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Navigating Client Relationships and Business Growth · Business for Humans

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  Music.
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  Humans. Let's talk about taking your business to a new level without the suits
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  and without being a robot.
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  Here, you can be yourself, you can be imperfect, you can be flawed,
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  and you can still have raging success.
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  So let's go.
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  Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode, Business for Humans.
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  We've now crested into to our first year of doing the podcast,
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  which is so super exciting. I love this.
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  I'm also getting close to my fourth anniversary.
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  Oh my goodness. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm not sure if it's fourth or fifth.
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  Okay. Technically, I started it in 2019, my business.
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  That's when I filed the papers, but I did have another job still when I filed the paperwork.
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  I just had a dream.
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  And I figured I should do one step towards that dream.
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  So I filed the paperwork in 2019 and I officially kicked off in 2020 and had my first clients.
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  So, you know, we're going on five years.
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  So it's exciting times. Anyway, I love having a podcast.
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  I love talking to you directly. And I love addressing topics that my clients
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  bring up in our sessions when they say, can you please talk about this in one
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  of your podcast episodes. I love that.
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  So I have a client who has a client.
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  And it's a client who she is very reliant on for a big portion of her revenue.
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  So it's one of the... I think we all kind of have this. Big companies call it
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  like your flagship, right?
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  You may have your one big client.
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  And of course, it's not a great business model if more than 75% or yeah,
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  75% or more of your business coming from this one client, you want to diversify, right?
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  So if you're starting to feel like more than half of your business is leaning
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  in the direction of one client, or more than half of your revenue,
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  start to look at ways that you can bolster your your revenue,
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  and other areas so that if that one client goes away, you're still safe.
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  So this is something that is pretty common in the services industry,
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  that you might have one client that's bigger than your other clients.
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  When I worked in agency life, I worked for a small agency. And as we started
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  growing, we started getting bigger and bigger brands on board.
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  And at one point, Starbucks was our big, big, big flagship.
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  And it was starting to be cut. They just loved us. So they kept sending us just
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  new work and new work and new work until eventually we're like,
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  oh no, this is way more than half of our business.
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  And we very quickly pivoted into a model where we could take on more work and support more people.
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  So when you're a small business and you have one client who is taking up a lot
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  of your time and is a big revenue stream,
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  when you develop a long-term relationship with that client, and you might be
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  working with a client and it's kind of one point of contact, right?
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  So in my work, I often work with the business owner themselves and we develop
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  a long-term relationship.
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  So I personally work with my clients over the course of many years.
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  And we work together on growing their business, which means a lot of shit.
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  Excuse my language, but a lot of shit comes up in that process, right?
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  There's a lot of personal stuff that you have to work through on the way to
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  building a successful business because it's just part of the deal.
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  It's, to me, the fun part, right? We're just like working through our shit,
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  healing our wounds, dealing with the stuff that comes up.
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  And when we're successful at that, we feel like a holistic successful,
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  a holistic success, holistically successful person, all the ways.
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  So it might be harder when you get to that point where, okay,
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  this client is a big source of revenue and this is what's happening for my client.
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  And you realize I need to either pull back or I need to ramp up my other clients, right?
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  And that might mean just inherently pulling back a little bit,
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  even if it's just emotionally, right?
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  Even if your services aren't changing, but just sort of the level of emotional
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  attention you pay to this person might shift.
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  So when we get to this point or when we realize that this client who's been
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  really generating a lot of revenue for us is not a good fit anymore.
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  We get to this crossroads. And it happens in so many businesses.
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  This is why I want to address it.
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  We get to this crossroads where it's like, do I say no to the revenue?
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  And yes to more time, space, other relationships?
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  Do I keep the revenue and just pull back? Do I put someone else in the the driver's
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  seat of that relationship?
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  What are all my options? And what comes up inevitably, if you have a service
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  where you're building a relationship with someone, there's a lot of guilt.
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  So all of a sudden, you get stuck with guilt.
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  And it's important to look at this guilt so that you don't let the guilt make your decisions for you.
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  So you need to know like, where is this guilt coming from? Is it worth exploring? Is it fear?
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  What's coming up? So let's go through those things.
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  So okay, let's imagine this client is just not a good fit for your business anymore.
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  They're just not aligned with where you're going. maybe there's not good values alignment.
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  Maybe there's some other piece to it. Maybe it's a time zone issue or it's the
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  amount that you have to put into their business that's taken away from your own business. Okay.
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  Now I come to think of it, I have multiple clients actually at the crossroads.
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  And what's happening here is once you've started your business and you have clients, right?
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  This is a new jumping off point. This is a new risk.
