Your Client Didn’t Abandon You. You Abandoned Them.

When you lose a long time client, it can feel like you’re being abandoned. You’ve stood together through what seems like a lifetime of battles and challenges, always finding a way, no matter how difficult. You had a relationship. Now it’s over.

But it isn’t likely that your client abandoned you. It’s more likely that you abandoned them. One of the three following reasons is at the root of your loss. Study them, make changes, and prevent the loss of another client.

Neglect

The most common way to lose a client is through neglect. Relationships require careful care and feeding. Ignoring your clients is a form of neglect.

You used to call. You used to make appointments for face-to-face visits. You used to send articles that your client would find helpful in thinking about their business. Now . . . nothing. It’s been a long time. Too long.

Neglect is form of abandonment. When you discover that your client has opened a new relationship with your competitor, they didn’t abandon you. You abandoned them.

Complacency

Another way you can abandon your client is to become complacent.

Remember how you used to ensure that all of your client’s problems and challenges were taken care of? Remember how you used to follow up to make sure that they were getting the results that they needed? Well they remember too. And they can feel the empty space where the salesperson that cared about them used to be.

Because you have a client now doesn’t mean you are entitled to keep them. Just because you created tremendous value for them in the past doesn’t mean you have a right to their business in perpetuity.

Complacency is a form of arrogance or a form of laziness, and either leads to abandonment.

Failure to Grow

Your client’s needs are going to change over time. They are growing and their needs are growing along with them. And if they’re struggling, their needs are changing too. In order to help your clients take advantage of the opportunities they come across, you have to grow. If they have greater challenges than ever, you have to grow big enough to help them overcome those challenges.

If you don’t continue to grow, you aren’t going to have the ability to help your clients keep growing. If you are going to keep your client for life, you have to match—or exceed—their growth.

Failure to grow is another form of abandonment. You force your clients to need a new partner?

In all of these cases, you might feel as if your client abandoned you. The truth of the matter is that your neglect, your complacency, or your failure to grow was your abandonment of your client.

Questions

Did your client abandon you or you them?

How does neglect lead to lost clients?

How does complacency lead to lost clients?

How does a failure to grow lead your clients to need someone new?

How do you prevent abandoning your clients?