Letting Clients Go, Violent Crimes & Pyramid Schemes
Last week, we talked about how to know when it's time to end a client relationship. This week: what you actually do about it.
Because knowing and doing are two very different things. And the gap between them is where most of us linger — for weeks, sometimes months — longer than we should.
Here's how to close that gap.
📌 A Few Principles
However this ending looks — amicable or complicated, your call or theirs — a few things apply across the board:
Be direct. Say what's true at the level of honesty the situation calls for. "It's not a good fit" is sometimes accurate. It's also sometimes a way of avoiding a harder conversation that the other person deserves to have.
Document everything in writing. Whatever you discuss — on a call, in a meeting — follow up with a brief email capturing what was said and what happens next. "Following up with notes from our conversation" is enough. This protects both parties and removes ambiguity about next steps, timelines, and commitments.
Set clear deadlines and hold them. From the moment you give notice, be explicit about what needs to happen and when — on both sides. Then meet your own deadlines without exception. How you leave is part of your professional reputation.
You have nothing to apologize for. Ending a relationship you've outgrown is not a moral failure. Don't perform guilt, and don't accept guilt that isn't yours to carry. These endings can be hard even when they're right, and hard doesn't mean wrong.
You don't have to do this alone. If you're wrestling with the decision or the execution, get a second opinion from someone with the right experience: another business owner, a therapist, or a coach. A trusted outside perspective can help you separate what's actually complicated from what just feels that way.
📋 Step 1: Get clear on your footing
Before you say a word, pull your contract.
Check your terms
What does your out clause require? How much notice, and in what form?
If you're on a project basis rather than a retainer, a natural project milestone — the end of a campaign, a product launch, a deliverable — is often the cleanest place to close. Note it and plan toward it.
For product-based businesses: review your distribution agreements, wholesale terms, or platform agreements. Faire, Amazon, and similar platforms have their own termination terms worth knowing before you need them.
If you don't have an out clause
Add one at the next renewal. Make this a standing rule for every contract you sign going forward with every client, including your favorites. Especially your favorites. You just never know.
Get clear on why you're leaving
When it's you: You're ending this because the relationship no longer serves your business. Nothing went wrong. That framing matters — it will shape how you show up in the conversation, and it opens the door to a genuinely warm goodbye.
When it's them: Something did go wrong, or the dynamic has become untenable. You still need to be professional. You don't need to be warm.
💬 Step 2: Have the conversation
When you can, have a real conversation before you send anything in writing. It's more human, and harder to misread than an email alone.
That said, ending by email can be the right call. When the dynamic has become hostile. When your peace matters more than the protocol. When a client has successfully dodged your attempts to get on the phone long enough that your notice period is at risk — make reasonable attempts, set a deadline, and then send the email.
What to say
When it's you: You can be warm and specific. Name what you've valued, be honest about why you're moving on, and offer to help them land well. A referral to someone who's a better fit isn't just gracious, it's good business. The person you refer them to will remember. So will the client.
When it's them: Be clear and professional. You don't have to perform warmth you don't feel. You also don't have to burn anything down on your way out.
On notice and flexibility
Your contract gives you a floor — and the legal foundation to be generous when you want to be, and firm when you need to be.
If your client is in a genuinely difficult season, you can offer to wrap at a natural stopping point rather than running the full notice period.
If the relationship has become hostile or abusive, you can suggest parting sooner than your out clause requires and see if they agree.
If a longtime partner is facing real hardship — for example, we saw this a lot during COVID — letting them off the hook early can preserve a relationship worth keeping. You never know where good people end up next.
🎁 Step 3: Feedback is a gift — give it when you can
This is the step most of us skip. It's also the most worth reconsidering.
When a relationship ends badly, the instinct is to get out with as little friction as possible. So we give vague, anodyne exits — "the timing just isn't right" or "we're scaling back our roster" — when what's actually true is that the relationship stopped working and the other person deserves to know why. We protect them from the feedback, and leave them to repeat the same patterns with the next person.
Womxn, in particular, are socialized to prioritize the other person's comfort on the way out. And sometimes that's genuinely the right call:
Your networks overlap significantly
There's real legal or reputational risk
The person is unlikely to receive the feedback in good faith
But sometimes it's not the right call. Sometimes it's just the easier one.