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  You're always going to come upon new risks in your business.
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  Risk one is launching your business and sometimes leaving a full-time job and
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  a stable paycheck to launch your business, right?
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  So that's jumping off point number one. And it really is a free fall, right?
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  You really are like jumping into an abyss and you're like, Like,
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  I don't know, never been there before. What's at the bottom?
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  I'm just, it's worth it to check it out. I'm not sure, but I'm in, I'm not risk averse.
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  I'm going to check this out. And I've planned, right?
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  So then in this next phase, it's another jumping off point because you might
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  be saying no to consistent revenue that's been coming into your business for some time.
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  So there's going to be fear. So let's address the fear first.
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  There's fear at any jumping off point that you're giving up stability for something
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  that's unknown and we need to plan for it.
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  So if you've put a business model into place where you've proven to yourself
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  that you can bring in new clients,
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  and you've proven to yourself that you can get those clients aligned with your
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  new model or your new values,
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  let's say.
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  So when you first jump off, you just say yes to everything because you're trying
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  to create a foundation for your business.
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  And once you create the foundation for your business, you have a much better
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  sense of who you want to work with and why.
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  And so sometimes that means those first clients that you said yes to just don't fit.
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  And so there's a fear that if you say no to them, you're not going to have the
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  stability to continue on and to continue growing.
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  But what ends up happening is if they're not aligned with your new business
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  model, you're continuing to live into your old business model and you're living
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  into your new business model.
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  So you're really splitting yourself and your brain and your values and your
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  deliveries and your offerings.
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  Everything in your business is now split into two and you're in the middle and
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  you just cannot continue going there because a lot of times what that means
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  is one line of business is 40 hours a week and the other line of business might be 20.
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  So it's not quite full time, but you cannot work 60 hours a week, right?
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  So you have fear of giving up the revenue.
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  You have guilt at having to end a relationship.
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  And because you've been in a service relationship with this client,
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  you are serving them, right?
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  You are servicing them with certain offerings.
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  And it could be different for everyone. But you're giving them a level of service
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  that they have relied on potentially for a number of years. And so when you
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  think about having to pull that back, you start thinking about what that's going
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  to mean for their business.
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  And then we start to think about what that's going to mean for them.
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  And there's this very common thing that we do as humans, and it's something
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  I coach on a lot with my clients,
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  is that we decide for people how they're going to feel before we've proven or
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  we know for a fact that that's how they're going to feel.
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  This is just like common human behavior, right?
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  We don't ask our parents to come visit when we need help with our kids because
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  we're worried that they're going to feel a certain way.
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  Like they're going to feel used or they're going to feel taken advantage of
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  or they're going to feel these feelings that we've just made up in our head.
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  Like we've just decided they're going to feel a certain way.
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  So we've stopped ourselves from doing something, right?
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  Because it might mean they're going to feel a certain way.
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  But we don't know that. We don't
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  know until we ask or until we explore or until we have a conversation.
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  We like to believe we know people so well that we know exactly what they're
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  going to be thinking and feeling and doing.
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  And it's really unfair to the other person because you're You're not giving
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  them the opportunity to make a decision.
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  Maybe you offering them a new way of working or a new resource or ending the
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  contract, maybe it's actually exactly what they need in that moment.
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  Maybe it's all divine timing, right? Maybe they were looking for a way out and
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  they couldn't figure out how to do it.
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  So you've just given them a clean out. out we don't know and we can't assume
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  and we can't make all of our decisions based on what may or may not be happening
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  on the other side of the table.
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  So this is really the crux of where we're at when we make this decision.
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  We are worried that the other person will not be able to go on without us.
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  And it's a great feeling knowing that people rely on us.
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  But we also have to remember that there was a time when they survived without us.
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  And we also have to not be so sure that everything we offer is making someone whole.
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  Not all of my clients, actually, none of my clients are coaches.
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  Okay, so this isn't specifically for coaches.
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  But I do know that coaches, it's 100% not our job to fill a gap or to believe
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  that our clients don't already have all the answers, right?
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  And this goes for managers too. When you walk into a room and you're about to
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  have a check-in with one of your staff members, you got to go into that room
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  knowing that they have all the answers and you're just going to help them get there, right?
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  You're not going to solve the problem for them.
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  You're there to help them solve the problem.
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  I do sometimes give advice. I do sometimes give people action items and homework. work.
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  But ultimately, I don't really believe that they can't do this without me.
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  I just think I'm giving them that extra boost, that extra support, right?
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  If there's a really strong soccer player and they have a really good coach,
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  that person's still a really solid soccer player, but a good coach is going
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  to get them to the next level.
