Firing a Client
is one of those things everyone in the service business needs to do eventually, but nobody thinks about in advance.
You think about it in the abstract. You tell yourself you would, could do it, if it came to that.
You note with satisfaction the stories of people doing it, maybe feel a thrill of vicarious professional confidence on their behalf.
And then The Situation arrives — a client who is making the work impossible, a relationship that has simply curdled, an engagement that costs you more than its worth in money or time or sanity — and you discover that actually no, you have no plan. No language, no clear sense of how to end it without making things worse for everybody and especially yourself.
Here is what I have learned — from doing it, and from doing it badly.
First: Be Sure You
Actually Want to
Fire Them
This sounds obvious, perhaps. It is not obvious.
There is a category of difficult client who is worth it! They push back too hard but are ultimately right, some of them. Or they demand a lot but produce the conditions for genuinely good work.
They are frustrating in ways that represent the friction of high standards, rather than the friction of dysfunction.
These clients should not be fired. They should be managed, honestly and directly. the relationship should be worked on. The money and the work keep flowing.
The clients who should be fired are in a different category:
- Clients whose behavior makes it impossible to do good work, or maybe any work, without damage to yourself or your business or your brain.
- Chronic late payment that is shading into nonpayment.
- Scope demands expanding beyond any reasonable interpretation of the agreement.
- Personal behavior that has, objectively and honestly, crossed into disrespect.
- Some fundamental misalignment between what they need and what you can provide.
Be honest about the category you’re in before you start the termination process.
Firing a client you should have managed is a mistake you will repeat.
Managing a client you should have fired is a more expensive mistake that you will also repeat.
The Mechanics
Assuming you are sure, here is how to do it:
In writing, briefly and
without extensive explanation.
A termination letter is not an opportunity to process the engagement. It is not an invitation to begrudge. It is not storytime.
It is a professional communication with a specific purpose: to notify the client that the engagement is ending, to specify the effective date, and to address any outstanding obligations.
I’m writing to let you know I’ll be concluding our engagement, effective [date]. I will complete [specific outstanding work] and deliver [specific deliverable] by [date]. Please let me know if you have any questions about the transition.
This is sufficient.
Anything beyond it — detailed explanations, revisiting disagreements, articulating grievances — creates more surface area for conflict and absolutely will not produce any outcome you might hope for.
Give appropriate notice.
What’s appropriate depends largely on the nature of the engagement. A project-based arrangement may only require completion of the current deliverable. An ongoing retainer could require 30-60 days to allow the client to find a replacement. Check your contract, honor the terms.
Be specific about what you will
and will not be completing.
Do not leave it ambiguous. A client who is unclear about what they’re getting in the last weeks of an engagement will fill that blank space up with assumptions, and those assumptions will not benefit you.
Do not ghost.
This is worth saying, even though it should be obvious.
Ghosting a client — going silent, becoming unavailable, failing to deliver work to which you are already committed — is not a termination strategy. It is a breach of contract and it is a professional reputation problem.
Do the work you committed to. End the relationship cleanly. Leave.
The Harbor Situation:
The Final Chapter
Harbor stopped paying entirely, about 45 days* before I ended the engagement.
Not all at once. It happened gradually, in the way these things do — an invoice that was late became an invoice that was very late became an invoice that was, on reflection, probably not coming.
*(I know it was 45 days because I had to admit, later, “I let this invoice go 45 whole days past due instead of taking a breath and a beat and saying to myself, This is already gone.”)
By the time I had acknowledged it to myself, there were two outstanding invoices; a third cycle of work, delivered and unpaid.
What I did not do, initially, was stop working. I kept delivering because I kept hoping the payment situation would resolve.
This was not me being rational, it was avoidance dressed as optimism. I do not blame myself, or you, for doing this. It’s normal. but it’s not ideal, and you will always regret it.
The work stopped when I made myself say the thing plainly: this client is not going to pay.
Continuing to deliver for a non-paying client is not a strategy for getting paid. It is a strategy for being owed more money.
I sent a letter. I specified the outstanding amount. I stated that no additional work could be delivered until the account was brought current. I gave a date by which I would consider the relationship concluded if I did not hear back with a plan.
I did not hear back with a plan. They did not bring the account current. The relationship concluded. Easy as.
I recovered a portion of the outstanding amount through a combination of polite persistence and a very clear statement of my willingness* to pursue the matter further.
*(Willingness is not necessarily intent. The time cost of pursuing the matter further exceeded the amount I would recover.)
What I lost, in terms of money, was real.
What I did not lose: additional time on a dead engagement. additional unbilled work. My unshakeable belief in self. And I lost no more of my precious spiritual energy to the hungering black hole of a relationship that had clearly ended.
The lesson, which I should have applied earlier: when a client stops paying, the engagement is over. The administrative formality of ending it is just paperwork.
What a Good
Firing Looks Like
A well-executed client termination leaves both parties with their professional reputations intact and obligations met.
The client has been given appropriate notice, received the work they were owed, and has what they need to find a replacement.
You have concluded your obligations, addressed any outstanding financial matters as clearly as the situation allows, and moved on.
But, and listen: It does not — you do not — require the client to agree with you that you made the right call. It does not require a clean resolution of every (or any) grievance. It does not require you to tell tales, beyond what’s appropriate and honest.
What it requires: that you behaved professionally, and that the exit was handled with integrity.
The content industry, in every vertical I have worked in, is smaller than it appears. People remember how you ended things. So end them well.
I write about content strategy, editorial leadership, and the relationships that make or break the work. For inquiries: jacob@cliftoncreative.agency · cal.com/cliftoncreative