What to do when a client “fires” your agency

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Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And Gini, as a famous American once said, “You’re fired.”

Gini Dietrich: Oh, no.

Chip Griffin: Okay. Maybe … pack your knives and go. Um- Oh … what would you like to go with instead?

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, let’s, maybe we’ll do that one. I like that.

Chip Griffin: Pack your knives and go.

Top Chef is a great show.

Gini Dietrich: I love Top Chef.

Chip Griffin: Not as good as it was in the early days, but-

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I agree. Yeah …

Chip Griffin: it’s still, it’s still kind of fun occasionally, and I, I still- Yeah … do watch part of each season. Yeah. From Restaurant Wars on.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I did love, I did love a little Top Chef. I agree.

Chip Griffin:  Jen and one of my kids watch it up until Restaurant Wars, then they let me know, and I come in and I watch Restaurant Wars through the end.

Gini Dietrich: That’s funny. They’re like, “Okay, your turn.”

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, that’s where it starts to get interesting, so.

Gini Dietrich: That’s funny. Yeah.

Chip Griffin: Anyway, no, we are gonna talk about getting fired. Not fired as an owner. We’re, we’re not at that point yet. We don’t have boards that are gonna fire us, most of us at least.

Gini Dietrich: Right, right.

Chip Griffin: But clients do fire us from time to time, and we’ve had conversations in the past about firing clients ourselves and, and those sorts of things.

But, what happens, what do you do when a client calls you up or, worse, sends you an email and says, “We’re done. We’re out”? Yeah, you know, it’s- What are things you should be thinking about at that point?

Gini Dietrich: I think so. The, I think there’s a couple of things here. One is that the word, using the word “fired” makes it sound so bad.

Sometimes it’s because there’s been a strategy change, there’s been a budget reallocation, maybe leadership has changed, maybe there’s a new VP of marketing or a CCO. Like, there are lots of reasons, right, that have nothing to do with you or the agency or your work. And so saying that you got fired is, I, I just don’t like that term.

Now that I have that off my chest, I’ll step down off my soapbox and say, like, there, I think we should always be prepared for the eventual loss of a client. And because we don’t know, right? We don’t- Uh-huh … we can kind of guess, you know, if there are big changes at a leadership level, or if there’s been a reorg, or if the company has sold or things like that, we can guess.

Like, we’re probably not gonna be working with that client much longer. We could also sort of read the tea leaves from the perspective of they’ve been ghosting us, and we haven’t been able to get any work done. They’ve been declining meetings or not showing up for meetings. Like, there are lots of reasons that you can kind of read those tea leaves.

And so I always think it’s, it’s really good to be prepared. It should never come as a surprise when you lose a client, and you should be prepared. You should have, you should know what you’re going to say, you should know how, what a transition looks like, and you should have a full pipeline that will replace that client fairly quickly, even in a chaotic world that we’re living in right now, so that you’re not caught off guard.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, I think the, you know, the first step when you get this news is, probably 95% of the time you’re gonna be annoyed, upset, unhappy.

Gini Dietrich: Sure. Absolutely.

Chip Griffin: Some negative emotion. A small percentage of the time you’ll be like, “Oh, thank God, I just- … I, I really wanted to get rid of them anyway.” Yeah.

You know? So.

Gini Dietrich: Blessing in disguise, yep. Right.

Chip Griffin: So, so sometimes that’ll be your reaction, but most of the time it’s not gonna be a happy reaction that you have. And so I think the, the first thing is to just, whether it’s on a call with them or you get it by email or, you know, carrier pigeon or whatever, take a deep breath.

Yes. Right? Yes … you, you don’t ever want to react immediately to the news in such a way that you perhaps compound a difficult situation, or at the very least you don’t make it as easy as it could or should be. And I think your advice to, to be prepared for this, certainly if you see the signs on the wall you need to be even more prepared.

But sometimes these things are, you know, in retrospect they won’t be a surprise, but you might feel surprised in the moment because you didn’t pick up on all of the little signals along the way and, and that then becomes a learning experience. And I think that’s… to me, that’s one of the most valuable things when you lose a client for whatever reason, is taking advantage of that to learn for the future.

Learn the signs to look for. Yep. Learn what you could do differently potentially to maintain the relationship, retain the client. Learn to target better ideal clients, whatever it is. But I, I always like to turn these things into a learning experience as much as possible. But you also have the logistics to actually handle the end of the client relationship, so why don’t we talk about that for a little bit.