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  They're going to push them and guide them and challenge them and give them new
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  opportunities and show them the opportunities, right?
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  So a good player thrives with a good coach, but they're still a good player, right?
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  The coach is not inserting, mixing up all the ingredients to make a good player.
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  They're just seeing what's already there and helping guide and enhance it.
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  So that's what we do in any service.
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  We're providing a service to someone, but we can't believe that we're the only option.
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  It's just not true. I mean, if you're offering marketing services, it's a real full market.
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  If you're offering coaching services, it's a full market. If you're a leadership
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  or DEI consultant, you're operating inside of a full market.
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  This isn't about marketing and your value proposition, but it does mean that
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  if you're ready to end an engagement with a client, they are going to find someone else to work with.
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  So what are you afraid of, right?
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  You can end the engagement with all of the doors open, with all of the bridges
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  intact, with lots of referral options.
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  Basically, what you want to to do is just open up the conversation without believing
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  that they're going to feel a certain way about it, without allowing them the
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  chance to feel however they're going to feel about it.
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  Don't decide for this person.
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  So fear is going to come up when you're deciding to change direction or to end
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  relationships with clients.
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  There's going to be fear. A lot of it's going to to be scarcity and money fear.
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  And the best way to get over money and scarcity fear is to make sure there's
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  money coming in from another source before you end that relationship.
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  That's just 100%. If you're going to move from a job to another job,
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  secure the path before you quit.
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  Or make sure you have a revenue stream coming in.
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  If you're going from not having or from a job until launching a business.
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  You want to make sure that you've actually landed a client before you quit the
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  job. This is just adulting.
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  So before you quit with this client, make sure you have the revenue or at least
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  it's lined up and you've got some potential yeses.
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  You're pretty close to getting your contract signed with some new people.
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  Be sure that you've tested that market over there desire to make sure it's viable.
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  That's going to take the fear away.
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  And it might take more time than you want, right? You might be a little bit
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  desperate to get out of this relationship.
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  Just give it the time it needs. Just give it the time it needs and find balance
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  inside of that relationship in the meantime.
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  Don't ever quit anything out of desperation.
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  Just take it as a moment to learn, to recalibrate, to get yourself back inside
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  of that environment so that when you go to the new environment,
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  you're not bringing any baggage with you. So clean up all your stuff.
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  Clean up the way you work with clients. Clean up the way you set boundaries.
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  Clean up the way you communicate, the way you send emails.
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  Just clean all that up before you move on.
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  So that you don't bring it with you. And the fear will go away once you know
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  there's money over here, right?
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  So just focus. Instead of focusing all your attention on this relationship's
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  not going well, this client's not aligned with my business, this is bad,
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  this is bad, this is bad, that takes a lot of energy.
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  So just shift that energy and just turn it into, this is a great engagement.
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  This client pays me good money. This is fine.
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  And move all that extra energy over to the place of, I want to grow my business in this direction.
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  So now let me take that energy I was wasting and put it in the category of,
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  I want to land one client that's aligned to this new business direction.
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  Okay. So that's the money fear.
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  And now the guilt and shame and worry that it's going to hurt their feelings
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  or that we have to take care of them or we're in a codependent relationship,
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  we need to stop deciding for them.
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  So we need to just open up the conversation. We're colleagues,
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  right? They know us and we know them.
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  So we should feel comfortable saying, listen, potentially moving my business in this direction.
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  It's probably not going to happen for a few months. I just want to open up the
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  conversation. What would it look like if I took my hours down?
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  What would it look like if I moved our meetings to a different time?
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  What would it look like if we shifted this. Open conversation.
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  There's no ultimatum. There's no desperation.
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  There's no burning bridges. It's just an open conversation like,
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  hey, I'm starting to rethink X.
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  I'd love to get your thoughts. You're a client that's been with me for a long
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  time. You're a client I've been working with.
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  Even as I respect your opinion, I'm moving in this direction. What do you think?
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  This is a colleague. Start thinking of your clients also as colleagues.
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  They're not better than you. They're not less better than you.
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  They're not above you or below you. Just just think of them as colleagues.
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  You've been working together. You've been co-creating stuff with them for a long time.
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  You're not better than they are. And they're not better than you are.
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  Just get back to that balance and just keep it an open conversation.
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  Because the worst thing you could do is not tell them that you're thinking about
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  moving in this direction.
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  And then at the the last minute, pull the rug out from under them.
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  First of all, always give your clients at least 30 days heads up.
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  If you're working on something that's marketing related and you're inside of
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  a campaign, give them a heads up before that campaign starts and let them know,
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  hey, when this campaign ends in two months, three months, six months, at the end of next year,
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  I'm going to be moving potentially in a new direction. Have the conversation.
