What to Do When You’ve Outgrown Your Clients (But Feel Guilty About Leaving Them)

What happens when your clients are no longer aligned with the business you’ve built, but you feel too guilty to let them go?

This episode of the Serve Scale Soar® podcast is your guide to navigating that uncomfortable, emotional space of outgrowing your clients (even the ones who were with you from day one). Whether you’re charging more, offering different services, or simply evolving as a business owner, there comes a point when holding onto the wrong clients is hurting you and them.

Today, I’ll walk you through how to know when it’s time to let go, how to do it with integrity, and why it’s one of the smartest leadership moves you can make.

Topics Covered In This Episode:

1. Outgrowing clients is normal and it’s a sign of growth, not failure.
2. Holding onto misaligned clients out of guilt hurts both you and them.
3. Letting go with integrity is possible when you follow a clear process.
4. Audit your client roster regularly to identify who energizes you (and who doesn’t).
5. You don’t need to over-apologize or justify your decision to evolve.
6. Every time you let go of the wrong client, you make room for something better.
7. Leadership means honoring your growth and making bold, aligned decisions.

Find the full show notes at:  https://brandimowles.com/261

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Transcript

261. What to Do When You’ve Outgrown Your Clients (But Feel Guilty About Leaving Them)

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Brandi: [00:00:00] Today's episode is all about what the heck do you do when you've outgrown your clients? But you feel guilty about leaving them. So welcome back to another episode of the Serve Scale Soar podcast. My name is Brandi Mowles. I am your host and I am sharing all things about starting, growing and scaling a freelance ad management business.

Now here's the deal. Yes, I love my ad managers. Y'all are my people, but. If you are offering any freelance service, this episode is going to be for you. This not only applies to ad managers, digital marketing, one-on-one service providers, but truly anyone who's working with clients one-on-one, because there becomes a time where we outgrow our clients, and a lot of us hold a lot of guilt about firing them, letting them go, or handing them all.

To someone else. So today's episode, I'm gonna break all that down for you and more. And if you are a returning listener, you know this episode is gonna be [00:01:00] packed with actionable steps that you can implement in your business today. If you are brand spanking new to the podcast, welcome my friend. I'm so glad to have you here.

And if any of you get value out of this podcast, please go on and head to Apple or. Spotify and leave us a review. It means the world to me, and I personally read and review every single one of those, and it helps our podcasts get out to more people who need to know how to start growing scale and ad management business.

So if you're ready to do the ding thing, I am two.

So if you've ever said things like. They've been with me since the beginning. They're so nice. I'm just not excited to log into their account anymore. This episode's probably for you. I work with a lot of ad managers, a lot of freelancers from the startup phase, all the way to ones who are doing a half a million dollars per year, and something that always is very common no matter what stage in your business you're at, [00:02:00] is that you have some clients.

Who have been with you for a while and you've kind of outgrown them, their pricing may not match where you're at anymore. You dread working with them even though it's easy and you're under charging and you can't raise it because it just feels like too late. They've been at this price for so long. You just feel like you're too late to the game, or your prices are so high now and they're so low.

you've grown, but their business hasn't, And honestly, you're just not challenged anymore by 'em. It feels like such a dread to send a weekly report when it's the same thing month after month after month. You get more energy thinking about the types of clients you want next, not working with them, and you feel resentment, but still are holding onto the guilt.

This doesn't mean the client's. Bad. It means that you've evolved, your businesses, evolved, you've grown, and that's a good thing.

And this is something I will share with you that we [00:03:00] have strategist. Society members come to me all the time and they're like, Brandy, what do I do? I'm now charging $5,000 per month and I still have clients at 1200, 1500 'cause they've been with me. And maybe it's not even like they can't even get to your new pricing, like their business isn't performing the way that your $5,000 a month retain your clients, their business performs, so there's not even a way to get them up to your current standards, and you feel guilt about that.

You don't know what to do. Heck, they were with you when you first got. Started, they helped you when you got started, they trusted you so much and they still do. What if they take it personally? What if they're like, but I helped you from the beginning. Why don't you wanna work with me anymore? What if they can't afford someone else, or.

They can't afford your new prices. These are all things that really hold people back from letting those clients go that you've just outgrown and are no [00:04:00] longer your champagne client. But we have to reframe the way we look at that. Staying in a relationship that's no longer aligned isn't helping either of you.

When you're working with a client who. You are so focused on your other clients and they're just sitting there, and it doesn't mean that you don't care, but there's nothing for you to really do that's not serving you or them. What if we did something else to serve them at a higher level? And it may not mean continue working with you.

