Dear Anne:
I have some wonderful clients. But now and then, I get clients who, no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, just want to quit.
I don’t understand why someone would want to quit, and I don’t understand why, when I’m helping them out so much, they would just want to walk away from their dream, and from the work we are doing together.
Am I doing something wrong?
Dear Divine One –
This is a fabulous question! It can be really frustrating to watch your clients struggle – with their level of commitment to themselves, to you, and to their dream or vision of what they feel called to do.
Here’s the deal: The longer you are in business the more you will see situations like this show up.
The biggest thing to remember is this:
It’s not about you.
It never is.
Someone’s ability to commit to their vision is always about them.
Someone’s ability to honor their word is about them.
Someone’s ability to move through the challenges of manifesting their vision is always about them.
It’s not about you. Got that?
When you show up, and you give 100% of yourself, and they still want to quit, then is it about them. Period.
What I would say is this: if you have several of these “quitting” clients in your experience, then you need to look at yourself and see what you are doing to create this in your world.
To support you in this, ask yourself these questions:
- What am I learning from these situations?
- Am I learning how to be more discerning in who I accept as a client?
- Am I learning about creating better boundaries with my clients?
- Am I learning how to create better systems in my business?
- Am I learning how to communicate more clearly from the beginning?
- Am I learning how to manage my clients’ expectations more effectively?
What are the gifts
I am receiving in this experience?
Once you are clear about that you can then bless the experience, bless the clients, and then attract better, more focused, and more committed clients.
Be certain you do not create this as a story, or let it become Your Truth. In other words, don’t tell yourself things like “I only seem to attract clients who aren’t committed. I must be doing something wrong.” Instead, experience the frustration of what you are going through (it is frustrating!), learn from the situation, and move forward.
You will draw to you better clients, and better situations, and you’ll begin to recognize the clients who are the quitters more quickly. In addition, because you recognize them right away, you’ll know you don’t want to work with them from the beginning so you’ll rule them out!
Then you can thank these people for showing up to teach you how to recognize what it is you truly want!
Now go get your Divine ON!
8 thoughts on “How do I handle clients who quit?”
Anne, very helpful! I enjoy your newsletter, it’s well worth
reading! Jean
Thank you, Jean, for your kind comments. I appreciate them!
Great article, Anne! You might have heard of the expression “a tell,” which is when somebody gives something away accidentally (like a liar who covers his mouth when he’s telling a whopper).
I’ve found that the very few clients who are not a good fit for me are identifiable by certain “tells” and I encourage your other practitioners to pay attention. One of mine is if they call me by the wrong name (“Sharon” for “Shannon”) repeatedly, or if they postpone the appointment — I now allow only one re-scheduling, and that’s it.
Spotting those patterns helped me realize your message that it IS about them, not me, and yet I can play an active role in filtering those not-ready people out.
Peace,
Shannon
Very smart, Shannon, to allow for just one rescheduling. I agree with the “tells” piece – especially regarding if they miss appointments or want to reschedule. Love it!
Helpful article, Anne. I’ve been having clients recently “peter out” at the end of our time together recently even though they’ve were getting good results. Or reschedule a lot.
I’m recognizing a test to honoring my boundaries and reinforcing them with clients when they “go astray” from what we discussed and they agreed to abide by (I am clear about them from the beginning in our first conversation and in the contract).
Time to be more clear. Already added something to my contract to take care of a recent issue that occurred.
Blessings!
Hey girl! I have noticed similar characteristics with some clients. They get discouraged and then want to give up. (As if building a business were easy! If it were, everyone would be doing it AND being successful! LOL!)
I think the problem is that they just don’t realize the intensity of their emotions when challenges do arise – fear of failure, fear of success, fear of stepping outside their comfort zone, and so on. And then are surprised at how powerful that experience is. (Of course, I’m speaking from experience here – lol.)
Thanks for writing. So great to see you here, Lisa!
Big hugs, Anne
That’s a good reminder about learning to manage clients’ expectations.
And some people blame themselves because they live under the misapprehension that they are not committed enough when in fact they are working effectively.
Thank you Rev. Anne for this article. It’s a great reminder of that any person has to do the work themselves!
You can have the best business coach, personal trainer in the world but the person themselves has to put in the time, effort and energy to make any goal or business work.
I like the comment from Shannon about tells….I have payed attention to the “tells” in my own business and it works every time & saves a ton of frustration and grief in the long run to listen to your intuition about a potential client.
Many Blessings