Tried dropping a client who paid late and it backfired bigger than I thought

I manage a small agency with about 8 accounts, and last quarter I had this one client who always paid 2 to 3 weeks late. Emails, reminders, the whole song and dance. I finally got fed up and gave them a 30 day notice. I figured we'd be fine since they were only about 15% of our monthly revenue. But what I didn't count on was the domino effect. My junior account manager had built a good relationship with their team, and she got pretty demoralized when I let them go. Plus that 15% gap hit harder than I expected because we were already in a slow season. Now I'm scrambling to fill the hole and wishing I'd tried harder to fix the payment terms instead of just cutting them loose. Has anyone else dealt with losing a bigger client and regretted not trying to adjust the payment schedule first?

2 comments

2 Comments

king.dakota2d ago

Did you try talking to them about setting up a payment schedule before you cut them loose? Sounds like you skipped a step that coulda saved you the headache.

rose_murray2d ago

Did you check if they've got a history of late payments on their credit report?