What, you know, it, it’s not just about the learnings that you can take for the future, it’s how do you handle that immediately? How do you transition the client out?

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I think, you know, I always say that you’re always remembered by how you left an organization versus the work that you did. And so you never wanna burn a bridge, even if you’re caught by surprise, even if you wanted to fire the client and you’re happy about it, you should never burn a bridge because you just never know, right?

So understanding what contract they signed and what the terms of agreement are, you know? We had a situation where I was working with a girlfriend and, she lost a big, big, big, big client. It came out of the blue, that she was not expecting it because she’d had a conversation a week prior that everything was fine.

And so she works with several contractors, and we had to say like, “We’re really sorry. We know that we thought you were gonna be doing work in May and June,” and, like, we go, “The client’s gone.” So, and she had one person come back to her and say, like, “We have a 30-day agreement,” blah, blah, blah. They didn’t have a 30-day agreement, but in her mind they had a 30-day agreement.

Sure. In the paperwork, there was no 30-day agreement. So I use that as an example because in your mind you may have a 30 or 60 or 90-day termination clause that may not have made it to the final piece. Maybe you have it for some clients and not others. Like, you have to really do your research to, and go back and read the executed agreement so you know what those terms are.

And then spend that time ensuring that there’s a seamless transition, that they’re getting all the documents that you’ve created, that they understand where things are, that they understand where the passwords are, where you, what you have access to, all of those kinds of things. ‘Cause I will tell you, there have been situations where we’ve lost a client and we’re still in their Google Analytics.

We’re still the admin on their Facebook page. Like, stuff like that, I’m like, “You guys, we’re not gonna do anything bad, but you really need to take us off.”

Chip Griffin: Right, right. I mean, I’ve had former clients where, where I have had admin level access to a lot of their stuff- Yes … for as much as a decade afterwards.

Gini Dietrich: Yes, yes.

Chip Griffin: Even when I flag it for them and say, “Hey, guys-

Gini Dietrich: Yes …

Chip Griffin: you might wanna take me out.”

Gini Dietrich: Yes, yes.

Chip Griffin: It, it’s kind of amazing at times that- It, it is, yeah … the things that, that people don’t pay attention to. But, I mean, I think that that’s great advice to, you know, to understand what your agreements say, and to really just focus on how do you make it as smooth a transition as possible.

No matter how frustrated you are, you need to try to think through how do we make this as pain-free for everybody? Because you can make it difficult for them, but that’s really just gonna make it difficult for you. Yep. And to your point, that’s how you’re gonna be remembered, as the person who made it difficult.

And so, you know, if you get it on a, if you get the information on a call, you know, certainly say, “Hey, look, you know, let’s, let’s put together a wind-down plan or transition plan,” or however you wanna frame it. Part of that will depend on how sudden it is. You know, are, are they saying, “We’re not gonna renew in, you know, three months,” or is it, you know, “We’re giving you as short a notice as possible”?

That will affect the timelines- Sure … and those sorts of things. Yep, yep. But, but it doesn’t affect the fact that you want to try to make sure that you are making it smooth and clean and painless. And don’t hesitate to say, “Hey, let me, let me think about this and come back to you with a plan-” Right

“for how we do it.” Right, right. You don’t have to have every answer in the moment, and, and giving yourself that time to step back and absorb it may allow you to come forward with a more productive plan all the way around. Because your goal has to be to make sure that you’re fulfilling your contract, while at the same time trying to get them to fulfill their end of it.

Right. And, and the more that you fight, the less likely you are to even get what you are due under the agreement. And so, you know, you wanna try to make it as, as friendly as possible in, in how you wind it down to make sure that you do get those payments that you are still owed.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I think, you know, if it comes as a surprise, I think you’re absolutely right that saying things like, “You know, gosh, I’m really sorry to hear this. I’ve really enjoyed working with you. Let me take a couple of days to craft a transition plan.” That gives you time. They, from their perspective, they’re like, “Okay, they’re being thoughtful about this and, you know, strategic about it, and they’re gonna be helpful.” And that gives you time to settle yourself and, you know, be, get all the emotion out of it and actually create something productive.

Chip Griffin: Right. And it can be a, particularly if it’s done over the phone, it gives you that opportunity to sit down and take a look at the contract and see- Yeah … what it says. Yeah. Because then you can, you can go back to them and say, “Okay, you know, in order to make sure we do this the right way, you know, we’ll need the notification in writing so that, you know, we can memorialize this properly to protect both of us.”

