How To Break Up With A Client

The following is a transcription of The Peaceful Entrepreneur Podcast episode 25.

AMY: Welcome to the Peaceful Entrepreneur podcast. Where together, we're learning how to have peace in the process of everyday business ownership by improving one step at a time, how we think and what we do. I'm your host Amy Stout.

Okay guys here's the reality. You are not for everybody and everybody is not for you. And here's another thing you can be right for someone for a time but not for forever. These are some hard truths but they are just reality when it comes to especially service-based client serving businesses.

And so I'm gonna take some time today with you to talk about what happens when a client isn't the right fit anymore for you. Or never was, but you worked with them anyways. So I want to be the first to say here, the fact that you're not for everybody or that like you might not be right after a certain amount of time, that's okay. Like I said, that is life. That is part of business. and we have to learn how to not take it personally. I'm gonna get to that later. (laughs)

So I want you to hear this. This is my main thing. It is okay to gracefully end a working relationship when it's not right anymore, either for you or for them. It is totally okay. That is just, that is just life.

And on the vice versa, if they end things with you, you don't have to be crushed. And believe me, this has happened to me, and I was crushed. So I'm speaking from a personal experience here that you don't have to be. You have to remember, utmost, that business is business. Now, if you become friends with your clients, awesome. That's great. That's fantastic. But just remember that before that, they are your client. And because that's how they are thinking about it. And that's how you need to think about it too. and that's gonna protect you emotionally.

So of course, if you work for a client for years, you're going to build a relationship with them, but you have to always be okay for if they decide it's not time to work together anymore, you have to be okay with parting ways.

So let's talk about this. There are quite a few situations that might necessitate ending things with a client. Perhaps you realize that your values don't align. Perhaps you realize that your work styles don't align or your communication styles don't align. Perhaps their needs in their business change or maybe you decide to change what you're offering and how you serve them. I had that happen when I made a shift of cutting out a few services to prune and niche down. I cut a few services out and that naturally led to me ending relationships with clients that were incredible, that I had no issue with, but I just wasn't doing what they needed anymore. So we parted ways. Now one of them has come back, which is really cool, 'cause she kind of fits back into what we're doing now, which I love.

But I mean, things change, businesses evolve. I think I had this misconception that I was gonna get to a certain state of business and just like coast and arrive and then things would just stay the same. And that's just not business. Like things just always change. Grow, evolve, that's life. So you have to be okay when that happens with you and you have to be okay when that happens with someone else. So sometimes with these things, discerning if your values or your work styles or your communication aligns or not, sometimes you can learn that pretty quickly. Like ideally you can learn that before you even sign on with the client, but sometimes it takes a little while to figure that out. And so I wanna talk about both sides of the situation.

I first wanna talk about how to take it well if a client breaks up with you, 'cause that's harder than having a breakup with them. Well, I don't know what's harder. Kinda depends on if you hate confrontation or not, but it hurts when someone says they don't wanna work with you anymore, right? It's hard not to take that personally. And so how do we take it? How do we take it gracefully?

I think here's four things that I think you can do, and then I'm gonna share like a couple other things. But four things I think you can ask them, hey, is there any changes that we could make to be able to continue services to kind of fit your new needs? It's okay to ask that once, but you don't wanna come across as desperate. So I wouldn't like beg or grovel, right? So ask it, if the answer is no, take it. Thank them for the opportunity to work together.

Mention, like, hey, if anything ever comes back in the future and you'd like to work together again, I would love that. If there's anybody that comes your way that might benefit from our services, I would love for you to contact, or have them contact us. So leave the door open, be kind, be gracious, but don't press it.

Don't seem desperate because you're going to then stoop to being below them, because you're just begging for their business, right? You need to keep on an even field with them of like, okay, I respect that you don't need this anymore, we can go our separate ways. It's more important to leave the relationship on a good note so that you could potentially get more business in the future, either from them or via them, right? If you grovel, if you stoop, you're kind of closing the door for yourself. That aside, what about when it's time for you to break up with someone? You just know it, you feel it in your gut. You just know.

