How I lose two client in consecutive days?
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Last week, I lost two clients on consecutive days. While losing clients is not a new things to most free lancer, however to lose two in consecutive days is tough. While both are good clients, and the reason for the termination had absolutely nothing to do with me or the services which was provided. It still was an unusual situation.
Losing a client
On Monday, I received an email from a faith based client operational manager. It appears that my client was moving their website to Churchbase, an all in one church management system. The email advised that a communication manager had been hired, and felt an all in one solution would be best for the faith based organization.
While business is business, a little history about this client. We have had a partnership for over three years. This was a referral client, which site had been hacked. The prior web master wanted to charge to redesigned the hacked site. The faith based organization decided to hire another agency, and wanted to make sure support was apart of the plan. After a couple days of discussion about what was the pain points, and target audience, a proposal was presented and accepted with the ideal of having up a landing page within seven days.
The client provide me with all the content, and not only did we get a landing page up within 7 days, but most of the other pages were completed within a couple of weeks. Working hard to make the sermon and titles pages were up, this became a favorite project. While working on page load speed has become a common source of conversation, making sure sermons were up each Monday morning and updating calendar of events, prayer line, and other ministry pages became a normal flow of expectation.
Sharing the growth of this faith based organization, while seeing my business grow and enjoying a couple of referrals from them, made this partnership appear to be a long term success. However, long term is a good way to describe these past three years. It has been long term, with a few bumps in the road, but overall it has been a good relationship.
They will be missed!!!
Losing a client
Following losing my faith based client, I received a phone call the following day. It was from an educational client. We have been working together for about four years. This client came as a referral. It was a summer program at catholic college. Prior to hiring me, the client used a lot of paper to complete applications, housing, and other enrollment process. Their students were faxing and mailing information, and generally most students paper work was not completed. Using Gravity forms, we automate the process.
Prior to hiring us, the client had about fifty students. Our first year, we had double the number of students and filled every available dorm room. The process was so efficient, that the university would contact us for information about what we had in place. Over the next several years, we had the enrollment process down to science.
When the client called, I was expecting to received number of slots available, dates to open the application, classes available, and cost of the program. Not, the university was pulling our contract and wanted to handle the enrollment process. Not sure if the fact that I was losing my second client in two days, or the fact that the conversations with this client were coming to an end. This was really a special client, who always ending all our calls with a small prayer for me and my business. A client, who would send me holiday cards, birthday greeting and sometimes and email of inspiration and motivation. Hopefully this will not change…even though they are no longer my client.
Losing Client Conclusion
Losing a client is not an uncommon thing. Most free lancer lose clients. Two in two days…is a little unusual for me. When I wonder if I could have done anything different. The answer is no. The faith based client has offer to allow us to continue to service their academy and emails. The educational institute provided three refers, which they did not have to do. Building relationships is very important to my growth and losing clients is another character building moment.
Image courtesy of Jonny Swales.
JDS WebDesign is a Web Design and Brand Marketing Agency located in Marietta, Georgia. We create AWESOME on line presence for Start-ups and Influential People/Organizations. To learn more about us or how we can help you and your organization, you can contact us or schedule a meeting.
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