Ending things with a client

It is the most dreaded conversation in commissioned work, and it is dreaded far more than it deserves, because two situations with almost nothing in common get confused.

The two situations

Mid-job. Rare, serious, and to be avoided if there is any way of finishing. You are leaving somebody with a half-made thing, and whatever the reason, you will be the one who abandoned it. That is the difficult half of this article.

Between jobs. A recurring client whose work you no longer want. This one is easy, happens without conflict, and is the one people spend the most time suffering over for nothing.

The four reasons that hold up

Worth stating plainly, because a good deal of the difficulty comes from a feeling of not being allowed.

They are not paying. The clearest, and the only one that justifies stopping immediately. The sequence is the one in an unpaid invoice, the three chases, with the rule that matters: you announce the stop before stopping, never after.

The work has changed character. You were hired for an identity, and now you are being asked to run social media. That is neither abuse nor betrayal, it is drift, and it happens on its own. Handle it first as an out-of-scope request; if the drift has become the job, the job is no longer yours.

The cost of the relationship exceeds what it pays. And there is a test, imperfect but surprisingly reliable: what do you feel before opening their email? If you feel something in your chest before reading the first line, that is not thin skin, it is data. It is paid for in energy, energy is paid for in work you are not doing elsewhere, and nobody invoices that line.

You have better things to do, and your hours are finite. Almost nobody dares this one, and it is the most honest of the four. It is not a criticism of the client. A decent client paying decently can stop being the best use of your week, simply because something else came along.

Mid-job: the sequence

Never on the day of the trigger, never angry. Twenty-four hours. A message written in the heat of it is recognisable from a mile away and turns a stop into a row.

The message contains four things and nothing else:

1. The fact, in one sentence, with no prosecution. "I'm not going to be able to see this job through."
2. The date. From when you stop, and what you will finish before then.
3. The state of what you are handing over. What is done, in what condition, and what is missing for somebody to pick it up.
4. The account. The items completed, the total, what has been paid, the balance to pay or refund. Exactly the structure from a client cancels midway through, and it works in both directions: invoiced rather than announced, it reads as an invoice instead of a punishment.

What makes a mid-job exit defensible: the earlier warning

This is the most important point in this half.

You should almost never stop without having already said, in writing, that something was not working. One sentence three weeks earlier is enough: "requests arriving by text at the weekend are a problem for how I organise my week, could we keep everything here?"

An exit arriving with no prior signal is the one the client will tell people about, and they will be right to: from their side, everything was fine until that email. An exit preceded by a warning is a consequence, and a consequence is understood even when it is unwelcome.

Between jobs: announce nothing

Here is the mistake almost everybody makes: writing a breakup email nobody asked for.

There is no contract to break. A recurring client is somebody who writes to you from time to time, and a solemn letter creates a scene where there was nothing to settle. It also forces you to give reasons, and reasons given get argued with.

What works, in order of gentleness:

• You are full for the period they are asking about. Honest nine times out of ten, and enough for the first eight.
• Your rates have gone up. Often true, and it settles the question by itself: a client for whom price was the only subject leaves of their own accord, as in the quote you should not write.
• Your lead times have got longer. Also true, and for the same reason.

Most working relationships fade out by attrition, and that is neither cowardly nor rude: it is the normal way things end when nobody has anything to reproach anybody for.

One exception, and it matters: if they ask directly, answer honestly and briefly. "I'd rather be straight with you: I'm reorganising around a different kind of project." Lying about a full diary for two years costs more than one clear sentence.

What never to do: explain everything

A long explanation invites a rebuttal, and you find yourself negotiating your own departure.

Three sentences. The fact, the date, what happens next. Every added paragraph is a handhold for the reply, and you do not need to be proved right: you need to be finished.

What you owe, and what you do not

You owe: the delivered work, the files that were paid for, and the practical information the next person will need. The access, the credentials, the decisions that cannot be guessed. It is the counterpart of taking over somebody else's project: you know exactly what you would have wanted to find.

You do not owe: your source files if they were not in the quote, your method, or a replacement. Offering a name is generous and costs nothing, but it is not owed, and a replacement suggested carelessly becomes your problem a second time.

The thing almost nobody does

Leave the door ajar. One sentence, at the end:

If things change on your side, do write to me.

It costs nothing, and a non-trivial number of these people come back two years later with a different budget, a different setup, or simply somebody else doing the approvals. How a relationship ends decides whether it can restart, and nobody remembers that while writing the email.

Frequently asked questions

How do you stop working with a client without conflict?

Between jobs, by announcing nothing: say you are full, that your rates have gone up, or that your lead times have lengthened. A breakup letter creates a scene where there was nothing to settle and forces you to give reasons that get argued with.

Can you stop a job partway through?

Yes, but rarely and never without a prior warning. An exit with no earlier signal is the one the client will talk about, because from their side everything was fine. One sentence three weeks earlier turns an abandonment into a consequence.

What should the message contain?

Four things and nothing more: the fact in one sentence with no prosecution, the date you stop, the state of what you are handing over, and the account of completed items with the balance to pay or refund.

Should you explain why you are stopping?

Not at length. A long explanation invites a rebuttal and you end up negotiating your own departure. Three sentences: the fact, the date, what happens next.

What do you hand over to a client you are parting from?

The delivered work, the files that were paid for, and the practical information the next person needs: access, credentials, decisions that cannot be guessed. Not your source files if they were not in the quote, and not a replacement, though offering a name is generous.