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  Don't wait until the end.
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  People just love to kick these conversations down the road like, oh, well, let me wait.
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  And what you inevitably do, and I talk about this all the time,
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  but you're just delaying pain.
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  You're delaying pain for yourself and you're delaying pain for them.
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  And oftentimes, there's actually more pain.
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  There's more guilt on you and there's more pain on them to try to figure it
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  out last minute. So be honest.
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  I'm teaching my 14-year-old the the same tactic because he has his first job
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  and he's got some stuff coming up in the summer.
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  And I said, tell them now, tell them a month in advance.
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  They're going to respect you for not waiting.
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  It's much better to give them advance notice so they have time to plan and to
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  structure the workflow around the time you're going to be out.
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  It's just common courtesy.
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  It's respect. fact, kicking it down the road until you can't get away from it anymore, right?
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  You have to give them notice when you're about to be out, right?
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  If you're going on vacation tomorrow, there's no more kicking it down the road,
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  right? You've kicked it as far as you possibly could.
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  And now you're going to have so much more guilt and shame than if you just addressed it now.
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  So what's coming up when you think about calling this person up and having this
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  open conversation with them about how you're potentially going to pivot your business?
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  We start to get into that mindset again. Like, well, they're going to be mad
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  or they're going to be sad or they're going to fire me now.
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  I shouldn't bring it up now because they might let me go now.
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  So I want you to work out all the worst case possible scenarios and then come
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  up with a solution for each one of those. So they might fire me now.
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  Okay, well, I've already worked over here to land a couple new clients. So that's fine.
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  They might get mad. mad okay they're allowed
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  to have any feelings they want I don't need
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  to have any feelings about their feelings so if
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  they get mad I'm just gonna stay chill and I'm
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  just gonna kind of walk them through the stuff and like here's the initiatives
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  we have going on here's what we're working on right now I'm not gonna leave
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  you in the lurch here's my plan also like I'm not a hundred percent committed
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  to that plan I just wanted to
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  bring it up so that you knew where I was thinking what I I was thinking.
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  So just write down everything that you think could possibly go wrong and then
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  come up with a solution so that if any of those things happen, you're like, oh, okay.
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  So this is number five on my list. Cool.
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  Here's what I thought would be a solution for this.
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  You're never going to have to use this stuff. It's all just to make your brain
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  chill out and realize that this is all imaginary, right?
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  If any of those things possibly come up, you have a plan, but likely they aren't
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  because this is a functioning human being with thoughts and ideas that you cannot
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  read their mind. So you have no idea.
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  It honestly could go any possible direction. It's all open.
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  So I don't think it's bad to plan and to have some things in your back pocket.
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  Don't over plan and make sure that the whole point of this is that you're trying
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  to strengthen your relationship with this person.
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  You don't want to burn bridges and you don't want to close any doors.
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  But if you do need to move your direction in a different...
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  If you're pointing it in a different direction, it's facing a different direction.
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  You want to give your clients a heads up.
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  So it's not your responsibility to manage their feelings, right?
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  They're allowed to bring whatever
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  they want and you're allowed to not deal with any of those emotions.
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  This is not an emotional relationship. This relationship was based on business
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  and work and work for a fee, for an hourly fee or a project fee or a retainer fee.
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  At no point in this relationship was it established that you're going to have
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  feelings and I'm going to help you work through those feelings unless you're
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  a therapist. And then we're talking about something different.
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  So that's a whole different world, right?
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  But if you're in a service that's like a business-oriented service for this
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  person, but you know what, therapists?
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  This applies for you too and coaches. Like, yes, you are there to support their
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  feelings, but no, you are not responsible for managing them or how they process things.
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  You cannot possibly get into their head and try to tweak that stuff.
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  You just have to be open and listen, be open to their ideas, right?
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  You're there to support them, but you don't have to take all that on.
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  It's not yours. It's theirs to work through and process.
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  So you don't have to feel responsible for the feelings that might come up,
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  right? Because they're not responsible for the feelings that might come up with you.
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  Like if they need to let you go or they need to pull back or cut their budget,
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  they're They're not going to hold themselves responsible for how that might make you feel, right?
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  They're going to hold themselves responsible for the logistics, right?
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  Like they need to pay you at a certain time and they need to wrap up the engagement in a certain time.
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  There are things they're responsible for getting you through to the end point,
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  but your feelings are not a part of that list.
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  Managing your feelings are not a part because guess what? We're adults.
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  Adults were in a business relationship with this person.
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  It's just not our business. It's not our business. Mind your own business.
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  Mind your business. Don't mind their business.
