How to Fire a Client
From time to time, as Virtual Assistants, we need to fire a client. For one reason or another, it turns out you’re just not a good fit for each other and it’s time to part ways. In this episode of The RocketGirl Show, I'll share a few tips for ending a client relationship.
TRANSCRIPT
I'm Belinda Wasser, also known as RocketGirl, and today we're going to talk about how to fire a client.
From time to time as virtual assistants, we have to fire a client. It's never fun and it can be very stressful. But by thinking about it beforehand and thinking about the steps that you want to take, it can make it a much better process.
Today I'm going to walk through a few things that are good to know when firing a client. The first thing, very important, don't make it personal. There's a reason why we date before we get married, right? But we can't really date our clients. So it's important to recognize that when it happens, it's a normal part of business. Just let it go and move on without dwelling on the stories and all the drama.
This one is actually surprising, you should be ready for a surprise. I have fired clients in the past who were completely surprised. Even though we had had conversations about our work styles and workflow and all different kinds of things like that and it was so obvious to me it was time for us to stop working together, they had no idea. That, however, does not make your decision wrong or that them being surprised doesn't justify a conversation. It just means that they're surprised. That's all.
Be professional. When you let them know either via email or on the phone, really think about what you want to say. If you're going to talk to them on the phone, practice out loud so that you're comfortable with what you have to say. If you're sending an email, have a friend look at it just to make sure that it's the correct tone. It's very important to handle this professionally.
Be clear. What I mean by be clear, is that your client's not going to necessarily have thought about the end of the relationship, right when you're having this conversation. Right? And you don't have to know all of the details right in that moment, but you do need to decide pretty quickly what's going to get accomplished before you stop working together and how much more time are you willing to give them.
In some cases, you can just stop right there. Other times though, I've been in situations where with two of my clients, I stayed on an additional month. I was in their business very deeply working 10 plus hours a week, and it wouldn't have been responsible or really fair of me just to walk out the door. So I let them know that I didn't want to work with them anymore. We decided on a list of tasks and a date by which they would all be finished. You definitely want to do this and not ghost your clients. I'll talk about why in a couple of minutes.
The other thing is to expect is that they might want you to stay on. I had one client who knew that the deadline was coming and he was asking me to do things that were beyond the deadline. I realized he wanted to keep working with me, but his style just wasn't a fit with my personality. So what I just said to him was, in an email, I'm not available for that work. I didn't say I'm sorry, I didn't say thank you. I just said I'm not available for that work. And after he did that twice he got the message and we both moved on.
Next, settle up cleanly. If you owe your client time or money, make sure that you handle it no matter what, because I have to tell you, the older I get, the more I realize this world is very small and we all need to be on best behavior. And this is why we don't want to go see our clients. We definitely want to keep our reputation intact.
There is an inclination to want to spread the story among your people of why this didn't work out, but I strongly suggest that you keep it to yourself. Harming your client's reputation will never do you any good. In fact, I think that it probably could hurt you as well.
So, if you need to vent or you need to talk to somebody and get it off your chest, do that with one person privately. But definitely do not do anything that would cast a shadow on your client's reputation.
One more thing that I just thought of, it's not on this list but pay attention to how you feel when working with this client and look back at what might have been red flags when you let them hire you.
Was there something in their tone or in their work style that will help you to choose better clients for you in the future? So absolutely think about that and take some learning away from this situation of firing a bad client.
I want to invite you all to my free online classroom called The Virtual Assistant Connection. This RocketGirl show is sponsored by The Virtual Assistant Connection. We are located on Facebook, and we have well over 700 members, lots of videos and articles and learnings about being a VA. It’s a great group to join if you're just thinking about being a VA or you've been one for a really long time like me, so we'd love to have you join us.
There's two ways to do that. One is to type The Virtual Assistant Connection in the search bar at the top of Facebook, and the other is to follow this Bit.ly link, bit.ly.vaconnection.com. I hope to see you over there.
Until then, my name is Belinda Wasser, RocketGirl, signing off until next time. Bye-bye.
