Through the years I came to the conclusion you can’t satisfy all clients, no matter what. On the contrary, it’s sometimes much better to just let a client go than to suffer consequences – beyond what you’d normally expect – because of your stubbornness.
Sometimes you end up under-delivering because, hey, shit happens, but let’s be honest for a moment, it’s not always 100% the company’s fault, and in some situations clients have their own responsibility.
True enough, the contrary can be said as well. Facts are rarely black or white, more often a comfortable shade of gray. We just have to navigate through them to try and understand where and how we fell.
So I end up thinking maybe it’s not the company’s fault, or the client’s fault per se, but more like a mix of the two elements, much like glycerol is harmless unless you nitrate it. Just as two people can date for a while and decide they are not made for each other, two companies can just stay friends without flirting any longer.
It’s no one’s fault, not entirely and not exactly anyway, and the world is full of fishes right?
I know, it doesn’t sound totally right in an economic moment like the one we’re living through, it’s not the best of choices to let go of a client, but it’s sometimes needed, because the mechanics started up by its presence can bring more harm to your company than benefit.
The way some businesses have to manage a consulting/marketing company working for them is just not what you would expect, and this can create malcontent and frustration among the people working for you.
As an entrepreneur, you cannot expect to absorb and be the safeguard of all the negativity of such cooperation, and your employees are in the first line of fire, they feel when something’s just not working right, from the first moment.
This is especially true in small businesses, where the personal touch is felt the most and one starts to wonder if the fault is his, entirely.
So what do you do? You confront the problem, you try to address it, to isolate it, to solve it. Sometimes it works, some other times it’s too much to handle, and you start thinking “why?”.
Well, truth is, there’s not always a why, and you shouldn’t focus too much energy in answering a question that, sometimes, has no reason to exist.
Try to learn from the experience, to learn to recognize the faint alerts signaling that a situation is building up. Try to learn to anticipate said situation, or if need be, to avoid the client entirely.
There’s no shame in that, and it’s perfectly fine to say “no”.
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