

So this is what this could look like if you’re a web designer. As a courtesy (if you don’t already do this already) have a video walkthrough of how they can edit some of the things on their site that you’ve been editing for them. If you’re a social media manager, or someone doing social media strategy, perhaps you hand over some of the guidelines for the strategy, best practices for them, the hashtags, etc.

Again, totally dependent on what you are willing to hand over as intellectual property, but really giving them what they need, making sure they have all their passwords, all that stuff. I’ve had that before where clients I’ve let go have come to me years later asking “I cannot find my Instagram password. What is it?” You want to be in a position where you don’t have to answer that question because trust me, it’s a hassle.

 

Give them a next step plan before you leave.

best-case scenario, they don’t have to reach out in general. My last tip here is to make sure you have a next-step plan for them. Don’t just leave them in the dark, no matter how they were. The best way I like to do this is to have a list of referrals. I’ve also done this in the proposal process. If I’ve just felt like it’s not a good vibe with someone, I like to give them a list of people that do the same thing that they can work with. 

And this is because I don’t want to take this on – but I don’t actually tell them. So for this one, I would just say to have a deck of referrals of people you’ve already talked to and said, “Hey, I’m letting this client go. Would you be interested in working with them?” and just allowing them to take this somewhere else.

This is a really good way to not damage your reputation. You don’t have to say outright to this client, “I don’t want to work with you anymore because of X, Y, Z.” You could say that you’re moving in a different direction with your business, but here are some people that I think could do a really good job for you. 

So I hope you found this episode helpful! If you did, shoot me a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn, And please don’t forget to subscribe! I put out tips like this weekly. My goal is to help entrepreneurs and small businesses really thrive. And I know that firing clients is a hot topic because it will happen to you at some point if it has not already. So again, hope you found this helpful. Let me know in the comments, and I will see you on the next episode of She’s Busy AF!