Your home business is your livelihood and possibly the only way you have to provide for your family. You may be relatively new at this venture or have been on board for quite some time.

You may have already handled many assignments and have a line of customers wanting to give you their business. Or you are still striving to achieve this stage of your business life. Then it happens and something goes totally awry.

You have one particular client who never pays on time, if at all, for the work you have spent hours if not days working on. Or that client who sends the project back multiple times with revisions and it ends up almost identical to the initial document you sent in the first place.

Your company may be losing money on this contract or project. Maybe your team members no longer want to work for this particular client because they know it will end in rewrite after rewrite. Their morale and confidence are slowly dwindling as they question their work constantly.

Ask yourself these questions:
Has your business done everything possible to mend this situation?
Is this situation a result of one particular member of your staff?

For the purpose of this article, we will assume that you have answered YES to these questions. We will focus on what to do next, the firing of a client.

Start by trying to understand the point of view of the client and verify the possibility there was a miscommunication in what they expected of you. This is entirely possible and should be dealt with quickly. If you are willing to accept your mistake and fix it you could avoid the negative feedback or word-of-mouth damage.

Possibly it is just a case of adjusting your prices for this particular client and informing them in writing of the raise in price and the reason for it. They could either agree to pay the revised amount which now includes all returns and rewrites, or they will go elsewhere to get the job done.

There is the possibility however that money won’t fix anything in regards to this client. Clients who continually don’t pay on time or are rude to deal with are sometimes just easier to let go. You don’t want to risk losing team members over one unruly client, so it’s time to schedule a meeting to deal with this.

You need this process to be accomplished with both parties leaving the table with dignity. Your home business does not need any bad publicity nor should you provide any towards the client you are letting go of.

Calmly and politely inform the client that your business can no longer serve their business properly. Leave them with a list of other potential businesses they can contact instead of yours. If asked for the reasoning behind this change, you could tell them your business has decided to move in a different direction and will no longer be able to meet their needs.

Finally, try and leave the meeting on the best of possible terms. There is still the possibility that they will recommend you to someone in the future.

posted by Chris Simpson