There are situations where honest feedback is both safe and appropriate — where you can name what happened clearly and professionally and in a way that gives the other person a genuine opportunity to grow. Or that changes how the next person who comes after you gets treated. Or that simply allows you to leave with your integrity intact, having said what was true. In those moments, staying quiet isn't kindness. It's a missed opportunity.
We've lived this. We once worked on an account together where a copywriter brought in by the client made a habit of speaking condescendingly to us — specifically to the womxn on the team. When it escalated on a call, we stopped the conversation and said plainly that we weren't willing to be spoken to that way. It was uncomfortable. It also stopped the behavior, temporarily. When it resumed, we escalated to the client CEO, made clear we weren't willing to have our team treated that way, and told her we were willing to walk over it. The account ended shortly after. We were not devastated.
There is no price for respect. And if saying so costs you a client, that tells you something important about the client.
When it's you: Honest feedback still applies, it's just a different register. If you're leaving because the economics shifted or you've grown in a different direction, saying so clearly is useful information. It helps them understand what they actually need and find a better fit faster.
When it's them: Use your judgment. Not every situation calls for a full debrief. But don't let discomfort be the only reason you stay quiet.
📅 Step 4: Manage the transition
If there's remaining contract value and your soon-to-be-former client wants to redirect it toward transition work — a handoff summary, a final report, organized files — that's a reasonable conversation. What you don't owe them is out-of-scope work produced out of guilt. You have nothing to atone for, and free work is not penance.
When it's you: Use the transition period generously but without extra investment. Offer to substitute ongoing work for clean handoffs, organized files, step-by-step instructions, or warm introductions where appropriate. This is the version of goodbye that pays forward — and that people remember.
When it's them: Meet your contractual obligations. You don't have to go above and beyond them.
📦 Step 5: Deliver what's theirs
Before you close out, make sure the client has everything that belongs to them.
Final creative files, organized and labeled
Access to any accounts, platforms, or tools they own that you've been managing
Any brand assets, product photography, or documentation that lives in your systems but belongs to their brand
If your contract specifies that the client owns the creative produced, package it up cleanly. Don't make them chase it. Delivering everything that's theirs, without being asked, is a small thing that lands large.
🔐 Step 6: Protect yourself
This step is non-negotiable, regardless of how the relationship ended.
Insist on being removed from everything that's theirs:
Social media accounts
Advertising accounts — especially any with payment information attached, including marketplace accounts like Amazon Seller Central
Shared documents and drives
Software seats, platform access, and retailer portals
If the client or a partner has to remove this access, you need to request it explicitly, in writing, with a clear deadline. If something goes wrong after the relationship ends — an accidental post, an errant charge, a deleted file — you want documentation that you requested removal and they didn't act on it.
A specific situation worth flagging
If you've been using your own payment card to fund their accounts — ad platforms, software subscriptions — you're often unable to remove your card until they've added theirs. Be explicit about this. Give a clear deadline. And make clear that if they don't act, you'll delete the account. Then follow through.
👥 Step 7: Notify other stakeholders
Who else needs to know, and in what order?
Tell the client first, always — before they hear it from anyone else
Then notify your own team, subcontractors, sales reps, fulfillment partners, distributors, or anyone else whose workflow is affected
Be honest and consistent — what you say to the client, what you say to your team, and what you say to your broader network should all tell the same story. If you've been direct with the client, you've earned the right to be professionally honest everywhere else too. This is how we move away from the whisper network where only the people with the right connections know who's safe to work with, and toward a standard where womxn don't have to choose between being "nice" to someone's face and protecting the people who come after them.
➡️ Next week: How to know when it's time to end a relationship with a contractor or employee — including when it has nothing to do with their performance, and why that conversation is often harder than it sounds.
Need a little support to say farewell? Our next (and final 😱) Signature Dinner is June 9th.
🪢 Laura & Lauren
Things We Loved This Week
LaurA’s Things
🤷♀️Women say they want to be equal to men but refuse to do this one thing.
🚇This guided meditation for New Yorkers.
🍞If you find yourself in San Diego, try this restaurant. Make a reservation (unless you want to wait 2-3 hours) and order the torrija.
Lauren’s Things
🦀 This Sri Lankan restaurant in London, a city I usually don’t particularly favor for food.
🪜 Zara Larsson making damn sure she doesn’t pull that ladder up behind her.
🥷 This shit’s more insidious than LuLaRoe.
🙌 PREACH.