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  And there are tactics that you're going to need to work through,
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  but you don't need to work through their emotions.
• 25:14
  Not before you have the conversation with them, not during the conversation
• 25:18
  with them, and not after the conversation with them.
• 25:22
  It's kind of a good indication if they're are very emotional,
• 25:25
  that it's probably not the right relationship for your business, right?
• 25:29
  Because then it's a different strain on you and whatever other people might
• 25:35
  be working with them on your team, it's a drain if it's that emotional.
• 25:40
  So it's probably like, then you know, the decision you're making is the right decision.
• 25:46
  So to recap, when you're at a pivot point in your business and or you have one
• 25:53
  client that is at that 50% to 75% of your revenue,
• 25:57
  you want to relook at that relationship because 50% is too much.
• 26:04
  You need to spread out your offers a little bit more and make sure it's more
• 26:09
  balanced between between clients.
• 26:12
  Because if they go away, that's 50% of your revenue slash income,
• 26:16
  and that's going to be hard to recover from.
• 26:18
  So you want to look at it now and start to diversify and then re-look at those relationships.
• 26:24
  How do you want to best serve these clients? Are they aligned with where your
• 26:28
  business is going? Yes or no.
• 26:30
  Is there a way to support them and bring in other resources,
• 26:34
  other team members to support that work?
• 26:36
  Is that an option? Yes or note, don't decide for them.
• 26:40
  Just decide if that's a good model for your business. If it is,
• 26:44
  then you go to step two, having that open conversation.
• 26:47
  But don't decide for them. It's not going to work for them. I know them.
• 26:51
  It's not going to work. No, we're not doing that right now. We're just looking at your business.
• 26:56
  And then is it fear or guilt or shame that's coming up and why?
• 27:02
  What's the worst case scenario? And let's problem solve it.
• 27:07
  So this is such a good thing to do when you're sort of at that moment in your
• 27:13
  business where you've had a little burst of growth,
• 27:15
  things are pretty stable, but you know that you want to start shifting things
• 27:21
  in a different direction or maybe serving slightly different people or companies
• 27:26
  or or offering a different level of service,
• 27:30
  it's really good to kind of take an assessment right around now, right?
• 27:34
  Like midway through the year, look at where
• 27:37
  you're at and if this is the direction you want to be going in for the rest
• 27:40
  of this year and maybe next year and start to think about these relationships
• 27:44
  and look at the guilt and look at the shame and look at the fear that's coming
• 27:50
  up when you think about pivoting potentially away from these...
• 27:55
  Heavier lift, more revenue driving clients and make sure they're aligned with
• 28:02
  where you're at in your business.
• 28:03
  And it just feels so timely and relevant because I do have so many clients going
• 28:10
  through this. And the fear is real.
• 28:12
  So I want you to really intentionally take time with that fear.
• 28:17
  Don't just sweep it under the rug.
• 28:19
  Don't just go get on Instagram and try to scroll scroll it away.
• 28:22
  That fear is real. And the longer you push it away, and the longer you ignore,
• 28:28
  this potential relationship that you might need to shift in your business,
• 28:32
  you're just kicking that pain down the road.
• 28:35
  Just deal with it. Be a professional.
• 28:38
  Think of this client as a colleague. You're co-creating things together.
• 28:43
  Respect them enough to be honest with them up front.
• 28:48
  Respect their feelings and their professionalism enough to give them space to
• 28:53
  be able to process this like an adult.
• 28:54
  And you might even come up with some really amazing new ways of working that
• 29:02
  work better for both of you.
• 29:03
  So don't wait, but process it and make yourself kind of safe in the process
• 29:11
  before you end something.
• 29:13
  Get yourself solve safe so you're not dealing with that scarcity piece at the
• 29:19
  same time. So I hope that's helpful.
• 29:23
  You can always get in touch if you have questions. You can reach out to me everywhere by email.
• 29:31
  I'll put that in the show notes. I'm always here if you're like,
• 29:34
  I just have a quick question. It's fine. Here for you.
• 29:37
  If you have an idea of a show and content that you want me to to discuss, let me know that too.
• 29:44
  I love it when my clients are like, please talk about this.
• 29:47
  So for the client that asked, I hope this was helpful. I hope you got what you
• 29:52
  needed out of this. And I'm always here to help you too.
• 29:55
  Okay, I'm going to leave it at that. Have a great week, everybody.
• 29:59
  You've been listening to Business for Humans.
• 30:02
  Don't forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode.
• 30:05
  And please leave a review so that other business owners can find the show.
• 30:10
  Learn more at businessforhumans.com.
• 30:11
  Music.