It can look like something else Your client deserves someone who is fully present, excited and aligned with their business, and so do you. Growing your business and letting a client go isn't a bad thing. It's leadership. And one thing we talk about a lot in Strategist Society is stepping into your strategist era.

And that involves stepping into your leadership role. And as your price is raised, you have to be ready to step into that leadership role. And you may feel guilty about that, but [00:05:00] there's something that you have to understand. Feeling guilty doesn't serve you. Or your clients. So how do we change this? How can we leave a client but with integrity one, that makes us feel really good about moving forward.

So you've may have heard me talk about integrity before. It's our number one core value and integrity's a lot of people's number one core value. And one thing a lot of people are good at is being integrous to other people. They will do what they say when they say they're gonna do it, and they don't fault on that.

I am one of those people. If I say I'm gonna do it, you're gonna get it. I am so true to my word, and I hold myself at a very high standard when it comes to integrity. That's why I always tell people like, I'm not gonna promise you the sun, moon, and stars, but hopefully I under promise and over deliver. I think that comes a lot with integrity.

That's why you see a lot of marketers that are like, oh, I'm gonna get you these massive results next time. But then they don't have the processes and systems or the proof to back that up. I'm someone who likes to [00:06:00] underplay how good our program is, and then you get in and you're like, holy bananas. So, and that's just because our number one value is integrity.

But one area that a lot of us fall short with when it comes to integrity is being within integrity. Of ourselves. So if we tell ourselves we're gonna do something, actually holding that true, and this is one of the areas I also falter. So what can we do to leave with integrity to leave that client in a way that feels good for them?

And you. This is the process I teach my students inside a strategist society and I'm gonna teach you today. So get your pen and paper ready. If not, come back and listen to this again. Don't leave me now. But come back and listen to this again. 'cause there's four ways that you're gonna wanna do this. One is we audit our client roster.

Identify which clients energize you and which don't start here. This is one of the first things I always ask when strategist society members. That's my one-on-one [00:07:00] mentorship and Mastermind. When they come in and we do our one-on-one call, I always ask, tell me about your client roster. I really wanna get a inventory of what we're working with.

'cause I always know that there's gonna be on clients on there that we need to do something with. So the first thing we're gonna do is audit your client roster. Which one of these clients do you love working with? Which ones don't? What are each of them priced at? Then what we're gonna do is figure out what are we gonna do with these clients?

So are there some that need to be prices raised? Is that a possibility? Are there some clients we're like, it's just not gonna happen. Maybe you're charging four, $500, but now the rest of your clients are paying 2,500 to 3000, and that's so big a jump. Like. We're probably not getting there. And you know that client's business and we're not gonna get there.

So one thing is, after we do this audit, we can identify, okay, which ones can we raise their prices? And we have a whole podcast episode on that that we'll link up on how to raise your prices without losing your clients. But in this sense, let's just [00:08:00] say that's not even a possibility. Like we are so far beyond that.

The next thing that we need to do is identify which ones do we need to let go, and do we need to let them go now, or do we need to replace their income first? That's something that really is different for each and every single person. Some people in Strategist Society, they need to let a client go because they don't have room.

To even do marketing because they're so maxed out and this one client's draining every second of their day. In that case, it's probably a better idea to let them go and they have the like bandwidth with their profit margins and how much they're making, where it's not gonna affect their life. This is kind of what I did to learn ads.

I dropped, four clients went down, but I had the margins to make that work. That doesn't work for everyone. Some people need to replace the client before letting one go. So first you need to. No, like, do I need to replace this client? Or can I go in and let them go? What's that gonna work? So we audit the client roster.

We make those decisions. Step two is the ones that we've decided we're gonna let 'em go. We [00:09:00] need to give 30 days notice. Be professional, simple, and honest as a business. I have grown, I found I'm moving in a different direction. I won't be able to continue the services. I'd love to help you with a smooth transition over the next 30 days.

So one, you're just telling them it's not about them, it's about you. Also, you're gonna help them with a smooth transition and you're giving them ample notice. That's one thing we wanna do, is we always wanna give people enough notice. We wanna help them transition as easily as possible. And so we audit, we give notice.

The third is we refer or recommend someone. This is what's so powerful about having connections. So like if you're in strategist society or conversions for clients, then you have a network of people that you can. Offer to recommend or refer them. If you can offer a few vetted names or even a loom walkthrough of your process, it shows you care.

