How to handle the loss of a major client
What to do if your contract comes to an end
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Cartoon by Léo Hamelin
Regular work with a reliable client is the holy grail of freelancing. So if you lose that, it’s pretty devastating. I was self-employed for less than 18 months and I already managed to find, and then lose regular work.
Right now, any regular work feels precarious. So I thought it would be a good time to share the lessons I learned from losing a major client and how I bounced back.
Run the numbers
It will be no surprise by now that my first point is a money one. You need to know how big that financial hole is you need to now plug. Assuming your books are in reasonable shape, this should be straightforward. Just go back over your accounts and see how much you were billing each month from that company. Do this straight away, don’t bury your head in the sand about it.
Take time to think
Just like being made redundant, losing a big client was a shock. If anything, it was maybe worse? When I was made redundant I knew that I wanted to go freelance, but when this happened it dented my confidence in my ability to stay freelance. You have to do whatever it takes to build that confidence back up. There’s no shame in needing a moment’s pause when something unexpected happens in your career.
Be real about what actually happened
You need to ask yourself the tough questions of what went wrong. Basically – why did this happen? In my case, the company ended up hiring a full-time member of staff so the work I was doing disappeared. But that’s not to say there weren’t lessons for me as well. I’m a big believer in the idea that if something doesn’t work out, it wasn’t right for both parties. Figure out why it wasn’t right for you, too.
Use it as an opportunity
There are two ways of looking at what’s happened when you lose a big client. One is the raw figure of the financial hit you’re taking each month. The other is all the time you’ve just got back to either launch that project you’ve been meaning to for ages or land a new, better-paid gig. Make that lemonade!
The Reading List
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Calls for pitches
Wow, really needed to read this today. I've lost clients in the past and recently had some work cut back by a client, so this really puts how to deal with that kind of loss into a short perspective.