When to Fire a Client
written by Steven on January 19, 2009
In the two years that Less Everything has been around, we've finally learned when to stop working with a client:
When we can't make them happy.
It's really that simple. Sometimes you know this at the beginning of a project and sometimes you don't know until the middle or end, but as soon as you realize this, start taking the steps to end that relationship. Sometimes you can't make them happy because they are asking for more than you normally offer, for us this would be a client that wants to talk two hours ever day, which is way beyond our normal service. When you realize this it is probably the right the time to require more money (you have to realize it because no client ever comes out and says "I want to talk so much that I will be an obstacle in project completion"). "We would love to keep working with you but since we're doing things outside the way we normally work, we'll have to charge you more." Some clients will understand and pay more, most will be offended and walk away. Either response is a win. Realizing that your clients expectations are greater than you can provide (even greater than what's in the contract) is the right time to fire your client. Killing yourself to do all kinds of extra stuff for a client that will take all that for granted is not good business. Just walk away. (Of course, if you have no other client, then this might better than sitting on your thumbs.)
This happened to us recently. We were talking to a really cool client who had a really cool idea for an application. We went through a very extensive "idea phase" and on the eve of signing the contract I balked and suggested they find another development team. I realized that we could create a product that we would be happy with, but that they would not be happy with it. And if we built it in a way that they would be happy, we would not be happy with it. So I suggested a few firms they could go with and wished them the best, parting as friends. This seems to be a much better ending than going through a lot of work to have no one be happy at the end, which usually leads to animosity (we've made that mistake before).
We've been doing this with Less Accounting customers since the beginning. The goal of Less Accounting is to make people happy and the approach we've taken to hit that goal is not for everyone. Our philosophy has always been we want people to be happy, even if that means not using Less Accounting. We gladly recommend other applications that might be better suited to an unhappy customer.
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Steven Bristol has written code for the past 20 years. He like green vegetables and kittens, oh and butterflies too. He loves to throw ninja stars at his enemies.
7 Comments
Amen.
Well, agree.. totally.
sometimes it’s hard to get your client to understand that web applications and web pages can’t do anything, especially not in 2 days :).
I didn’t “fire” any client yet, although i really wanted to kill some, and that’s what i went straight into developing independent applications where i am the client.
I think that you are totally right about dropping clients when you can’t make them happy.
Speak it, brother. This is imperative advice to anyone attempting to start or run a client-based business. Despite hearing and knowing the advice, there’s two things that prevent most people (um, me) from following it:
1. You have to recognize the condition in the first place (which usually means dealing with 1 or more clients of this type already in the past)
2. You have to have viable alternatives – sometimes some work is better than no work (which you touched on).
Now that I’ve basically got both of those covered, the final step is to have the guts to do what you did, and to do it with class. Everyone will be better off in the long run.
this is what is called: positioning and diferentiation, not every company is for every people, so you have to identify your “target” audience, who your customers will be. whenever you identify that, you will make them happy.
so thats why companies like procter and gamble make “n” number of brands for the same producto [ex toothpaste] beacuse maybe girls love toothpaste with cherry flavor, and guys with mint flavor. or why should i buy the same toothpaste that uses my maid?
i can tell less accounting is just for me, someone who wants to make more with less.
It is really hard to fire a client especially if the client uses all his or her effort and time just to make things work.
I guess, almost any development team has faced the problem of working with a customer, who doesn’t see eye to eye with a team lead or requires more than the team can actually offer. But! This could also be viewed as a challenge and a stimulus for the team to further develop its skills. So, even if you had to"say goodbye" to the client, you still can take something out of the situation, which will help in the future in the similar conditions. Or you can also discover the gaps that exist in your team and take efforts to remove them.