The Harsh Realities of Gaining and Losing Clients

We’ve entered the dog days of summer! Prospects are tough to reach as is. Now they’re going on vacation and even more challenging to reach.

It was a tough week for Connect 5000. We lost a large client on Monday. The VP of Sales called my cell phone. He usually doesn’t contact me unless he’s got really good or bad news. He typically doesn’t call just to chat.

To make a long story short, Autodesk, $2.22B software company, acquired Vela Systems, a provider of  Field Management Software for construction firms nationwide last Friday.

Several people lost their job and are now looking for other career opportunities. We generated about 147 web demos for their sales team in 6 months.

Moral of the story: You never know when a client will leave you. It’s one thing to lose a client because you underperformed. It’s quite another when you lose a client due to external factors beyond your control.

Clients can and will leave you due to things like: changes in the executive team, the economy, their financial situation, they simply want to go another direction, etc.

That’s why you must always be hunting for new business and other opportunities. People get concerned they’ll have resource challenges and capacity issues if they get too much business. That’s a good problem to have. I’d rather deal with that then who should I lay off. Agree?

In our pipeline, we had a prospect this week tell us no. We were in negotiations with the Sales VP and their CFO. We made a few adjustments back and forth and were close to signing off. He and I spoke this week and he’s no longer with the company. Ouch!

We aren’t facing anything  different than other firms. The economy is a factor but we choose to take personal responsibility.

Keep your sales pipelines full and always hunt for new business. You never know when a client may leave you or when that “sure” deal becomes “unsure” due to circumstances beyond your control.

I’m Ray Ruecker and we help technology and consulting companies make meaningful introductions and profitable connections.