And I think you always wanna use that kind of language when you’re dealing with contract stuff. This is for both of our benefit, even if really maybe it’s more for you- Yeah … than for them, but you wanna stress the, the for both of us. And that’s also your opportunity to then look at other clauses in there that, that maybe are to your benefit, like the notification period, that maybe you didn’t bring up on the call.

You know, you can say, “Hey, you know, we need to make sure we get this in writing, and of course, as, as you know from this agreement, you have 30, 60, 90, whatever the notification period is. So, you know, we’ll work to that, as we wind this down.”

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I think, you know, there are, we, and we’ve talked about this before too, like our contracts say 90 days, and there are some clients where I’m like, “I don’t need to hold you to that. We’re good.” Like some- Right. Right? And then there are situations-

Chip Griffin: How about, how about 90 minutes? How about 90 minutes? Can we, can we just be- 90 seconds? 90 seconds? We can be done now. We’re just, I’m out.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I’m good. Yep. Good. Yep. See ya. Yep. But then there are also situations, you know, we had the Great Recession, we had COVID.

There are some situations where you’re just like, you just be, you can be understanding and be like, “Gosh, I’m really, yeah, I’m really sorry to hear business sucks, and we have a 90-day termination clause, but let me, let me waive that for you, and let’s do this instead.” And you’re always seen in good light when you do those things.

Yep. And in fact, every time I have done that, either that business has come back or they’ve referred business to us. So you don’t wanna do that in every situation, and you don’t wanna hurt your cash flow, you know, if it’s, if it’s gonna be detrimental. But there are situations where you can be a little more understanding and use, use that kind of language so that they understand that you’re doing them a favor, ’cause you’re, you really are doing them a favor in some cases.

Chip Griffin: Well, more to the point, if the client is coming to you and canceling because they’re having financial issues, whether it’s because of a global pandemic or there’s just something specific to their business, you’re probably not gonna get the money anyway.

Gini Dietrich: Fair.

Chip Griffin: Right? So, so rather than fighting for something that probably isn’t there anyway, why don’t you try to make it as painless as possible and get whatever you can so that you’ve built some goodwill potentially for the future? Because you also have to keep in mind that most of the time we’re not working with the actual owner of the business. Most of the time, even in a mid-sized business, we’re working with someone at least a step or two removed from that level.

And so why are we making their life more difficult when it’s not, you know, it may not even be their ability to make a decision, particularly if it’s financially related. So, you know, think about that, and put yourself in their shoes if you were in a position. If you’ve got contractors, think about, you know, you want to react to them the same way you want your contractors to react to you.

Gini Dietrich: Right. Yep.

Chip Griffin: And, you don’t want your contractors coming at you, right? Yeah, yep. And you wanna try to work something out amicably. You should be doing the same thing upstream from you in the relationship as well.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I just, I think your earlier point about taking some time, and just, you know, it’s, it usually comes as a shock.

Even if, even if we’ve read the tea leaves, it still is surprising. It still is stressful. It still has some risk involved. And so just take a beat and use the language of, you know, “Give me a couple of days to put together a transition plan.” And I think that helps you process it all, get the emotion out, and then start to salvage the relationship as best you can so that there is referral business later, or maybe they do come back later, or whatever happens to be.

Chip Griffin: Right. I mean, time is your friend on these things in order to, you know, to formulate a better response. And most of the time when we react too quickly, it’s when we end up regretting it somewhere down the road. So- you know, buy yourself the time to avoid that future regret.

Gini Dietrich: I will, I will tell you that 100 years ago when I started my agency, the first client I lost, I cried.

And the client felt really, really bad, and I was mortified, but I cried.

Chip Griffin: Oh, you, you cried when the client told you? Oh, wow.

Gini Dietrich: I did. Uh-huh. Okay. So I will say that, you know, you learn and you grow, and you understand that sometimes it’s just not personal. I took it very personally because it was the first time it had ever happened.

Like, I’d, I’d never been fired from a job. I’d never like … it was the first time it had ever happened. So I, I did. I’ve matured since then, but there are, you know, there are things that you’re just like, it’s an emotional time.

Chip Griffin: Sure. I mean, nobody would ever enjoy that kind of-

Gini Dietrich: Yeah

Chip Griffin: experience. Mm-mm. Yeah. I, I mean, certainly any time I’ve ever had a contract end, I, I haven’t been like, “Yay!”

Gini Dietrich: Right?

Chip Griffin: I mean-

Gini Dietrich: Woo-hoo! …

Chip Griffin: it, it sucks. Yeah. I can’t say that I’ve ever cried when I’ve gotten that news, but may have hung up the phone and had a few choice words for the atmosphere around me or something like that.

