Did you ever watch The Apprentice? Donald Trump always put special emphasis on the words, "You're fired!", when he sent a contestant home.
He always explained the reason that the contestant deserved to be fired. They usually saw it coming. They sometimes agreed. They often made excuses.
Have you ever been fired by a client? Did you see it coming or did you ignore the signs?
Have you ever been fired by an employer? Was it deserved?
A month-ish ago, one of my clients had both of his clients fire him. (Actually, they didn't renew even though my client was 90% sure that they would.) (Does anybody else think it's a problem that he only had two clients?)
Where do I start?
Why didn't he have more clients? He's been in business for 5 years.
Why didn't he see the warning signs that I saw?
Last week, he received a request for a bid and he wanted to send his bid without following any of my suggestions because he has no income!
When he hired me, we agreed that my fee would be based on performance. If he doesn't sell, I don't make money. So, I want him to sell something, but I don't want him to waste his time by replying to bids that are based on price. I don't want to work with someone who's not gonna change and wants to continue to do the same things that got him where he is. More importantly, he knows this because we agreed to it all before we started working together.
I wonder if he's ignoring the warning signs and will be totally surprised when I terminate our engagement?
My question for you. Do you know which of your clients will not renew? What are you doing about it?