Firing the Client

How do you handle letting a client go?

[papabear1126]

I have a client who has gotten to the point that they are not worth the
aggravation anymore.
They are really out of control in their behavior anymore.
It is a fairly large e-commerce client.
They do anywhere from a few hundred to nearly ten thousand a week going into
the holidays.
I have never cut a client this large loose before.
I made them from a two sale site in the 2 years they had the site before me,
into the largest site of their kind on the internet, hundreds of highly
ranked pages, and many tens of thousands in annual internet sales, etc.
They were one of my first clients years ago, as I learned and grew, so did
their site and business due to my work on it.
They are charged a fraction of what anyone else is going to charge them.
It is going to cost them a huge amount more to have anyone do the work for
them I have been doing in the coarse of a year.
I want to cover my butt on this. I am considering seeing a lawyer.
The only legal agreements we ever signed was, I signed a very basic
non-disclosure agreement that states,
upon completion of any work, I will return any material of theirs. That's it
for legal paper.
I was considering for a exit strategy:
Create a CDR data only backup for them, maybe a actual website copy backup on CDR also?
Create a information sheet for them that includes their , hosting, domain,
shopping cart info. w/ UN's & PW's.
Send all of it certified/signature required mail.
Any thoughts on this?

Frank

[Lilliabeth]

My thoughts:

How much money would you need to feel the aggravation they cause is well worth it?

Raise their rates to that.

If they quit you, you win.
If they don't, you win.

[netguy]

>>are not worth the aggravation

Wow papabear, that was a lot of venting! ;)

Personally, I think life is a little too short to deal with people like that (at any price). About once every couple years I run in to a firm that has a (typically) young, inexperienced, and insecure manager that likes to drive consultants crazy.

Despite the amount of money you make for them, it's never enough.

While I generally pass them off to another person in my office, more often than not, I end up dropping them completely when the projects cease to be fun.

The good news is all of them are generally back in less than 6 months - with a completely different attitude, and on 'your' terms.

Steve

[SkyDog]

Did the NDA contain a "work for hire" agreement? Is that what you mean by returning materials? If you did not sign a work for hire agreement giving them exclusive license (ownership) to materials you produce, you should not "give" that away that to them, especially if they are jack*sses.