But, you know, it is what it is. So okay, so, you know, we’re, we’re thinking through the actual communications with the client who has fired us. Sorry, terminated the agreement- Let us go … or shared the decision. Mm, right. Whatever. Yeah. Whatever language you wanna use. I’m, I’m still a fan of firing because that’s kinda what it is.

So now we need to think about two things, I think immediately. One is how do we communicate it to our team, whether that’s contractors or employees, and as a corollary to that, how are we going to act as a client for the remainder of the relationship that we have? So not the technical details of working out the trip, but the, you know, how do we continue to service them in that moment?

And those two are related because as soon as you tell your team, you know, “Hey, this, this agreement is ending,” they’re probably gonna start mentally checking out of that relationship just as you have.

Gini Dietrich: Of course. Yep.

Chip Griffin: And I think we need to really fight that urge. Yep. Because, because it, uh, as you say, it is how you exit that people remember you, and a lot of that comes down to if you had, particularly if you have a longer notice period, right?

If you’ve got a, you know, say a 60 or 90-day notice period, you can’t just, you know, put pens down unless they, the client is like, “No, we just, we’re, we’re done. We’ll just keep paying you, but we’re not.” Sometimes that does happen- It sure does, yep … where they treat it as sort of severance for the agency.

It’s not super common, but it does happen.

Gini Dietrich: Yep.

Chip Griffin: But it needs to be on them to reduce your workload, not on you to say, “Eh, we don’t care anymore.”

Gini Dietrich: Right. And I think, you know, if you’re doing things like media relations, it’s ensuring that those, the stories that are in progress or the things that are in progress, the pitches that are in progress, those get transferred over.

If you, like we said, if you hold the keys to anything, you have to make sure that those are transferred over. All of the things that you have in progress, understand, you know, to your point, that it may be like they just want you to stop work immediately and hand everything over, or they may want you to continue, finish, they want you to finish things that are in progress.

But understand what that is so that you can ensure that. And one of the things I always say to my team, and I repeat that, repeat what I said at the beginning, which is, you know, you’re always remembered how, by how you left. It is our job to transition smoothly and make sure that nothing falls through the cracks.

Yep. And I understand that you’re checked out. I’m checked out. I’m surprised by this. It’s not, you know, this, this is gonna be a little bit of a painful process, but we have to be professional, and we have to ensure that we’re transitioning cleanly.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and please do not fight them. It’s, I mean, ’cause that’s even worse than-you know, we, we just kinda give up. But I’ve seen many agencies where they basically fight clients on the way out the door, and the client will say, “Can I have this? Can I have the latest draft of this even though it’s not finished?” And they’ll be like, “Well, no, because, you know, we’re not gonna be working with you anymore, and so, you know, you don’t get the draft. You only get the final version.” No.

Gini Dietrich: Absolutely not. No. No. Yeah.

Chip Griffin: If you’re doing media relations and they wanna know who you’ve reached out to about a press release- Yes … just tell them.

Gini Dietrich: Just tell them, yes.

Chip Griffin: Do not fight them on this. I agree. I, I, for the life of me, I do not understand-

Gini Dietrich: Yep. I totally agree with that

Chip Griffin: the, the way, particularly the PR agencies seem to be particularly guilty of this in my view, where they just will not share with the client anything that they’re doing in terms of detail around outreach or those kinds of things because, well, then they can do it on their own. Okay, fine. Let them, right?

They’ll figure out it’s not that easy. It’s not just having the spreadsheet of what contacts you’ve made. Yeah. I’m not saying you need to give them your whole database with all of your personal notations about, you know, stuff that you do across other clients. But if it’s pitch work that you’ve done for this client, give them the information.

Come on, man.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, yeah. I mean, especially if it’s in progress and there’s, like- Yes … something’s happening, like, there’s no reason on Earth not to give them that information.

Chip Griffin: No, no reason.

And, look, if all you’re good for is, is a spreadsheet, it probably wasn’t worth hiring you anyway. Yeah.

So, you know, you, you’ve got to be realistic about these kinds of things. But as you’re communicating with your team, you want them to understand that, that they need to have this same mentality of being helpful and making sure they finish strong. I think the other thing is to, to make sure that, that you’re communicating clearly with your contractors and employees about what this means.

Hopefully, what it means is you’ve got a strong pipeline, and so, you know, it’s a bump in the road, but it’s not a big deal. But if it is a big deal, don’t try to hide that fact, right? I mean, you don’t have to like terrify them.