I have learned, like I said before, my gut is always right when it comes to if I need to stay with a client or not. Like I have a pretty strong gut. Some people don't as much, but I do. And so I've been through enough breakups and stuff like that to client breakups, to know, and to kind of spot the things before I even sign a client.

Like I know the warning signs. And I'd like to have an episode on red flags to look for in clients, so stay tuned for that. But like I said, I've gone through the tough stuff and now I can kind of tell, but you kind of have to go through that stage on your own of just experiencing the wrong fits, experiencing the breakups, to learn for you specifically what's gonna work and what's not, right?

So when you find yourself in the situation of, dang, this is not a good fit, I need to break up with this person. A couple things you can step back, or actually let's back up. If you find yourself doubting, if you find yourself questioning, you haven't quite decided yet, but you're just like, I think this might not be the right fit. I've come up with a couple questions that you can ask yourself just to reflect.

Okay, so those are, are they stressing me out more than making me excited to work with them? That's a good indicator. When you get off the phone with them, how do you feel? Do they drain me or do they energize me? How much are they asking of me? Am I okay with what they're asking of me?

It's important to take a step back and look at that Because, I mean, for me, I've experienced this, that you just kind of roll with the punches and take on what they ask, and you don't stop to think about what that means, or how you feel about it. So think about it. Do our communication styles align?

Do they respect my boundaries? Oh, that's a big one. Have we been able to establish systems? Because, like, you know, I have my established systems in my business. One of the things that I kind of look out for is if someone is like pushing against those and not really willing to jump into my systems, I know that seems like, I don't know, like haughty or prideful or whatever, but it's more just like this is what works for us and if you're not down to jump into this, I'm sorry, like we can't work together. That's one of my lines.

So have you been able to work out good rhythms and systems of working together or are you always kind of like rubbing against each other or like going back and forth and like, yeah, like how harmonious and peaceful is the working relationship? Next thing are our work styles aligned. Like I work nine to five.

My clients don't have to, but they have to respect that I do, you know, and understand that they're not gonna hear from me outside of that. Would I feel relieved if we stopped working together? I mean, just be honest with yourself because that is often the question that determines it for me. of like, yeah, would I feel lighter? Would I feel relieved? The answer is yes, I gotta go. The last thing is can others confirm my feelings? This is helpful, like if you're running your business by yourself, like run it by a friend or a partner or somebody, like here's the situation, am I reading this right? But especially if you have a team, like I had a situation where I was working with one of my contractors with this client and both of us started to feel my little sensors went up before hers did.

I was like, "I'm not too sure about this." And she kind of like caught up to it a couple like weeks later, like, "Yeah, I think you're right." And so if someone, and so if someone can confirm your feelings, that's also a good indicator that it's time to break up. So if those answers to those questions do lead you to, I need to break up with this person, Here's what you should do.

And this is my personal opinion, of course, but you're listening to my podcast, so you understand that you're getting my opinion. My first thing that I would recommend, and I know not everybody has the same faith that I do, so I'm not pushing this on you, but this is what I would do. I always, first thing, is pray about the situation and ask God for clarity for how to handle it, because I cannot do this on my own. I do not have enough within me to do the right thing and to handle it the right way every single time.

So I need to draw on God's wisdom for me. And so the first thing I do is bring it to God and say, Lord, would you confirm that this is the right thing and would you help me to know what to say? The next thing I would do is take your time to process. Like is when you realize that you need to break up with someone, you don't need to call them the next day. Like take some time to really think this is why we're not the right fit.

And if you're like, if you're emotional, let that come down, right? You wanna be able to share with them on just like a neutral level, hey, here's why we're not the right fit and I don't think we should, I'm getting there. But give yourself time to process it. Share your thoughts even with your trusted circle that I mentioned before and get their feedback on what to say because you can get someone else's, how they would perceive it. They can give you feedback.