So here's the deal. If they are just in no position to be able to hire anyone, [00:10:00] then you could leave them with just like a loom walkthrough of like, Hey. This is what I would do. You could also offer them a one-time, um, VIP date at a price, a lower price to show them the walkthrough, or you can offer to refer them to some people, and then if like you're in conversions for clients, you could post, Hey, I have a client.

They're at a 77 50 budget and we really need to transition them to someone else. Does anyone who's getting started or have worked with a few clients want the wanna interview for this position so you can do that? This is one thing that happened in Strategist Society. One of our members, actually, she's a.

Crazy busy mom, and she just is in a situation where she just no longer wants to have her business and she just wants to be 100% fully in mom mode. And so she's shutting down her business and she's had clients with her for four years. And so when she came, she was like, okay, what do I need to do? And I was like, you need to refer [00:11:00] them to some other people.

Help them. I went through this process with her and she was able, all three clients that she had. We're able to find someone else to replace them within the 30 days. Now she actually gave 60 day notice, and then the process of replacing took 30. So there was that transition, but that left her clients feeling so good, supported and like they weren't just being left high and dry.

Now she was closing down her business, but still, who knows? You never know when you're. Wanna come back or anything. You wanna have those relationships for referrals, maybe working together again. And so we wanna always try to relieve the relationship on the best terms as possible. And then four is protect your energy.

You don't owe a full explanation. Don't over apologize. Actually don't apologize at all. Stay firm and kind. This is what leadership looks like. I think a lot of times, especially in strategist society, it's funny, I get on them for saying, sorry. Like they'll say like, oh, I'm sorry. I have another question.

I'm like, why are you [00:12:00] apologizing? That's what we're here for. Stop apologizing. And I think it's the same thing with protecting your energy. You have to stop apologizing. There's nothing to apologize for. You're running a business and these are the decisions you make. You can be very kind, loving, warm, and not apologize for.

For your decisions. And so I wanna encourage you to try not to say sorry or apologize during this process. So the four step process for leaving within integrity is one, audit, your client roster, who needs to go and how do we need to make it happen? And then we're gonna give 30 days notice, 30 to 60 days notice is a really nice spot, depending on how long you've worked with them.

If you've been working with them for like a year plus, I'd probably give 60 day notice. Refer or recommend someone and protect your energy. No apologies needed. Okay, so now that we know the process of actually letting someone go with integrity.

Let's talk about what happens on the other side. [00:13:00] Every time I've ever let a client go that was no longer aligned, whether it was from an energetic standpoint, a financial standpoint, whatever it was. Even when it was hard, something better opened up. When you give yourself space to breathe, beautiful things happen.

You get more space, you find more aligned clients, more revenue, more joy in your work. Sometimes we have to make room before the next level shows up. So this is one thing that I see all the time is sometimes my clients come and they're like. In Strategist Society and they're like, I wanna switch services.

I'm so burned out, I hate doing this service. Oh my gosh, my clients are so frustrating. I'm so frustrated. And once we get down to actually what's going on, it's usually one bad apple and not even a bad apple. I don't wanna say that one client who's draining them so much that they just don't enjoy running their business.

Once they let that client go, they're back in their joy [00:14:00] zone because one client can really ruin everything. It's like the one bad apple ruins the bunch. If you have one moldy apple, then it does. The mold spreads really quick, and it's the same thing with clients who drain us of our energy is. That like toxic energy can spread really quickly.

It can really affect our business. So especially if you're in a place where you're like, Ugh, I'm just so sick of one-on-one services. It's probably that you're not sick of it. You loved it at one point, but let's get to the root cause, what's actually going on. And it's usually a client that's causing it.

So if you've been feeling stuck, stretch thin or secretly wishing a client would offboard themselves, maybe it's your sign. It's okay to evolve. It's okay to grow. It's okay to leave with grace. It's okay to want. More. So I hope that this episode gets you everything you need and all the tools and resources and able [00:15:00] to break up with the clients that no longer fit where you are, whether it's from an energetic standpoint or a financial standpoint.

Letting clients go isn't a bad thing. It's part of business, and it will only help you grow faster. So I hope this episode helped you navigate those tricky situations. If you wanna hear more about joining us in Strategist Society, you're already doing $4,000 plus per month with your service-based business and you really wanna step into these higher level conversations, go to the strategist society.com.

You can learn more about applying to work with us, and we can see if you're a right fit. And until next time, my friends go out. Serve your clients, scale your business , and soar into the success you deserve.