Gini Dietrich: Yep.

Chip Griffin: But, but if it does, if you’ve got a contractor and it’s probably gonna mean that you’re gonna have to cut them altogether or partially, if you think it’s, you know, a giant client and it might lead to layoffs, be honest with people sooner rather than later.

Because the more you put this off, the harder it is to deal with. Yeah. And again, it’s a balancing act, ’cause you can’t, you can’t just be, you know, like panicking them, which is again another argument for taking a deep breath, absorbing the information, figuring out your plan. You don’t have to hang up the phone and then immediately call up all your team and say, “Oh my God, we just lost Acme Pharmaceuticals,” right?

I mean, that doesn’t help anybody. Take the time, think it through, think through the questions you’re likely to get so that you can communicate confidently, but also honestly.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I would say If you have access to an HR team or person, if you have access to a legal team or an attorney, reach out to them as well because as you’re crafting this plan because they’re gonna have a different…

They’re gonna look at it through a different lens. They’re gonna have a different perspective, especially if you have a team, getting HR involved in that to say, “Okay, here’s scenarios A, B, and C” to help you plan so that when an employee asks, you have a response, and it’s not just shot from the hip a little bit.

Right. And I, I know I’ve told this story before, but during the Great Recession, you know, we had 95% of our clients left between Christmas and New Year’s of 2008, 2009, and I had to go back to the office and lay everybody off. And the biggest mistake I made, I made two big mistakes in that. One is that everybody was talking about the economy and the Great Recession and all this stuff for a year, but I didn’t pay any attention.

I didn’t… Like, I wouldn’t, I wasn’t mature enough. I wasn’t experienced enough, and so I just kind of put my blinders on and was like, “Everything’s great. We’re growing.” You know? Yeah. And so I didn’t plan. And the second thing I did, mistake I made is I didn’t let the team know ahead of time, and I didn’t think I could.

And I’ll never forget this as long as I live. One of my employees came up to me after I let everybody know, and she said, “I wish you had told us because I would’ve been happy to go part-time.” And I was like, ohhh.

Chip Griffin: Right.

Gini Dietrich: You know? Like, yeah.

Chip Griffin: Yeah.

Gini Dietrich: So be honest and open because I think they will come with solutions too that you may not have thought of or that you may have assumed they’re not willing to do when they are.

Chip Griffin: Right. Absolutely. So then I think that takes us to that, that final piece, as we’re wrapping up here, and, and that is to take lessons away from it. Because there’s something to be learned from the end of every relationship, whether it’s because it was a project and it just, it naturally ran its course, or because you were on a retainer and they decided to end it or what have you.

Yep. There are always lessons to be learned, and I think it’s, it’s really helpful to sit down with your team, not just at the end, but at key milestone points as well and say, “Okay, you know, what, what have we learned from this? What could we have done differently? What should we do differently, not just with this client but with others in the future?”

And make sure that you treat as much of what you’re doing as a learning experience as possible because that’s how you really grow- both individually and as a business. If you just keep doing the same old, same old, you might do okay, but you’re not gonna do as well as you could if you’re actually studying what you’ve done in the past.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I mean, that’s the example I just gave is a great example of that. Yeah. Now I know.

Chip Griffin: Yeah.

Gini Dietrich: That’s a great lesson.

Chip Griffin: It’s why, again, I watch all of these episodes back so that I can sit there and say, “Okay, you know, what would I do differently next time?” Maybe I’ll lower the microphone a little bit, raise my voice a little bit, talk a little bit less so that we can actually hear from Gini, and I don’t just monopolize all the time.

You don’t monopolize the time.

And have Jen tell me what percentage of time I’ve spoken versus… I do talk a lot. I understand that. But it’s, it’s something I consciously work on every podcast that I’m on because I know that I have a tendency to talk a lot.

Gini Dietrich: Okay. I don’t think you monopolize the time here.

No.

Chip Griffin: Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

Gini Dietrich: You’re welcome.

Chip Griffin: So, I guess we’re not gonna monopolize any more of your time as a listener, so we will wrap up today’s episode, but hopefully we’ve given you a few things to think about the next time that you get that dreaded call or email from a client who is not firing you, but ending the relationship in whatever fashion we wanna call it, so.

Gini Dietrich: It’s not always being fired.

Chip Griffin: Okay.

Gini Dietrich: Fired, fired means that you did a bad job.

Chip Griffin: Okay. On that note, I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And it depends.