I Fired My Clients

I’m starting a new business. Yes I know the statistics, most new businesses fail. I have failed my share, I can name 4 or 5, plus a hundred other ideas that failed at the pillow-talk stage.

Lately I have sold two businesses, one successful for 14 years, and another successful for 9.

Am I’m starting a business because I think I now have what it takes? No, I know I have what it takes.

Is it because I’m a serial entrepreneur and can’t stand working for somebody else? No, I’m serial alright, but I would relish a 9 to 5.

The reason I am starting this business is because I fired my clients.

In 2017 we fired, “let go”, “transitioned”, 30 clients. Their crime: being too small and too self sufficient. Some of them had been our clients for over 10 years! I hated it, but the fact was that we grew out of them. I had 10 families to feed, and these 30 clients couldn’t even feed one.

I did what I had to, but I still hated it.

When you start a new business, and your primary focus is to feed your own family, well, you’ll take anything. You’ll take scraps, you’ll take what the big dogs don’t take.

We started in 2005 with some bigger clients, but mostly small, and we grew with some clients, and other clients just stayed the same. Along the way we still took anything, and sometimes it was just out of our good nature, wanting to help everybody.

In 2013 we had this bright idea to start a division of our company that focused solely on little clients. We called in Pluto. It failed. See my first paragraph.

It didn’t fail because it was a bad idea. It failed because we failed to assign specific resources. Some how we missed the Lien Startup memo that Eric Reis wrote in 2011. Late to the party as usual, in my next blog I won’t be so late.

In 2017 we read Good to Great by Jim Collins, again late to the party (it was written in 2001), but still a relevant book. We learned that to be great, you have to focus on your sweet spot of passion, income, and skill.

And so we did.

We fired our clients. Mostly because they were too small, and especially if they were small and didn’t want us be their one and only , and especially if they were small and didn’t want us to be their one and only and they sucked at money (slow to pay or whiny about our bills).

Then in early 2019, I felt like we were going to fire clients again, or at least give them no alternative but to quit, but that didn’t feel right or fair.

After much reflection and discussion with my family and business partners, I decided that no, we would not do that again – not on my watch!

Why? Because I exist to enable the little guy, and that means start over, but this time start with the right focus. Micro.