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The 6 things I did after quitting my biggest client
Earlier this year, I started to write an email, the objective of which was to re-establish some boundaries with a client that would bring our working relationship back on track.
I had started working with them over a year before and we had agreed to a flexible agreement as I was already committed to working with a number of 1:1 coaching clients when they first approached me. We agreed that I could complete the work at a time that worked for me, as long as I was available for meetings with the business leaders and, more importantly, that the work got done — the hiring manager even said “I don’t care if you do it at midnight on a Saturday, we just need it doing”.
It became clear to me as I was listing the examples of all of the ways that the boundaries had eroded that it had gone too far.
Was I to blame in some way? Of course I was. When you are trying to be accommodating, you bend over backwards, sometimes this is not always reciprocated, the requests chip away at the original agreement and a “new normal” is created.
I sat back, reread the list and decided that I did not want to re-establish the boundaries, instead, I wanted to terminate the contract. It was only when I saw everything in black and white that I realised this was not an agreement that I wanted to be part of any…