Plan out what you're gonna say, whether it's just in your head or bullet points or it helps you to write it all out. Plan it out. And then I really, really just highly recommend have the conversation on the phone or on a video call. Like if you email them, that's not gonna do anything to help preserve your relationship after the breakup. So if they can hear your voice, if they can hear your tone, that's always gonna be better. And if they can like have a conversation with you, always gonna be better.

So as you're having the conversation, Here's what I would recommend to kind of how to think and how to shape what you say. So like I've kind of been hinting at, do everything you can to preserve the relationship. You do not want to burn a bridge, right? It is just reality, it is just business that you guys are not the right fit. And that is kind of the tone that you need to take. So I usually focus on, hey, this is why I don't think that we're the right fit to work together at this time. I give a couple examples of instances where we don't align. Again, this is not like biased or heated or judgy, right? This is just stating the facts.

And then I say, because of that, I think we should take a step back from working together for the time being. Like there's no reason that in the future, if things change, they couldn't come back. That's kind of what you want, is leave the door, be firm, right? Be firm that like this current situation, how this is going right now, ain't working. But leave the door open, right? Unless you don't want to, then don't. But still be graceful with it, right? And the last thing to do is trust God with the outcome. You've done all you can do at that point, right? No use worrying about it. just trust that God led you to that place, right? He led you to break up with them. He helps you with what to say. He's in control of how the outcome is, right?

So when I had this kind of conversation most recently, I was met with grace and understanding. And so that's what kind of made me feel confident in writing this episode, because I feel like I've had it go well. And that of course is the ideal response, right? When you are approaching them, be gracious, be compassionate, be kind in how you deliver what you're saying. And hopefully they will return that favor. Now there's a chance that they don't and just if they don't, be gracious, be kind, be compassionate. And again, you can control you, you cannot control them or their response.

So like I said before, if you feel like you want to, leave the door open to potentially work together again if things change or even leave the door open so that they still feel positive towards you and could still recommend people to you. And I would recommend too, if things do end on good terms, keep in touch afterwards.

Send them a Christmas card, send them, you know, respond to their Instagram posts, check in via email every three months or so. You know, you don't, again, like I said, like don't close the door, leave the opportunity open, make sure that they know you're still there, that you still like them, like this isn't a personal thing, I still, you're an awesome person, I respect, that's another thing that I said during the conversation that I didn't write down, but like, I made sure to tell the client like, hey, I think what you're doing is awesome, you are going places, I respect you so greatly. And I just don't think that we're the right fit at this time.

For where your business is and where my business is, I don't think that they are like working together well right now. That's kind of how I approached it. So like I said, it won't always go perfectly every time, but just remember to trust God for the discernment of what you should do and stand strong in it. Like if they don't respond well, you might doubt like, Oh, should I just like stay with it and just like suck it up? No. Like stand with what you know is right to do for you. You are responsible for you and that's it. You're not responsible for them or how they respond. So what you're most responsible for is creating an environment in your business that is cultivating yours, your teams and your clients ability to thrive.

And so if there's ever anything that comes in that is hindering that, you have full rights to kindly, graciously cut it out. So that's my advice to you today. That is my advice for what to do when a client isn't the right fit anymore. So I would love to hear what you think. If this is helpful, it would be so awesome if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Like I mentioned earlier this season, I want to get to 50 reviews by 50 episodes.

So I think it's totally doable. We've got over 20 episodes to go until that point. So we'd love it if you'd leave a review and would love it if you would check us out on YouTube if you're not watching and also on Instagram where I would either of those places in the comment section, I would love to hear what you thought about this. If you have any thoughts to add to the conversation, I would love to hear them. So I hope you guys have a wonderful week and I will see you next Wednesday.

Thank you so much for joining us for today's episode. Don't forget to connect with us on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, and we would love it if you would leave a review wherever you're listening. We'll see you next week for more tips for how to become a peaceful entrepreneur.