We’ve just lost a major client and we’re in trouble. What did I do wrong?

Dear Aunty B,

I know you are going to tell me off, so please do so and then help me! We won a huge contract last year that took our business from ‘struggling’ to ‘sleeping at night’. The contract in effect doubled our revenue and because this was a significant client before, it meant that one client was responsible for most of our business. I knew it was not sustainable in the long term but in my defence, and before you get too cross Aunty, I relied on the fact that this client had a firm strategy in place and that towards the end of the project I would pick up more clients, especially as I could now use this large project as a case study in our marketing.

But half-way in the project has fallen over and while we received some milestone payments, I have been left with fixed costs and not enough work to replace the loss of business! And things slow down for us over Christmas, with no one making decisions now until March.

So now I have to make some tough decisions. But what I am wondering is this: If I had my time again what should I have done? I keep asking myself that and not coming up with any answers.

Not sleeping at night again,
Sydney

Dear Not sleeping at night again,

Are you nuts? You’re not thinking hard enough. While you were busy with your head down on this project, who was working on your strategy and marketing? How many strategy sessions did you have? Who was out on the hustle, working on bringing in new clients? Why weren’t you working on next year and the year after?

Let me tell you when you should have stopped sleeping at night – when you got that job.

Here is what you should have done.

First, realise that you are in a very vulnerable position with more than 20% of revenue coming from one client – very, very vulnerable in your case.

Second, you should have doubled your sales capacity, added a marketing person and, if you are too busy to oversee strategy, hired a GM to take over operations.

Of course when things are going well, there is a great probability that they will get better. But there is also a chance that when you gear up to take on the new work the growth is not sustainable, because you are focused on operations, not the future!

Good luck,
Your Aunty B